Obama's State of the Union: No Time to Turn Back

In last night’s speech, President Barack Obama confronted an incredibly difficult challenge. His agenda for change has been stymied by an implacable Republican opposition, a set of democracy-defying rules in Washington in the filibuster and the drenching of the system with money (even before the horrendous Citizens United decision), and a startling amount of self-serving politics among some Democratic colleagues.

President Obama was right to acknowledge his difficulties, right to challenge those who have hamstrung legislative progress and those Democrats seeking to trim the sails and tack to the right, and right to call out the super-activist Supreme Court Majority. I was glad he pledged not to quit and not to give up on really making change, even if the specifics of the move forward were generally sketchy.

The proof will be in the follow-through. If he really takes his challenge of serious financial reform to the mat; if he puts flesh and serious investment behind the call to create new jobs; if he fights to make education affordable and retirement secure despite the warnings of the deficit-hawks; and if he really fights to change Washington and enliven our democracy, not just with lobbyist postings but with public financing of elections and reforms to bring every eligible voter into the process and into the conversation; then this speech will have marked a new beginning of hope and change.

I want that to be the case, and I’m dismayed by some of the premature dismissals of the possibilities and the predictions of failure while the wheel is still in spin. And it’s not President Obama’s job alone. Those of us who want the kind of change he continues to promise need to speak, rebut, and march, all to push out the space of possibility, in which he can move forward and from which our country can achieve the kind of economic opportunity for all and democracy with meaning that we so desperately seek.