Recently I’ve been thinking about Woodrow Wilson. It’s not just because I’ve been reading about Darryl Zanuck’s greatest disappointment, his 1944 biopic Wilson, but because only now have I realized why historians revere Wilson as one of our greatest presidents. I always thought at first that Wilson was a boor who couldn’t get anything done. Typically he’s bypassed in history classes (along with that whole period between the McKinley assassination and the end of the First World War), and all we learn is that the League of Nations failed and he had a stroke. Personally his advisors thought he was a bigot and a hypocrite, which never exactly esteemed him in my mind.
But Wilson was and always will be the foremost American idealist of the 20th century. The reason we speak of the League of Nations and his crusade to get it done still to this day is because even though it was not accomplished properly in his lifetime, the United Nations does exist; a place where the countries of the world can come together and fight our global issues together. Wilson saw it happening and set the ball rolling for future generations to change the world.
If Barack Obama is trying to emulate anybody at this point, it is Woodrow Wilson, and I think this was made clear in the speech he gave Tuesday night. Liberals immediately pounced on him for not saying enough—but what does “enough” mean? Do you want him to get angry? Do you want him to pound his shoe on the table? This is where I get very frustrated with my own party. We control the house and the senate, and the majority of the governorships across the country, and most importantly the White House—and we are complaining that the major change we all voted for in November 2008 and were promised hasn’t happened yet.
Guess what, Democrats: the change we want may not happen within the next few years of Obama’s presidency. When FDR was in office, he wasn’t always able to solve the problems of the Great Depression. He was just throwing stuff to the wall and seeing what stuck. Fortunately the things that stuck included the Works Progress Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority. But in his second term, even Democrats within the party were frustrated with FDR because between 1937 and 1941 he passed very little legislation of any consequence. As we know, it wasn’t until the Second World War that we mobilized our economy again and sent people back to work.
As I said in my status the other night, Barack Obama doesn’t have a magic fix-it button that can solve the recession, healthcare and the oil spill. I know we want him to, but he can’t. His speech the other night was not a bad one. It was far from his best, but it was still better than anything some of our former presidents could have come up with on their best day. Liberals in the party wanted Obama to be angrier and more passionate. I could not agree with them less. Do they want a man with his finger on the trigger? Do they want someone who gets angry? You want to know who gets angry and passionate? Sarah Palin. I know we want Obama to be less “cool,” but frankly, I want my president to be distanced enough from the painting to take in the full picture. I’ve read plenty of history books by people who were angry and passionate about what they were writing, and it did not endear me to them one bit.
Barack Obama knows that the capacity for change lies not solely in the executive and legislative branches, but in the American people. And that’s where my generation comes into the picture. It’s very easy to say that my generation is cynical, uncaring, and a lot has been written about that. But if we get the ball rolling on change now, then my generation will be able to pick up the pieces that the ones before me have left scattered around the world. We do need to address the big issues that face us today and Barack Obama knows that. But he’s very focused on the big picture. Whatever little changes he makes in office will undoubtedly seem to small and insignificant for some liberals in the party who clutch so tightly and unwaveringly to their agenda that they ultimately become no better than their Republican counterparts. But those little changes Barack Obama makes will have incredible significance for my generation, and for the future ones that follow mine. Getting healthcare reform passed might not have been as comprehensive and all-encompassing as we would like it to be, but when our healthcare system is finally up to the level of the United Kingdom’s or France’s, we will have Barack Obama to thank for starting the ball on that. If he can create jobs by investing in new green technologies, then my generation will have a much easier time fixing things. The Barack Obama presidency isn’t about fixing everything now. It’s about fixing everything for the future to make sure that we are able to survive as a world superpower into the 21st century. Just as Wilson knew what we needed to accomplish in order to make it into the 20th century.
I’d like to end with one final note, regarding the President’s cool attitude that so many have been dissatisfied with. When I asked me Dad how he knew Hillary would ultimately lose the nomination to Obama, he gave me this analogy. Obama is like Bugs Bunny. He sits back, watches the other people go crazy, and then quietly steps in when he has to. Hillary Clinton is like Daffy Duck, going nuts when she doesn’t get her own way and being angry about what she wants and doesn’t have.
Who always wins?
