President Obamas löfte

I New York Magazine publicerades i förra månaden en intressant intervju med president Obamas mångårige rådgivare Dan Pfeiffer. När Obama installerades i Vita Huset var hans ambition att i viktiga frågor skapa breda lösningar.

I intervjun säger Pfeiffer att presidenten ”will always say that his one biggest regret is that he’s been unable to deliver on that promise”. Pfeiffer pekar på tre förklaringar varför det blivit som det blivit: The first is rising polarization—“the great sorting,” as he called it—which, over a period of decades, has driven white conservatives out of the Democratic Party and moderates out of the Republican Party, creating two ideologically homogeneous political organizations. The second is the disintegration of restrictions on campaign finance, which “gives people even more incentive to play to the far right or to a set of special-interests donors, so that one individual can basically, especially in these House races, do a $1 million expenditure and completely tip the balance.” And, finally, the news media has changed so that people select only sources that will confirm their preexisting beliefs.

Detta är slutsatsen: Many political journalists imagine that the basic tension for the White House lies between Obama’s liberal base and appealing to Americans at the center, who will be crucial for tipping elections. Pfeiffer believes the dynamic is, in fact, the opposite: “The incentive structure moves from going after the diminishing middle to motivating the base.” Ever since Republicans took control of the House four years ago, attempts to court Republicans have mostly failed while simultaneously dividing Democratic voters. Obama’s most politically successful maneuvers, by contrast, have all been unilateral and liberal. “Whenever we contemplate bold progressive action,” Pfeiffer said, “whether that’s the president’s endorsement of marriage equality, or coming out strong on power-plant rules to reduce current pollution, on immigration, on net neutrality, you get a lot of hemming and hawing in advance about what this is going to mean: Is this going to alienate people? Is this going to hurt the president’s approval ratings? What will this mean in red states?” And yet this hesitation has always proved overblown: “There’s never been a time when we’ve taken progressive action and regretted it.”

”Red states” är alltså delstater där republikanerna dominerar, ”blue states” är demokraternas bas. Det kan ligga en del i Pfeiffers analys av hans år i Vita Huset, men jag är inte övertygad om att det gäller också framöver. Amerikansk opinion förändras hela tiden.