Last night, as I watched President Obama address a joint-session of Congress, I couldn't help but think back twenty years ago to another joint-session that I was lucky enough to attend -- standing against the back wall with my fellow U.S. Congressional pages. That night, union leader Lech Walesa addressed Congress, as only the second foreign, non-head-of-state ever to do so, in order to speak about the transformative changes occurring in Eastern Europe at the time. As the leader of Poland's Solidarity movement, Walesa fought on the front lines and -- as Time's 100 profiled him -- "dealt the Eastern bloc a fatal blow." From this vantage point, he shared with our country his hope for what democracy would bring to his.
As our first lady might say, that night I was never more proud of my country, never more hopeful for democracy, and never more in awe of what people could do to transform their countrymen's lives through collective action and political change. To say the least, it was a formative experience for me -- at age 16 -- one I used as the "catchy opener" for my college application essays, as well as to guide my career path over the next two decades.
Now, I still think about democracy all the time. I am a political scientist who studies representation of the poor across health, education, and welfare debates and teaches classes examining the role of government in our lives. But, my relationship with democracy has become more complex in the intervening years. Alongside the diverse group of students I teach, I struggle with how to balance the inherent risk of tyranny of a democratic majority with the also-inherent risk of factions and elite rule. I cringed while participating last year in our state's presidential caucus, as my dear neighbors took three hours to figure out how to best divide Obama and Clinton supporters into two rooms. And I contemplated the positive and negative consequence of citizen participation while watching endless Youtube footage of the last month of town hall meetings. Also, late at night, I tend to stay up wondering whether democracy is really the right goal for us to be pursuing in so much of the Middle East.
Last night's joint-session did little to calm my fears about representative democracy. Yes, Obama gave a good speech. He struck a nice balance between bi-partisan deal-making and principled threats to call out those who try to deceive and manipulate the American public into fearing his plan. I was happy to hear our president talk about the character of our country and our responsibility to our fellow citizens, rather than how best to "bend the cost curve." It wasn't what Obama said that made me cynical about our political system's ability to honestly debate and reconcile preferred visions of health reform, it was the reception he received -- both positive and negative -- from those in the audience. And by "those in the audience," I mean our elected Members of Congress.
It might be because I followed up my joint session viewing with a quick channel change to catch the season opener of Glee, that I noticed many similarities between last night's joint session of Congress and the high school assembly depicted in Glee. In both TV broadcasts, the "good guy, underdog" -- whether a president with dropping approval ratings reflecting some people's concern that he wishes to kill member of their family or a nerdy, socially-outcast, group of Glee club performers -- needs to present his/their case to the broader public in order to win over supporters, or at least neutralize some of their very vocal and threatening critics. In both cases, they are not being judged on the quality of their performance, but through a lens of previous conflict, power dynamics, and pre-conceptions that each audience member brought into the room. And, for both, success is judged much more by the presence or absence of a standing ovation than on actual appreciation for what is presented.
Obama's first standing ovation was a partisan one -- in response to his statement that American has been pulled back from the brink of financial ruin. I noticed that Republicans didn't stand up, likely due to the inferred reference to Obama's stimulus package as the reason for this good news. But, what I really noticed was Nancy Pelosi leaning over to Joe Biden and pointing out that none of the Republican were standing up. It was at that point that I stopped listening so closely to Obama and started watching the room. It was there that the real politics of health care reform were playing out.
Eventually there were bi-partisan ovations -- but many Members of Congress were, like the students in the assembly watching the Glee club, looking to each other and waiting for someone else to applaud or stand before they would. Even more similar to a high school assembly, there was continuous whispering and snide side-conversations that suggested quiet -- but potentially-deadly -- opposition to what Obama was saying. Most obvious, was the outburst: "lies," from Rep. Wilson, as well as the much-too-long-and much-too-ironic laughter when Obama said, "Of course there are details still to work out." But, I also noticed the equivalent of teenagers' eye-rolls when Obama assured that reform would be budget-neutral or clarified that no one would be required to change their health insurance. And I worried that he has lost this skeptical audience when the president went so far as to say, "My door is always open." [That can't actually be true, can it?].
As someone who has participated in ironic, eye-rolling and quiet undermining of authority-figures during a not-cool-enough high school assembly, or possibly (not to incriminate myself) later in life during bureaucratic meetings, organizational strategic planning sessions, and team-building exercises, I recognize the techniques employed by those quietly-resisting change and progress. Whether this resistance comes from true disagreement, from a lack of faith in the person in charge, or the reality that many are just in too deep to reverse their naysayer image, this subtle opposition can foil organizational change, drive out good leaders, and block the ability our democratic process to adequately respond to our needs.
Cynical resistance is powerful, as we have seen during the town hall meetings; it is persistent as we have seen among those committed to the "birther" conspiracy; and it has clearly not gone away, as evidenced last night -- even if both parties on Capitol Hill tell us they are ready to begin again, ready to draft a reform package that can actually be enacted.
Mr. President, I do not mean disrespect to you or our other elected-officials. But, I think that more progress can be made if you acknowledge that the partisan dynamics currently at play on Capitol Hill resemble a high school full of cliques, power differentials, and image-conscious participants more than they reflect the representative, deliberative, and democratic problem-solving body I heard Lech Walesa admire twenty years ago.
In the meantime, I will re-read Federalist 10 to remind myself that American politics was always meant to be incremental, fragmented, conflict-ridden and slow. I hope this re-reading can remind me how enchanted I once was with the ideal of representative democracy--and how, despite the current political circus surrounding health care reform, I am still proud of our country's ongoing tradition of governing "of the people, by the people, and for the people" - even if those people sometimes act like teenagers.
Note: No offense to teenagers