At a private conference in Washington, D.C., right after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, his advisors met with loyalists to shape a course for turning promises of hope into a public-policy agenda.
One person, who had known the new president in Chicago and the agencies that sponsored Obama during his urban organizing days, explained to me that Obama responded to pressure.
People-pressure would turn hope into change. Not more policy papers. After all, the big picture problems had been festering for years, getting interest group indifference, inaction or diversion.
Foreclosures, banking institutions too-big-to-fail, faltering big business, job-loss, and immigration reform among were the big ticket items. U.S. society was increasingly divided between an expanding super-rich and a shrinking middle class. Schools were under-performing. The lag in math and science, in relation to advances made in the developing world, was making our innovation and the workforce less competitive.
Most of all, no important technological advance like Silicon Valley and the computer boom was in the offing like the one that had saved the economy from recessionary times and Bill Clinton's presidency going into a campaign for a second term.
At least for the core Democratic constituencies, there was health-care -- Medicare and Medicaid, or so it seemed -- and unemployment insurance or a pension. In hindsight, they are no longer so safe and secure.
Fast forward a year to November 2009. Bill Moyers reflected in his PBS television program what most people thought, "This is a Rooseveltian moment," he said. His interview guest that night was James K. Galbraith, a formidable academic and the son of the famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
Galbraith said Obama's situation was "much more like Herbert Hoover's," Roosevelt's predecessor.
Republican Hoover took office after a landslide win in 1928. He appealed to volunteer efforts to cope with the stock market crash that began the long Depression a year into his presidency. Hoover applied the tools of the past and hoped and prayed for self-correction, but his lack of policy leadership was inappropriate for the times.
President Obama, similarly, has been killing constituent hopes when he has failed to act, depressingly, after promising to become a first responder. Having told Hispanic constituents he would put immigration reform on his first year's agenda, that did not happen. This was an about- face to the Latino constituents who were mostly responsible for putting him over in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Florida, four crucial swing states.
Today, Obama's favorability ratings have dropped among Latinos. Not having acted on immigration, as he said he would, he lost the leading edge, and the House majority went to the Republicans. His questionable consensus-building (instead of coalition-building) style has allowed the opposition to shape Immigration and other policies.
The inaction has led to more depressing, anti-social Arizona-like SB 1070 anti-immigrant, needlessly punitive measures in such states as Washington, Alabama and Georgia. Consequently, this leads to intentional agricultural workforce disruption.
Out-of-control deportation practices are causing family displacements reminiscent of the 1930s. Willing and brilliant undocumented students are discouraged, even blocked, from attending college, while professional and graduate schools become more dependent on non-resident foreign students.
The situation was bad before. It's worse now, even though undocumented entries into the country have declined.
The nation's problems in Herbert Hoover's time called for a re-visioning and action. But that did not happen until after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected.
President Obama must be existentially pondering how it's possible for him to advance a re-election campaign after alienating a major core constituency.
A Latino Decisions poll shows that less than 50 percent of Latino voters say they are certain to vote for Obama in 2012, a 17-percent drop from 2008. The question is whether this is enough pressure to make the president act.
It won't be Republicans who defeat Obama, if that were to happen, but Obama himself. Just like Hoover.
Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail him at joseisla3@yahoo.com.
Cerulean posted at 1:19 pm on Thu, Jul 28, 2011.
Jose,
Personally, I’m not giving the Latino community as much credit as you do for the election of Barack Obama based on immigration reform.
I don’t see evidence that immigration reform is up-most in the minds of Latinos. Where are their voices? I hear barely a peep from Latinos. The anti-immigrant movement has effectively whipped them into a corner and they are shielding themselves from recognition.
When McCain was running for President he said, ’We need to secure the border first, then we can address the 10 million who are already entrenched in society.’
The Obama administration has done more to secure the border and to deport immigrants with a criminal record than any previous administration, and maybe more than all previous presidents combined.
NOW where are the voices from those who want reform?
Maybe it is the Latinos who have discovered Existentialism and have settled into a comfortable repose.
AmericanPatriot posted at 2:00 pm on Thu, Jul 28, 2011.
More pro illegal immigration tripe. Just when are these illegals going to learn they are not welcome here anymore?
AmericanPatriot posted at 2:15 pm on Thu, Jul 28, 2011.
Cerulean, some of what you say is true. Clearly 1/3 of Latinos vote republican, and many more than might be believed do not see unlimited immigration of poor, illiterate, unskilled peoples as beneficial to their economic well being. They may well be complacent with how things are at the moment. The anti-immigrant movement as you like to call it isn't as cut a dried as you think. There isn't much of an anti immigrant as much as there is a controlled immigrant movement going on here in America. I see it as a controlled immigration movement verses and uncontrolled open border movement. I'd like to see our immigration policy changed to that which would benefit America and not any one race or people. I want to see the best of the worlds best immigrating to America, but first and foremost I want to see American citizens taken care of first before anyone is ever allowed to immigrate to America again.
samkat posted at 2:47 pm on Thu, Jul 28, 2011.
What Jose fails to comprehend is that it was not soley the Hispanics who put Obama over the top in those states. P*ss off the white folks who outnumber the Hispanics and there is a big gaping hole. Now, what about those 8 million illegals holding down jobs that should rightfully go to Americans and I see 14 to 15 million unemployed Americans who hold a lot of voting power. Lets not forget their voting age families as well.
AmericanPatriot posted at 2:48 pm on Thu, Jul 28, 2011.
Obummer promised Hispanics the moon and they bought it. He had a super majority in the senate and a huge majority in the house for his first year in office, and could have pushed comprehensive immigration reform - whatever that means - through congress into the law of the land. Or could he? Who pulls the great puppet's strings? The same puppet master that pulled Bush's strings perhaps? lol Hispanics and everyone else should look hard to see beyond this so called two party system to see who is the true oligarchy that rules here in America.
Masterrogue666 posted at 11:45 am on Fri, Jul 29, 2011.
Jose: What you call "Anti-social", I call PRO AMERICAN CITIZEN, AS IT SHOULD BE! The USA should NOT be held responsible to take care of so many INVADING FOREIGN NATIONALS. Since there are so many ILLEGAL ALIENS in the USA, similar laws should be enacted in EVERY STATE!
As for "family displacement", BLAME THOSE RESPONSIBLE! I.E., those persons that crossed our borders ILLEGALLY knowing what could (AND SHOULD) happen to them if they are discovered.
You've stated nothing I haven't heard before: Keep it like business as usual. The President of the United States should do what the CITIZENS want. The MAJORITY of US CITIZENS are tired of the ILLEGAL INVASION and will not rest until change is made.
By the way, OBAMA's ACTIONS have already defeated Obama. Even with the "Latino" vote, I doubt he'll get a second term.