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Silence of the Dudebros

I was struck - but not surprised - by the relative silence over a Sunday front page NYT article about the White House's "DudeBro" problem: the reality that the President is surrounded by the lefty equivalent of the all male "boys club" mentality that can be found many places, including Washington politics.

The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a “big rambunctious dog” over a “girlie dog” and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.

He presides over a White House rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other “dude” and testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, who habitually speaks in sports metaphors.

The technical foul over the all-male game has become a nagging concern for a White House that has battled an impression dating to the presidential campaign that Mr. Obama’s closest advisers form a boys’ club and that he is too frequently in the company of only men — not just when playing sports, but also when making big decisions.

I think the relative silence was in part a shrug of obviousness: this is not new, and really has been dogging the Obama folks since the campaign with Hillary Clinton - who, wouldn't you know it, gets to be cited as the "we don't have a woman problem" example since she is now Secretary of State. I suspect that many feminists are wondering mostly why it took everyone this long to figure out the obvious.

Of course the "DudeBro" problem is a problem; and, of course, it goes a long way to explaining why the Administration has a variety of problems dealing with a number of women's issues and, by extension, the problems that have developed with gay and lesbian activists as well. When you surround yourself, comfortably, with mostly straight guys who share your straight guy interests... you get, well, comfortably DudeBro.

What's remarkabel, to me anyway, is watching the regression of progress I figured couldn't really be shaken; we're re-arguing issues that I feel like should have been settled long ago. The rise in anti-feminist stupidity, not just crassly sexist, but frankly disturbing anti-woman presentations in advertising and media, is deeply concerning. Or the stupefying conversations I've had - most recently at Red's wedding - suggesting that "gays have to be patient" when looking for progress on, say, Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Mustn't rock the boat. Must realize... this could be controversial, And difficult.

There's a sense that we're either moving forward on stuff like this... or slipping back. And, unfortunately, I think it's fairly obvious that the backsliding on progress for women and gays is systemic, and has everything to do with a comfortable, casual sexism that's taken hold, even as we mouth platitudes about progress and "change" since the election. Who cares if the President plays golf with only men? Or sets up basketball tournaments among the DudeBros? Hey... he's way better than that last guy! And his stay-at-home, no career of her own wife? That's her choice!

The point is... these are choices, in the most problematic sense. They are choices to accept the status quo, to not do the hard work - the teaspoon work as Melissa McEwan puts it - of challenging every prevailing notion of sexism and "traditional" expectations. As my female dinner companion - a well connected political woman in DC - told me about her thinking to finally change jobs after several years, she wouldn't contemplate working in the White House - "I like my family and my life too much" she said. That, of course, shouldn't be the choice. And when it is... it's not surprising that women, collectively, opt for alternative choices.

I suspect we're stuck with the DudeBro problem for some time to come; and like a number of entrenched, ignored, and often dismissed observations about a systemic problem with the supposed "progressiveness" of the Obama Administration that state obvious relaities... I also suspect that they're indicative of the growing political rumblings that the Democratic Establishment might consider owning up to, rather than denying. There's a reason that dissatisfaction seems to be growing, why surface notions that "everything is fine, and politics is hard and progress is slow" don't really suffice as defenses of the Obama Administration's weaknesses (and "we're way better than the last guy" is really... just getting old). If we can't admit and face that not everything is golden with this White House, we can't change it. And if we can't change it... then people will look elsewhere for the progress they seek. Bet on that, Dude.

All Of Your Promises... Why Did I Believe?

I'm not sure why anyone was surprised.

I'm not actually sure anyone was surprised. Since President Obama's speech last night to the Human Rights Campaign, most of the reaction has been between the unsurprised and disappointed... and the unlikely to be surprised and condescending. But the conclusion appears to be the same: no one expected President Obama to offer much that was new at HRCF, no actual policy change, no actual delivery of an action... just, well, more of the same rhetoric that says we gays should be really, really glad that someone, finally, is willing to stand up and tell us that, eventually, something will be done.

How silly... we thought that meant actually doing it.

I think Charles Lemos at MY DD pulls together the best, wittiest reactions:

It's not that I have lost faith on LGBT issues in the President, I haven't. I'm sure he will move the ball forward on a number of LGBT issues but none of those are going to happen tomorrow. Here's more honesty for Obama from his friends.

John Aravosis asks Where's the Beef?:

Barack Obama just promised us that if he becomes president, he's going to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, the Defense of Marriage Act, and get ENDA passed. It was a bit surreal. I'm sitting at a fundraiser for the No on 1 effort in Maine (that Obama didn't even bother to mention), and we were all just speechless (actually, hardly speechless - and I thought yelling at the TV was long since over). Obama repeated his campaign promises. That was it.

Up in Seattle, The Stranger's Dan Savage is also a tad underwhelmed:

My reaction: a friend has been sending me ecstatic emails about the speech. I just watched it--the speech is every bit as good as the ones candidate Obama gave, as the performance candidate Obama delivered at the HRC/Logo Democratic Primary Debate, as the open letter to the LGBT community that candidate Obama released before last November's election. Imagine all the wonderful things this guy is going to accomplish if he ever actually gets elected president. In other words: sorry, folks, nothing new to see here. Pledges, promises, excuses. Lip service.

I don't think the election of Barack Obama was bad news for gay people; but it wasn't great news, either. Everything - and I do mean all that's happened, since the campaign he started - has pointed to a nice, well meaning guy, who knows that gays are part of the lefty coalition... but doesn't really have a feel for gay issues, or why we have a sense of urgency around them. He's not gay. He doesn't know a lot of gay people, or count gay people, especially gay men, among his closest intimates. That's the reality. And out of that reality you get, I think, what we should have probably known well enough to expect: the right words, the wrong actions, and a sense of impatience with anyone who says well, that's not good enough.

It's not, and last night's speech was more of the same, dressed up, as it always is, with the interpretations of people who insist that we evaluate Obama in the future tense. It's great - he wants to end discrimination by the miliotary, he wants to, in theory, provide better protection for gay people who get married (while, of course, not actually supporting our right to do so nationwide). Isn't this great? What more could you ask for?

Well, actually doing any of those things, for starters.

Promises, promises... not really what I need.

The Place You Come From

My own sense of things is that if liberals want to complain about the conservative rejoicing about the Olympics... it would help if you actually a) like the Olympics and b) are the sort of "America first" person who thinks we deserve everything just because we're us.

In the short term, I think the decision by President Obama to go and try and cajole the IOC to choose Chicago will do deserved political damage - it was an overconfident, mistaken choice, and the failure to close the deal reflects on him personally - but in the long run, there won't be a story come 2016 about Chicago... but there will be plenty of discussion of the wasteful expense of the Olympics in Rio, and the devastating poverty which remains in Brazil.

The Olympic story used to be a remarkable, one world vision of how we could all get along; that started to fall apart in the eighties, partly due to the Cold War gamesmanship of the US skipping Moscow in 1980 and Russia skipping LA in 1984... but it's also a tale of the rise of corporate interests, the killing of "amateur" sport, and excessive media hype. The idea of an Olympics in Chicago - and we should remember, Bloomberg tried to sell the idea of proposing New York for similar reasons - was not, necessarily, about the idea of universal brotherhood through sport; it was a crass collection of dubious notions that a large scale event of that sort could jump start an economy, create jobs, and make Chicago a world class city (moreso than now). The most compelling alternative all along - Rio di Janeiro - always had the more emotional, reasonable story: the Olympics have never been held in South America, Rio is alrady the kind of city that has broad international appeal, and their economy might, actually, get some long term benefits.

That the Chicago folks - and the White House - willfully ignored those realities, speaks volumes.

You Better Work!

(This post was inspired by a post by my friend Red over at her Poverty Blog at Change.org... and expands - widely - on a comment I put up over there.)

Every so often, the left side of the blogosphere gets caught up in discussing the plight of American workers - how bad we have it, how much disparity we have in income (which is what happens when CEOs make multimillion salaries while hourly workers can get less than minimum wage), how bad our benefits are (health reform!), and how, compared to many countries, we get very little time off for vacation or illness.

I always have mixed feelings about these things - and the way America differs from other countries when it comes to notions of vacation and sick time. I think a lot of this is tied to our work ethic, and it's worth noting that people who have time available, often, rarely take it. And that, for many, the problem isn't time, and for businesses the problem isn't money... it's the question of who can do the task of another when that person needs to take time off.

The reason for problems in retail and food service around sick time is about carrying extra bodies - especially now, in a recession, when most retail operations are running close to the bone on staff, the question of a person calling out sick can mean havoc for those who are left. I've worked in department and specialty stores for a long time, and currently for Starbucks. Losing a worker to an illness or a long term outage of another sort deeply affects our ability to be fully staffed, and puts enormous pressure on the rest of our team... and ultimately, what suffers is our ability to provide good service, which leads to a bad customer experience... which leads to loss of business ("I tried to buy a blouse at Macy*s... and there were no cashiers!"). And so, very often, conscientious workers, even with illness, tend to show up. Sick time, in these cases, isn't necessarily all of the issue.

I also spent time as a worker in corporate HR, at a company with generous vacation, sick and maternity benefits (which tried, especially, to be family friendly, with sensitive policies for moms and dads). And, as often as not, our problems were as much about workers refusing to take time as it was workers who took too much - and a lot of time spent coaching managers that they could not set unreasonable time expectations for their teams based on their own driven workstyles. Even so, for many workers, there was still a problem of coverage and replace-ability; losing an assistant for days or weeks was simply putting additional work on other assistants with full workloads.  But the alternative - carrying extra staff - was not an option, either (and an unfamiliar, expensive temp also rarely afforded a good solution).

My point isn't to suggest that as a nation, we don't have a problem with sick time that deserves to be addressed; my point is that we have a complicated set of cultural norms and expectations around work in America that drive our policies and processes. Government mandates for sick time benefits (which will be hard to get past business lobbying anyway) do not guarantee that sick time will get taken, or that workers will feel less pressured to show up, even when ill. Changing that requires a longer, broader, cultural conversation around work, and our lives outside of work. We really don't have that conversation very much, I find. And we could certainly use it.

But I think to have that conversation, we also need to see a new paradigm develop, on the left, about how we talk about working, and workers. Since last year's election, with progressive ideas enjoying a fresh momentum, the discussion around labor issues has returned... well, to Big Labor. Despite the fact that the majority of Americans are no longer unionized - and many can't, or won't, wind up being unionized - the discussion of labor issues starts, on the left, often, from a place where unions are the first, best option. That protecting workers works best when the workers are united. It's lovely thinking... it's just not our reality.

After working on a Congressional campaign, my campaign manager boss wanted to run for City Council - which she did, ultimately, and won - and she started by sitting with her key staff and talking about what a run would take. One thing that came up, because she felt strongly about it, was that she wanted to be critical of the teacher's union, one of the most powerful in New York. And, ever the contrarian, I raised the traditional lefty point: how do you win by pissing off union workers? How can you say unions are bad?

As I said, she ran, and won... and she remained a vocal critic on education, and especially of the teacher's union... which, over time, managed to marginalize her and eventually get her off the Council. Which kind of proved my point. But over time... I've come to see hers.

I am not anti-union - no one, I think, can seriously claim true liberal or progressive thinking without supporting the notion of organized workers - but I think how we think about labor, labor organzing, and our working lives in America, has to change among liberals, and soon... or we can't make the kind of progress that needs, desperately, to be made. We need, as progressives, to understand and admit that  the interests of all workers and the interests of organized labor are not always the same. And we need to face up to the business realities that sometimes union rules and requirments can work against good business practices. And that includes popular unions like the Teachers, auto workers, and healthcare workers. The tension between what's good for unions, and what's good for other workers needs to be brought out into the open and examined... or we can't make further progress. For anyone.

And no issue reflects those tensions - our old labor thinking not fitting our current problems - than on questions like vacation and sick leave and other worker benefits. Thinking, simply, in terms of a government mandate to require the availability of time off won't get it done. Business interests are arrayed against it; but just as importantly, as I mentioned, the work we do, and how we think about it, colors how we approach using the benefits we already have, and what benefits we expect. More vacation time... will not mean more vacations. More sick time will not reduce our public health problems. Not until we seriously talk, in the culture, about a different idea for our work ethics, and a different approach to our working lives.

Health reform is another key example - unions, for instance, are not necessarily thrilled about plans to tax so called "Cadillac plans" that offer better benefits at increased cost; often because unions have managed to negotiate such plans for their workers (ah, being united might pay off in benefits? Who knew?). But more centrally, the problems we have with healthcare stem from 60 plus years of tying our healthcare benefits to our working lives; and perhaps the most problematic element of "reform" under discussion - and the least thought through - is that many of the reforms under discussion would further solidify, rather than reduce, our links between healthcare and employment. And in part, it's seeing that we link healthcare and employment... because we think pretty much everyone can, and should, be employed.

It fascinates me - much as it has my mother, in all of her professional life - that so much of who we are as Americans (that is, our working lives and how much who we are is tied up in what we do) is often talked about so little, and rarely with a clear eye for the work we actually do. We continue to talk, often, about work as if we are a country dominated by manufacturing and farming... when we are in fact a country dominated by service work, retail jobs, and white collar professions. We are more specialized, more productive because of technological advancements... and less able to replace one another mindlessly as we were on assembly lines and in the harvest (we think, in fact, of retail service work as mindless... when it's not). Until we can refocus our discussion of work on the work we actually do... I don't think we can figure out how to reshape our working lives. And more to the point... I'm not sure, culturally, that we actually want that. Until we talk about it, though... we'll never know.

How.... get back to work!

Across The Battle Lines In Joe Wilson's War

I'm not all that upset by Representative Joe Wilson's "You're a liar!" outburst during Wednesday's speech by President Obama. It's a free country with the right to speak... and yeah, I guess that includes yelling at the President while he's giving a speech. You're free to do it, that's for sure.

It's also rude, and really kind of inappropriate.

That Republicans and conservatives can't decide whether to be happy or upset about Wilson is a reminder, really, of what a mess they're in as a party. As much as Wilson managed to hijack the coverage of the speech (which, yes, I think was very well done), and probably pressed the hot button of health insurance for illegal immigrants, after 8 years of complaining that President Bush was thoroughly disrespected by liberals, and that's bad... suddenly Wilson, you know... was probably just "speaking truth to power."

I tend to think this reflexive "you have to show respect for the presidency" stuff is a bit overblown; one of our great distinguishing aspects, as Americans, is that the President is one of us, not better than all of us. He's picked by us, from among us, and he remains one of us. All men - all of us - are created equal. If we're equal, then the level of respect we're looking for is the common decency you show others, not some magical extra special respect or reverence. It's an aspect of conservatism - the reflexive genuflecting to the notion of your "betters" by title or social class - that I think liberals, in our far more egalitarian notions of these things, pretty much reject outright.

Still, the point is that Wilson's outburst wasn't some blot on the Presidency... it's that, common decency and rude behavior are inappropriate on a solemn occasion. It's happening more and more, particularly as the outlandish charges and pointless debates wail on. It's the nonsense of the "birther" movement and the fact that Republicans can't simply set  it aside. And much more. That the right - still - can't draw a line and call something out of bounds, even something as basic as, well, an inappropriately rude outburst, reflects how deeply they've failed to center themselves around mutual, basic principles of civil discourse, debate over actual issues, or proposals that are focused on improving the common good. This is childish, we can't back down, every tantrum gets to be shouted and yelled and pushed around. And it leads... basically, to chaos. 

The really smart move, I think, which would have catapulted Wilson to a new kind of leadership within the GOP would have been for the man himself to draw the line. If Wilson came to the microphone, called himself out for being inappropriate, said something to the effect of "we can have disagreements, but we should do it with some basic level of decency and respect" and taken responsibility for lowering our discourse... I think he'd have shown remarkable, hard to argue with moxie. Chances are, privately, he knows it was a bit much and probably went too far. But backing down? Heck no... that's weak. And so he sort of apologized, now sort of took it back, and gets to be a conservative hero... even as his days in Congress may well be numbered.

Joe Wilson doesn't have to apologize. The Presidency will not rise or fall on the basis of a heated, and fairly foolish, outburst in a joint session of Congress. Nor is the point here, really, about debating the semantics of prohibiting illegal immigrants from having health insurance - like most of the immigration debate, there's more heat than light in this charge, and serious consideration of immigration reforms is about a lot more than health insurance, anyway. But then... these are not serious people. If they were, someone would know enough to draw a line, and say Wilson crossed it. And then, they'd leave him on the other side, to battle it out alone.

The Labor of Preserving Illusions Or Letting Them Go

More than most Labor Days, I suspect that this year's official "end of summer" (yes, yes, autumnal equinox is 2 weeks away... but you know what I mean) is meant to be a real "restart" for many people and many issues. Summer in America is all about escape, and our escapist tendencies, I think, have kicked in a little more than ever in this post economic apocalypse year. Take the vacation while you can... or don't worry about the job search until later... I've just seen a lot of "I'll think about it tomorrow" or more like next month, especially all through August.

Tomorrow, a lot of that putting off will come due, especially in terms of our national politics. In two days, President Obama is giving two major speeches, one to "reset" the health care debate, the other to indoctrinate children into his unholy schemes to... oh, sorry. Just kidding.

The serious side is that President Obama will return to the national stage - and let's give credit to him actually taking "vacation" seriously enough to not make a lot of public appearances, except for the most necessary one (Kennedy's funeral) - to a nation that is not what it was, even a few months ago. The distinct sense that there's more bad than good right now, that people are growing disillusioned with the President, Congress, and government generally, can't really be ignored. Whether anyone, even the President, can fix that, remains to be seen.

But in some ways, contrarian that I am, I think "disillusion" is the wrong word - perhaps the more useful way to think about what's changed, especially over August, is that illusions, dreams, and fantasies have come hard up against some necessary realities. The limits of Presidential power, of the potential for massive progressive change, of stopping real change solely through fear, anger and desperation... these things needed to sink in. And maybe, when President Obama returns to the national stage, we can see him in a more realistic, human way... and begin to make progress - however slowly - on the real problems we face.

Bitter, Small Party of Several Thousand

As the heat dies down and vacations end, the story of this August is, in some ways, the story of a mythical phoenix rising from the ashes... I'm speaking of course of the sudden "resurgence" of the Republican Party.

Day after day, the drumbeat of polling suggests that opposition to health reform, as well as the challenges of other governmental projects (like Cash for Clunkers), and the general sense of economic distress has "ruined" president Obama's popularity and sent many folks rushing back to the Republican Party.

Aside from the fact that I think poll driven news writing is the worst kind of lazy journalism (except possibly trend articles based on pseudo science), I tend to think the newfound appeal of Republicans won't translate into much... at least for now. Republican - and the conservatives who feel they are stuck with their party - have not solved the very basic problems made clear in the last two election cycles. Indeed, if anything, the August "resurgence" tends to underline what hasn't happened more starkly than ever: without compelling alternative ideas, and without fresh leadership, Republicans have, in fact, little to offer but the same brew of anger, bitterness, sarcasm and resentment that the modern conservative movement has been relying on for years. That tactic is old, and relying on it to defeat healthcare, in particular, will amount to little.

It's a little, though, that could make a difference, if only a small difference. Small shifts in public sentiment built on appeals to anger and fear will make some of the more vulnerable members of Congress - especially in the House - potential victims. The bigger reality, though, is that Republican marginalization has put big, long term success out of reach... and that hasn't changed.

You Know You Can't Stop It, When They Start To Play (The Politics of Dancing on Healthcare)

Continuing my healthcare focus... I've largely ignored the politics surrounding the healthcare reform debate, mostly because the lack of a firm proposal has made the political arguments especially disconnected from anything real. That has been changing in the last few weeks, as we've begun to focus (not entirely well) on specifics. And now I think is the time to admit that the politics of healthcare reform... are not looking good.

This isn't surprising, and much of the unwinding of the political momentum has been predictable. Along with others, I've been arguing for months (okay... years, but let's focus on recent events) that we needed a full debate, in public, about our health care issues in the United States. Instead, for months, the major efforts to craft health care reform took place largely behind closed doors, and any debates about big issues took place largely among people very familiar with all the policy issues and who, generally, agreed on potential solutions.

The net effect has been, much as I and others expected, that as the reform bill's proposals have become more widely disseminated we are re-arguing points that many knowledgable people consider settled. As well, an issue like controlling costs of care now has the ability to derail the whole debate precisely because the people crafting the bill kept the cost of care debate out of their discussions. Had the reform bill been subjected to a more public (or... transparent) process, I suspect a number of key objections could have been raised and dealt with sooner.

As it stands, and as I remain convinced, the healthcare reform bill is looking kind of doomed. And politically, that may be very damaging to Democrats.

Or maybe not.

Don't Ask Me What I Want It For

I'd like to stick with the questions coming up around healthcare reform, because I think what's about to fall apart there is an indicator of what we're facing on a number of other issues coming this fall: the issue of what happens as we face facts about the lack of money within the Federal government.

The hardest question - though serious progressives hate it - that healthcare reform raised, all along, was how it would be paid for. Even when he initially proposed ideas about reforming health insurance, Barack Obama admitted that, in his theory, he knew of about half the money needed to pay for what was likely to cost about one trillion dollars. Though the plan specifics have been a moving target, that price tag has not moved substantially; for a minute it appeared that the Senate Health (HELP) committee had gotten to a $600 billion price tag... but that turned out to leave aside reforms to Medicaid and Medicare, which are under the Finance committee jurisdiction. The House bill comes in at about $1.3 trillion, all in.

The House also has offered the most mischievous solution, sure to become an easy partisan debating point - they proposed a surcharge on "high income" earners, with high income now defined at about $300,000 (bitter earners making $275,000... are now mad to discover they are not rich). The proposal to raise taxes has pretty much died on the vine: it's pretty clear that the full House can't pass a tax like this, the Senate leaders called it a non-starter, and the White House didn't really back it. And that's before conservatives had a field day going back to their familiar lines about "tax and spend liberals."

Conservatives, though, are not the problem; the problem is... we have no money. Even rich people.

Who Made The Very First Move? (Left, In The Dark, Again)

Being sick decidedly sucks... perhaps never more so than a holiday weekend where 24 hour news is dominated by 2 endlessly repeated and poorly understood stories... in my case, more about Michael Jackson and drugs... and Sarah Palin.

In the rush to sort out Sarah Palin, the general fascination with "why" and "what now" seem kind of missing the point. What this latest move shows, most vividly, is that the conservative right has an enormous problem which Sarah Palin embodies: the fact that the political narrative of right-wing politics has gotten completely away from the people best suited to help craft the agenda, and is, instead, in the hand of attractive charismatics with unclear motives.

Even as "serious" conservative types started analyzing all the possibilities, it was clear that Palin's real audience already got the message. Conservative true believers - the ardent "base" of the right - knew Palin had made the right choice because... well, she made it.

It's the cult of personality surrounding Palin, the one which brooks nary a dissenting word about her, that's most indicative of the political problem the right faces. Aside from soberly asking whether a first term Governor abandoning office midstream can seriously be considered for future office, the most basic observation of Palin's clumsy, confusing attempt to explain her choice was that it did nothing to lay the groundwork for future office seeking.