Almost a month and nothing has changed?!?!?
Americans are addicted to the 5-minute fix. You know, that fictional wave of the magic wand that happens at the end of television shows where no matter what kind of trouble our heroes got into, it is all magically made better in the last 5 minutes of the show. This is great for episodic television producers who need everything reset for the beginning of next week’s episode. But in real life it doesn’t work that way. Catastrophe can strike in an instant, but healing takes time.
Almost everyone seems to have had 5-minute fix fantasies about our new President. Liberals believed he could undo decades of corporate cancer and economic addictions with the wave of a hand and few speeches. But even more surprising is the extent to which conservatives must have secretly believed Obama could magically change Washington and the world. Yes there have been some fairly incoherent arguments against the Stimulus Bill from the Right, but when tempers really flair most of my Republican friends end up saying something like, “Obama has been president for nearly a month and nothing has changed!”
I was expecting lots of liberals to be disappointed when the whole world could not be remade in 100 days, but now it looks like the conservatives may have secretly believed Obama was magic after all.
Here’s my advice:
Lefties, you still have a lot of work to do. Obama made it clear during the election that he was not going to change everything himself. He is expecting people (that’s you and me) to push him and to push Congress to make progressive changes. Quit feeling betrayed and keep advocating and educating to change the things that need changing. You don’t get a vacation just because one guy got elected to one job. It was easy to blame Bush/Cheney for obstructing all your best ideas—maybe too easy. Keep the heat on and Obama will respond better than the last group, but he was never the great liberal messiah—he’s just an intelligent and reasonable guy who is willing to wade in and try his best. Help him out.
Righties, chill out. Take a deep breath. It sucks when your team doesn’t win. But you let that last group mismanage your team to the point where it is not recognizable any more. Quit acting like you didn’t approve of actions that resulted in a huge loss of dignity, honor, cash and lives over the last 8 years. Bring some real ideas to the table and don’t reward Republican politicians for just saying NO every time Obama says anything. Enough with the fake outrage. You can admit that you are angry, confused and sickened and not lose your identity. Conservative used to be a good brand with some solid truths behind it—rediscover that and make a contribution.
Everybody, Admit we have long term systemic problems. Our political and economic systems did not get like this overnight and there is no overnight solution. Our culture did not get to be like this overnight. Obama cannot provide us with a 5 minute fix. All the anger and denial and negotiating makes perfect sense. They are all symptoms of mourning. We thought we had our addictions under control. We thought they wouldn’t cause problems in your professional and political lives. But we are not in control. It has taken us decades to screw our system up this bad. It is going to take decades of work to reshape our systems and rebalance our lives and our culture. First we have to admit we have a problem. Then we need to be honest about what caused them and what we can do to avoid them. But most importantly, we need to rediscover our basic humanity and take small steps everyday toward the culture that we want to live in. There are no sidelines here. There is nowhere to hide. The sooner we get to acceptance, the sooner we can begin to heal. We need to be the change we want to see in the world or else our show might not get picked up for another season.
Americans are addicted to the 5-minute fix. You know, that fictional wave of the magic wand that happens at the end of television shows where no matter what kind of trouble our heroes got into, it is all magically made better in the last 5 minutes of the show. This is great for episodic television producers who need everything reset for the beginning of next week’s episode. But in real life it doesn’t work that way. Catastrophe can strike in an instant, but healing takes time.
Almost everyone seems to have had 5-minute fix fantasies about our new President. Liberals believed he could undo decades of corporate cancer and economic addictions with the wave of a hand and few speeches. But even more surprising is the extent to which conservatives must have secretly believed Obama could magically change Washington and the world. Yes there have been some fairly incoherent arguments against the Stimulus Bill from the Right, but when tempers really flair most of my Republican friends end up saying something like, “Obama has been president for nearly a month and nothing has changed!”
I was expecting lots of liberals to be disappointed when the whole world could not be remade in 100 days, but now it looks like the conservatives may have secretly believed Obama was magic after all.
Here’s my advice:
Lefties, you still have a lot of work to do. Obama made it clear during the election that he was not going to change everything himself. He is expecting people (that’s you and me) to push him and to push Congress to make progressive changes. Quit feeling betrayed and keep advocating and educating to change the things that need changing. You don’t get a vacation just because one guy got elected to one job. It was easy to blame Bush/Cheney for obstructing all your best ideas—maybe too easy. Keep the heat on and Obama will respond better than the last group, but he was never the great liberal messiah—he’s just an intelligent and reasonable guy who is willing to wade in and try his best. Help him out.
Righties, chill out. Take a deep breath. It sucks when your team doesn’t win. But you let that last group mismanage your team to the point where it is not recognizable any more. Quit acting like you didn’t approve of actions that resulted in a huge loss of dignity, honor, cash and lives over the last 8 years. Bring some real ideas to the table and don’t reward Republican politicians for just saying NO every time Obama says anything. Enough with the fake outrage. You can admit that you are angry, confused and sickened and not lose your identity. Conservative used to be a good brand with some solid truths behind it—rediscover that and make a contribution.
Everybody, Admit we have long term systemic problems. Our political and economic systems did not get like this overnight and there is no overnight solution. Our culture did not get to be like this overnight. Obama cannot provide us with a 5 minute fix. All the anger and denial and negotiating makes perfect sense. They are all symptoms of mourning. We thought we had our addictions under control. We thought they wouldn’t cause problems in your professional and political lives. But we are not in control. It has taken us decades to screw our system up this bad. It is going to take decades of work to reshape our systems and rebalance our lives and our culture. First we have to admit we have a problem. Then we need to be honest about what caused them and what we can do to avoid them. But most importantly, we need to rediscover our basic humanity and take small steps everyday toward the culture that we want to live in. There are no sidelines here. There is nowhere to hide. The sooner we get to acceptance, the sooner we can begin to heal. We need to be the change we want to see in the world or else our show might not get picked up for another season.
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