We've got an inkling about how the next two years will play out politically in the USA, even if the details are not yet clear. It started on November 3 when the President suggested he'd need to work with Republicans but they'd have to come around a lot to his way of seeing things or he'd resort to governing by Executive Order.
My upbringing included the axiom that you can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar. Maybe the President ought to consider this downhome truth before he embarks on a course that will put him on a collision path with a solid House GOP majority that he can't override every time and that he needs for minor things like his budget.
Why can't Obama just admit that he lost, that his ideas and programs were not acceptable to the majority of Americans? I think it's because he's never had to compromise about anything. Heaven knows, Chicago is not the great political debating society. It's rough, precinct politics that gets the job done within or without the niceties of the law. It rides roughshod on anyone who deviates from its programs and decides in back rooms who will be elected to which offices. The ward bosses then turn out the vote, alive or dead. That's not a pretty picture, but it rather succinctly describes Chicago politics. And that's where Barak Obama learned whatever he could about politics and governing.
He brought those Chicago politicians with him to Washington and they ramrodded through their agenda of Obamacare and spend-till-you-drop social policies.
Many of the Chicagoans have gone home. That leaves the President alone to figure out how to win in Washington. One thing is sure - it's not by emulating Chicago or trying to govern by decree and edict. That's not America and it's certainly not democracy at work.
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