#dnaEdit: Obamacare

American Presidents never have it easy. A presidential win does not allow a candidate to carry forward his or her agenda without hindrance. Popularity and charisma do not matter. And regular opinion polls show the ratings sliding once in a while in office. The classic separation of powers system, which secludes the functions of executive and legislature, and yet forces each to work with the other and to get the assent of the other in matters of legislation, can be frustrating. Barack Obama, who had become the first African-American President in 2008, rode in on rhetoric and hope. At the end of six years in office and after many a U-turn, he faces a legislature that is in no mood to give in to his policy measures, and he, too, wants to hold on to his position. Obama could be facing a constitutional dead-end as he finishes his stay in the White House.

It has happened before, a Democrat President faces a Republican-dominated Senate and House of Representatives. For 40 years before that, many a Republican President faced a Democrat-dominated Congress. The Republicans made a splash in 1994, exactly 20 years ago, with Newt Gingrich’s much touted ‘Contract With America’ that promised governance based on conservative principles. But it fell apart. The 2014 Republican electoral winning streak is quite modest in comparison. It exploited the dissatisfaction with the Obama presidency and also the failure of the government to fix the economic sins of the American financial market buccaneers. America is just emerging out of the recession that set in  2008. The Republicans do not have a grand strategy to revive the economy except to oppose what they consider to be President Obama’s excessively liberal immigration policy reform and his affordable health-care measures. The immigration issue is rather straightforward. Obama wants to end deportation of illegal immigrants who are below the age of 30. The Republicans, predictably, see a threat as they believe that it allows subversive elements to get in. Similarly, on health care, Obama was all for providing options for policy-holders to choose their insurance company. It is anathema to the Republicans who lobby for the insurance companies. The Republicans in their anxiety to revive the economy want a trans-Canada oil pipeline to pump in oil, and remove restrictions on coal-fired power plants. Here is a stereotypical liberal-conservative policy duel. 

Did the American voter endorse the short-term and short-sighted Republican remedies in these biennial elections? Political experts are not sure. The voter turnout is apparently the lowest since 1942 — 37 per cent. Apparently, the people who turned out to vote were white, male and they were older, Republican voters. The others stayed away, including blacks, Hispanics and the young. It would not be right to draw general conclusions based on the voting pattern. It is not white conservative America hitting back at a black President. Even extreme right-wing partisans, who have bad-mouthed Obama as a socialist and communist, know this. And there is a conspicuous presence of blacks among the Republican winners. Obama, Democrats and Republicans are caught up in the greater web of American politics and compulsions, and they are each trying to grapple with the challenges through their blinkered visions. The way out might be to break out of their insular positions, and to reach compromises. A great failure of Obama has been his inability to reach out to the Republicans. He has earned the reputation of being an intellectual, ivory-tower President, wrapped up in his own ideas and visions, and lacking the common touch.