It's the kind of thing that gets called a "cave" or "backing down" or "throwing us under the bus" in some progressive circles. It's accepting less, when as progressives, we want to expect more from a president who should be on our side. It tries the patience of people who work hard for social justice and the recognition of individual rights to see anything that looks like walking away from our fight. In this case, the compromise was not entirely terrible--a change from the employers who particularly wanted a religious exemption being the ones paying for reproductive health coverage, to the insurance companies picking up the cost. Leaving aside issues of whether employers may somehow know what employees are getting that coverage (when due to HIPAA, the doctor's office should have a seal akin to that of the confessional), which could prejudice their employer, and some other details--this compromise is not bad. But I understand why many progressives hate this sort of thing, even while I understand why this kind of compromising has had to be the signature move of the Obama presidency--
Have you seen the Right Wing, lately, by any chance?
When I ask that question, I'm by no means trying to be derisive or condescending. I'm asking a serious question--look long and hard at how the hoarse cries of "Oh no, he's taking away our freedoms!" has been going on from even before he ever took office. They have treated this one particular liberal politician as if he were an alien, an invader, a monster. He's been accused by guns rights activists of trying to take away their guns by very cleverly not making any move to take their guns at all. He's been accused of being both a communist and a fascist. He's been accused of making a war against religion, even while mentioning God and his faith often in speeches and attending prayer breakfasts and the like. He has been greeted with disrespect from members of the opposition party, one of whom called him a liar during a State of the Union Speech, and another who waved an impatient digit in front of his face. He's been called a "Kenyan anti-colonialist". He's been made to produce his birth certificate. He's been accused of apologizing to the rest of the world, not loving or understanding America enough, of being a Muslim and an atheist--
And not any of it was warranted. Not any of it. It is all lying crap being thrown in his way to prevent him from doing his job effectively, and the people who are doing it have decided that their best game is to be unreasonable to try and bring him down. Make him wrestle with the pig. Make him get dirty. Make him be the angry radical they want to depict him as.
He's been called a lot of things, but President Barack Obama is not a stupid man. He knows what they want to see--and that's why you don't get a pulpit-pounding firebrand--even if that was something he wanted to be. Instead, we have an art of compromise which may be discomfiting, but I think it gets things done.
What seems to have happened this time is this: the right wing outrage machine cranks into full throttle--"We are all Catholics now!" "Next stop--the guillotine!" (Why not throwing Christians to the lions while we're at it?) And the opponents, such as the American Bishops, put out the word "There's no compromise with this guy". And then he lets them have it--with a reasonable compromise that reveals that they were the radicals all along. The pro-choice feminists were right all along--they really are after your right to birth control. In the meanwhile, activists who wanted to express themselves on both sides did so, and lots of information got disseminated. We know 98% of Catholic women have used birth control. and that most Americans, even most Catholics, are okay with the rule that employers should provide health care coverage that includes birth control. And predictably, the GOP tried to exert force through messaging--of course it's the right of religious people to limit the access of female-bodied people to reproductive health! How else would you know they're the boss of you? (I wonder how well that message is gonna work, say--in a general election, hm?)
It's akido. He uses the strength of the right wing outrage machine against itself, forcing it to chug even deeper into radical territory, while always seeming himself to be the reasonable guy. He's working smarter, not harder, to get things done. It sometimes looks like a tightrope act--but I appreciate what he's doing.
I also can appreciate the concerns of people who don't appreciate what he's doing. The price of his need to appear reasonable is that people feel like we're losing the voice of what could be a very strong advocate for progressive causes. I don't like that, in order to get this simple rule that means access to important medical care to so many female-bodied people, we have to except the frame that holds that anyone's religion should be privileged over our bodily autonomy. By accepting that frame, it's completely reasonable to assume that we will meet this same argument again on another issue and another, and that, because we've granted that view credibility, our case is harder to make. We've changed the view, but the "window" isn't moving.
Except, I think it does. And I think we have to accept that frame in part because, like it or not, it exists for the people we are having the dialogue with, whether it happens to be right or not--otherwise we are not talking to them, but at them or around them. The contrast between the right's prevarications and the facts start to stand out more with each battle as they become more desperate to wreck him, but it takes time to actually change minds. The fierce urgency of now can't wait for their minds to change--we couldn't wait for the end of racism for civil rights for African Americans, we can't wait for it to ensure equality for LGBT* people, and the female-bodied can't wait for the Holy See to see that birth control is not a grave sin--but simply medical care. And so--the compromise. How long? I want to say "not long". But I don't know.
I have hope, even if I think we've yet to see all the change we hoped for.
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