Dispatches by James Fallows and others, and responses from readers, on the nature of leadership in the Obama era, in response to his 2012 cover story “Obama, Explained” and his December, 2015 post, “Obama: Chessmaster, not Pawn.”
In 1933 the newly inaugurated FDR said, Fear is the enemy. Today’s politicians have a harder time getting that message across. (Wikipedia)
A week ago at this time I was still typing up notes from a two-hour “off-the-record” interview that President Obama held at the White House with several magazine and newspaper writers, including three from The Atlantic: Peter Beinart, Jeffrey Goldberg, and me. I put “off the record” in quotes because things a president says in front of more than two people rarely stay secret very long. Also, part of the White House’s hope was obviously to expose this group to the president’s rationale. And I say “still typing up notes” because attendees were not allowed to bring recording devices other than notepads to the session. (For why it is worth going, despite off-the-record ground rules, see explanation* after the jump.)
Indeed not long after the session, the New York Times ran two articles (one, two) by a reporter not at the session about what Obama said there, and my friend David Ignatius of the WaPo, who was there, did two columns (one, two) reflecting what Obama must be thinking, although not directly attributing anything to him.
In public and in private, Obama likes to say, “I’m a pretty consistent guy.” And he is. In my limited experience, the gap between the cases he makes on- and off-the record is not very large. (Why, then, bother to go off-the-record? For most public figures, it’s for protection against a single phrase or sentence being taken out of context — although ironically, as explained below, exactly that happened to Obama in this case.)
Through his year-end press conferences, speeches, and on-the-record interviews Obama has been doing two things over and over: (1) stressing the long view, which I’ve been calling the “chessmaster” perspective, on just about any issue, from domestic politics to the range of problems the nation deals with overseas, and (2) wrestling with the balance between seeming adequately aware of the fear generated by terror attacks in Paris or San Bernardino, and not doing the terrorists’ work by hyping that fear.Most of what is on my scrawled-out notepad from last week’s session is consistent with what everyone has heard him say on those two recurring themes.
Today’s update: readers on whether Obama is being strategically accurate, or instead self-deluding, in presenting his chessmaster-style “long view” perspective. Let’s start with an area where he seems most visibly to have failed: the rout of his fellow Democrats from Senate and House seats, plus governorships and state legislatures, during his time in the White House. The first message comes from a poli-sci academic whose dissertation is on exactly this topic:
[That Obama’s party is in a weaker position now than in 2008] is a truism that I think runs the risk of being somewhat myopic. The Democratic Party is pretty clearly in a more vulnerable place now than it was eight years ago, though I'm not convinced this should be characterized as weaker.
For decades now Dems have been awaiting their "emerging majority," based on a tipping point in the nation's demographics. Obama's personalistic appeal and organizational sophistication helped speed this process along-at least as a presidential coalition on his behalf. The downside is that it made the Democrats more dependent on a coalition of irregular voters, and likely caused a counter-reaction of further consolidation of older, whiter, yet more consistent voters within the GOP.
As a result, Democrats have been boxed into a broader if more shallow coalition. A lot of veteran pols and operatives (that the media depend on for their narrative on this stuff as there is not tremendous interest in the nuts and bolts of party building by journalists) have expressed frustration over this…. That being said however, few would disagree that the long-term fate of the party rests with Obama's coalition.
I suppose a case could be made that a slower transition that did not make the party brand quite as toxic toward certain high turnout segments of the population would have bolstered Democratic short term electoral fortunes- especially in off year elections. But it should be remembered that since the 60's, the Party's struggles to maintain its non-white and more liberal factions, along with the white working class, has put it in a consistently tenuous position.
I think there is something to be said for ripping the scab off now, once this coalition could be established on a presidential level, and engaging in the difficult (and likely at times electorally painful) process of consolidating this coalition. This seems especially true given the scope of problems the country faces, and the intransigence of the opposition, likely means that it will take large Democratic majorities to pass meaningful legislation on issues like economic inequality, climate change, etc.
Another reader with a different explanation of the party’s weakness:
Someone well to my left told me years ago that he thought Barack Obama was several moves ahead of everybody else on the chessboard. I do tend to agree….
The criticism is fair that the Democratic party is worse off politically than it was when he took office, but is that his fault or the result of too many Democrats who are cowardly and feckless? I'll cite Senators Mark Udall and Mary Landrieu--oh, that's right, they were defeated in 2014 after running away from Obama and begging him not to issue an executive order on immigration. How about the Democrats who ran away from health care reform in 2010?
Perhaps it was best expressed by that great philosopher, Stanley Laurel, who said, "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead."
And another reader arguing that the weakness is illusory:
It has fascinated me that most of the country has moved very far left since early 2012. It's been hard to quantify. Maybe I was too young to truly remember what life was like before Obama (I am 25) but I feel like some major changes have happened since the 2012 election cycle.
Occupy Wall Street did not have any clear and immediate victories except perhaps how the 2016 election will discuss income inequality in a way no one would have imagined in 2008. The vocabulary of feminism is completely mainstream. The only real arguments remaining against the ACA are that maybe we need to consider single payer.
Cell phone video has brought the Rodney King anger mainstream. Marriage equality happened almost over night as Americans slowly realized their friends, neighbors and familes were gay.Over-incarceration and drug legalization are now things politicians can speak about. Less politically, Americans now define their eating habits more at Whole Foods, Chipotle and other more "conscious" establishments.
While a good 30% of the country is stubborn and angry, Obama's re-election leads and reflects that a good portion of the rest of the country is actually ready to live up to the ideals our country was founded on.
In the Christmas Eve spirit of boundless giving, here is one more assessment from a reader. This one bears on the climate of fear / loss / resentment that has played such a part in Trump’s rise, and that Obama has struggled to deal with on both the substantive and the “messaging” levels:
I've been thinking about this a lot. Trump/GOP America is not afraid. I think we do ourselves a disservice to credit them with actual fear. And it causes us to misunderstand the challenge we face.
GOP America is afraid of Muslims in the way the Klan and mobs of 20s feared blacks and drinkers and Catholics. Islamic terrorism gives people permission to assert dominance over one of the smallest, weakest groups of in our country -- and fancy themselves bravely standing up for good by shitting on people.
It's a win all the way around. It feels good. Lynchers thought themselves carrying out a noble, hard duty. And they took joy in it. The sentiments on display at the debate are precisely the same. GOP voters eat it up because it feels good. They're not looking for reassurance. They're demanding indulgence.
This follows up on the social permission that electing Barack Obama gave many Americans to indulge racist instincts and bile they long hid. Can't be racist, I live in Barack Obama's America. Inoculation and permission.
I saw this quote in a story about what Americans fear:
"I am very careful taking my small children into large crowds or celebrations - particularly those celebrations of our faith," said one mother."
This is obviously horseshit. And even if it's not, it might as well be. The line between honest delusion and indulgent drama barely exists.
The point of this is that we won't convince people not to act on the permission that their bullshit "fear" gives them. We have to revoke the permission to enjoy how this makes them feel. And that takes confrontation, not reassurance. We just have to beat them.
That's our challenge.
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* Rules-of-journalism dept: Why, and when, is it worth accepting “off the record” strictures?
Sometimes that makes no sense, and a reporter will say to a source: talk with me on the record, or not at all. In other circumstances, there are things you learn this way that you couldn’t if participants thought that anything they said might be isolated for publication. When it comes to an incumbent president, unless you’re pursuing an active Watergate-style investigation and need on-the-record answers about specific allegations, the chance to hear someone explain and defend his views in fairly open conversation is presumptively worth taking.
As mentioned earlier, the main thing the White House would hope to gain in specifying “off the record,” that a single phrase or sentence wouldn’t be captured out of context, nonetheless happened this time. Someone relayed the news that the president said he “didn’t watch” or “didn’t watch enough” cable TV news to internalize the widespread panic after the San Bernardino shootings. This became another standalone controversy. In context it was part of Obama’s discussion of the difficulty of weighing risks rationally, but that full in-context version remains off the record. The leaked one-sentence version went public and became another “gaffe.”
***
Christmas Eve greetings to all so inclined, and appropriate holiday wishes in general.
A shot of an apparently rare moment in the president’s day. (White House photo)
In the previous note I mentioned a strange little controversy over President Obama's comment, in a supposedly off-the-record session (which I attended), that he “doesn't watch TV” or “doesn’t watch cable news” and therefore wasn’t initially in sync with the sky-is-falling saturation coverage cable outlets had given to the shootings in San Bernardino.
The controversy was strange at one level because of the backfiring effect of “off the record” rules. As explained earlier, the main justification for off-the-record sessions is to reduce the risk that a single phrase will taken out of context — “I voted for the bill, before I voted against it” — and thus become a “gaffe.” This time, the single “I don’t watch TV” phrase leaked anyway, and the larger context, which obviously I heard at the interview, remains off the record. Let’s imagine, hypothetically, that the context could have involved Obama’s awareness of the jerky, crisis-to-crisis outlook conveyed by 24/7 news. In that case Obama’s no-TV comment might be part of a larger argument about how permanent-emergency coverage affects a society’s ability to figure out what to be afraid of, and how afraid to be. (For more in this vein, naturally I invite you to stroll back down memory lane to take a look at Breaking the News.) Hypothetically.
The larger strangeness was the miffed tone from much of the commentator class about the “no TV” admission. Who does this guy think he is? Talk about aloof! For the DC media culture, Obama’s comment carries an extra dose of status-offense, since “cable hits” are such an important part of modern journalistic branding and presence.
A reader from the West Coast tech world writes in with a reaction that parallels my own: That this supposed mis-step by Obama actually says something good about his understanding of his job. Over to the reader.
I am a life long Democrat from a pretty working class family. We lived in [the San Fernando Valley] as children and my dad was a plumber. I went to college, moved to San Jose in 1975 and enjoyed a very successful career in Silicon Valley, the fruits of which have allowed me to have an extended and comfortable retirement. That is the background behind what I want to say next…
I never watch “cable news”. Never. Never. Never. That includes CNN, MSNBC and Fox. The whole idea of “cable news" is toxic in my mind. The first thing that I do when I get a new TV provider is to delete those channels from the list that I cycle thru when I do any channel surfing.
I also never watch most of the network news broadcasts and especially any of the Sunday morning chat shows. I do watch the PBS News Hour, but only after recording it so that I can delete any segments where they have 2 people from opposite sides of some debate contradict each other.
Judging by the ratings that those channels get, I don’t think that I’m alone. In my immediate circle of friends and family, I don’t know anyone who does watch that. Neither my own kids, nor my step children have “cable TV” connections. (That includes actual cables as well as satellite ones…)
“Cable news” is what we call in Silicon Valley a “push” technology. I only use “pull” technology to get my information. I have to do that to make up for the editorial control which disappeared from “cable news” long ago. You have railed about the false equivalency problem at length, but that is only one of many sins of the modern “cable news” world.
Given all that, I am not shocked that Obama does not watch it either. To me that is a sign of one reason I like him so much.
I have other things to say about the state of the Democratic Party, The Donald and more, but I don’t want to dilute this message. Not watching “cable news” is not a bug, it’s a feature of a sane person.
I agree.
***
Or rather, I agree about the president — that I’m glad he’s not following these shows. I personally am exposed to more cable news than is healthy, often having it on as B-roll while I am doing other things. That’s partly habit (though I think I’ve broken the habit of turning a TV on when I walk into a hotel room) and partly because I feel that situational- awareness of the news environment is part of my job. On the other hand, my perma-resolution, to be re-upped once more for 2016, is to reduce screen time of all sorts in my life, and increase the time devoted to physical, printed reading matter and actual, living human beings. We’ll see.
Controlling how he spends his time and directs his attention is obviously a more consequential matter for a sitting president. For anyone in that job, the ability to make long-view judgments, which involves deliberately thinking beyond the chatter of the moment, is ultimately the most precious asset. Close behind in preciousness is developing a sense of which sources of info and advice are most reliable, and least likely to be distorted by personal vendettas, ideological preconceptions, hidden agendas, past positions, or any factor other than a desire to present a situation as clearly and fairly as possible. When we talk about presidents “learning” the job, we’re mainly talking about their deepening understanding of the kind of information and advice they need. Famous recent example: George W. Bush placing Dick Cheney and his perspectives at greater distance in the second term than in the first.
In short, the kind of information a president needs, and the kinds of people he needs to hear from, together are just about the opposite of how you’d choose a line-up for a “lively” or “Breaking Now!” news show. The kind of follow-up questioning you need to pursue has no relationship to the “and we’ll leave it there” sign-off from each few-minute segment of TV discussion. The range of options you need to consider very rarely matches the pro-vs-con of the standard talk show. And so on.
It’s one thing to be aware, as any leader must, of what everyone else is hearing and reading — and, in the leaked comment, Obama was saying that he realized he had been caught off-guard. It’s something different to expect that a sitting president would allow permanent-emergency chatter to be part of his normal workday. I don’t want a president who will spend much of his or her day in front of the TV.
Lots of other interesting Chessmaster-v-Pawn accounts have come in, but as the reader is sticking to one issue in his email, I will do so in this note too.
Memo from Vice President Cheney’s advance team, requiring that rooms where he stayed must have “All Televisions tuned to FOX News.” As reported in 2006 by The Smoking Gun, and to the best of my knowledge not withdrawn or disproven.
Without much set-up or padding, herewith some of the slew of holiday-week responses to last night’s Note, on why President Obama doesn’t watch TV news, and why no president should.
It could have been worse. A reader notes:
Imagine the reaction if the President watched Al Jazeera America as I do.
It could have been better. A representative sample of the anti-Obama response that has come in:
Why would you watch the news when every day another story is told about how your failed policies are destroying the country. Instead he spends his time gazing in mirrors.
How other leaders did it: Part I, Dick Cheney. Many readers wrote to point me toward a leaked memo The Smoking Gun reprinted back in 2006, saying that then-Vice President Cheney required “All Televisions tuned to FOX News” in any room where he would stay. That’s the memo you see above. One reader’s gloss:
Apropos of your post on Obama understanding the worthlessness of cable news, recall the leaked document describing then-Vice President Cheney’s insistence that all TVs in his hotel room be... tuned to Fox News.
Sort of explains the distinctions between the two men in a nutshell.
Another reader says of the memo,
So not only embracing the chatter, but the echo chamber as well.
How Other Leaders Did It: Part II, LBJ. A reader in Texas sends in this note:
Interesting comparison is to tour the “TX Whitehouse” of LBJ to see the row of TV’s in one room with photos of all blaring at once. Lot of good that did as he, LeMay, and McNamara sat around next to the Pedernales river deciding who to bomb…
The Only Thing We Have to Sell, Is Fear Itself. From a reader who, it’s relevant to point out, has a background in professional photography:
TV news in all its forms is “bad for America”, as Jon Stewart would say. What wasn’t mentioned in your piece is that TV news is in the business of selling fear, and not providing information.
Ebola, ISIS, the financial crisis, the weather, sharks, the Muslims, killer bees, a mass shooter, a plane crash, a fire, the bankers, the auto industry, they are coming to get you.
They use all the audio-visual-psychological tricks they have to grab our attention and they try to continually scare our pants off. Keeping us watching means of course ratings, which mean ad dollars, which is really what they are about. So what we get is the constant jangling of our fear receptors, and the constant stimulation of our eyes and ears. The busier the screen, the louder and more mesmerizing the whole experience is, the more likely we’ll just sit there like zombies and see all the ads. The book The Culture of Fear is relevant here.
When I was in college (in the 70s) I would see bumper stickers that said “Kill Your Television”. I could not make sense of them at the time. Now I understand.
“It makes you stupider and more dangerous.” Another reader weighs in:
It's not a question of rationing or balancing TV news viewing. No one should watch cable news, or the Sunday morning shows. Ever. At least no one charged with making responsible decisions. It's a cliche that TV news feeds its viewers sensationalism, and buries the "serious stuff". But it is also true. We see in Donald Trump's poll numbers how voters who consume a steady diet of Fox News select a candidate. But let's not single out Fox because they sensationalize and distort with a rightward slant. CNN purveys garbage, as does MSNBC and the networks (and who can tell what their slant is?).
Not only will cable news not make you a more informed citizen. It will make you a stupider, more dangerous citizen. TV news should not just be rationed, it should be shunned.
I’m sticking with cable, for the sports. One more:
Like your retired Silicon Valley reader, I don’t watch cable news. I don’t watch TV news at all, not cable, not broadcast national news, and not local news. I haven’t for at least 15 years, or since it became possible to know what was going on in the world through the internet rather than through the television.
Additionally, I try to stay away from “breaking” news on the internet, because way too often, early reports are wrong reports. It’s much better for my mental health to wait and find out after things have stabilized and more accurate reporting has emerged. There’s nothing I can do to respond to what is happening in news the vast majority of the time, and having it on would keep me feeling like I should be responding.
I also don’t watch presidential debates, Sunday morning talk shows, or anything related. By most measures, I’m a high-engagement, high-information voter. I donate to candidates and political causes, I volunteer for local campaigns, I’m on the planning commission for my local town. But TV is giving me information I don’t find useful in a format I don’t find helpful.
And I’m no cord-cutting millennial; I’ll probably be one of the last cable subscribers left, because I do watch a lot of sports!
Because of stereotypes about sports-viewing fans, it’s relevant to point out that this reader is a woman. President Obama, too, has said from time to time that he likes watching live sports on TV. I also feel least guilty about watching something on TV when that something is a live game — or a Breaking Bad-style, Fargo-style serial drama. That is all for now.
Yesterday morning I had an interesting (from my POV) talk with Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio, on the by-definition impossible task of assessing how the Obama administration’s record will be seen five or ten years from now. The podcast is here. You can tell that I’ve had a cold, but at least Kerri Miller sounds healthy and on top of her game!
This discussion happened 24 hours before Obama’s presentation this morning on gun violence and possible steps against it. I regretfully stand by what I wrote several years ago, and said on MPR 24 hours ago: that trying to change this most pernicious aspect of “American exceptionalism” is itself a case-of-one political outlier.
The United States, unlike other countries, already has countless millions of guns in circulation. Unlike other countries, it has a Second Amendment, misconstrued as it has been. Unlike other countries, it has a substantial minority that will vote on the basis of this issue to the exclusion of all others. Changing climate and energy policy in the United States is hard and slow, but it will happen. Changing health-care policy, ditto. On gun policy I’m most pessimistic.
And to round this off, plus illustrating something about the state of the GOP race, check out Ted Cruz’s response to Obama’s gun statement today.
