Democrats need a helping hand from Obama
The former US president can assist his party in the all-important midterms, building on the momentum to reverse Republican gains
To the annoyance of many Democrats, former president Barack Obama has largely floated above the political fray instead of actively leading the anti-Trump brigade. He’s told associates that he doesn’t want to aggravate political polarisation and wants to preserve his credibility by speaking out only selectively and on key occasions.
If that’s the case, now is such a time. He doesn’t need to sound the alarm about President Donald Trump’s bad policies and vicious behaviour. Others are doing that.
Instead, it’s the right moment for Obama to lay down a marker for Democrats, subtly warning against moving to extremes in response to Trump. Liberals, he thinks, need to “mix idealism with practicality,” according to an article last month. Actually, in this political season, mainstream Democrats have done well in contested primaries. A New York congressional contest last month in which a young socialist defeated a Democratic House leader has been widely and wrongly over-interpreted by both opponents and enthusiasts as a sign that Democrats are veering left.
But Democrats are making some mistakes. In response to Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families, politicians including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have called for eliminating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Trump relishes that debate, which deflects attention from his abuse of children. There’s also pressure on Democrats to insist that the only way to improve the healthcare system is to turn it over to the government, and to demand Trump’s impeachment now.
Obama could make his presence felt as mid-term congressional elections approach by pushing back without picking fights. He could call for building on the Affordable Care Act, his signature healthcare measure, instead of scrapping it in favour of a singlepayer system. He could recommend letting the investigations of Trump by special counsel Robert Mueller and others play out before considering impeachment. He could urge that the focus on immigration issues be redirected toward helping children and families instead of fearmongering. And by his calm example he could remind allies to respect civility even in turbulent times.
Trump is losing the border war politically, so when critics attack an enforcement agency instead of the policymaker, it plays into his hands. Likewise, Republicans are on the defensive on the big health-care issues, having misled the country for eight years in their assault against universal health insurance and having turned to a president who cares little about the topic.
In the era of Trump, another canard is that only shrill voices are heard. Over the past eight months, the three biggest Democratic winners, Alabama Senator Doug Jones, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and Pennsylvania Representative Conor Lamb, all are moderate in manner as well as politics. Two Democratic incumbent senators in states Trump carried, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, are known by colleagues as nice guys. They’re both likely to win by double digits this November.
Obama can help the Democrats’ redistricting campaign, which seeks to reverse some of the huge gains Republicans scored in creating partisan congressional and state legislative lines after the 2010 census. Democrats were asleep at the switch then, when Obama was president and leader of his party. The former US president can also selectively campaign for a few Senate candidates, thereby boosting his party’s chances ■ Albert R. Hunt is a columnist covering politics and policy. He has previously worked as the executive editor of Bloomberg News.
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