By John David Dyche
WDRB Contributor
President Obama’s signature domestic and foreign policy achievements are Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal. They share two remarkable similarities.
First, a majority of Americans disapprove of them. Second, only Democrats supported them in Congress.
Even now, after the benefits of Obamacare were supposed to have become apparent for all to see, the Real Clear Politics average of polls shows 48.4 percent as “Against/Oppose” to 40.2 percent as “For/Favor.” The bureaucratic, coercive, and extremely expensive law passed without any Republican backing and barely, survived two close calls in the Supreme Court, and has never commanded a majority of popular support.
The same goes for the Iran nuclear deal which appears headed for implementation. A recent Pew Research Center poll on it shows 49 percent disapprove of it while only 21 percent approve. A recent CNN/ORC poll indicated 56 percent of Americans saying Congress should disapprove the deal.
Bipartisan majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate oppose and are prepared to vote against the pact with the terrorism-sponsoring Islamic Republic. However, it appears that a purely Democratic minority will succeed in imposing Obama’s unpopular will on the public.
Indeed both Obamacare and the Iran deal relied on parliamentary maneuvering to avoid the super-majority requirement that usually accompanies such significant measures.
Congressional Democrats used budget reconciliation to avoid a filibuster of Obamacare. By characterizing the Iran deal as an executive agreement rather than a treaty Obama evaded the Constitution’s two-thirds of the Senate ratification requirement.
None of this is to say that polls should always dictate American policy. Ours is not a pure democracy and the vox populi is not the vox Dei. Nor is bipartisanship a constitutional requirement.
But it is nonetheless unusual, if not unprecedented, in American history for such major measures to be both unpopular with the public and lacking any bipartisan backing whatsoever. As a purely political proposition there has long been a belief that large and important legislation and international arrangements should have at least one, if not both, of public support and some degree of cross-party cooperation.
The Obama administration’s explanation for the absence of public support seems to be that Americans are not smart enough to understand their own interests. They never explicitly state it this way, but that premise is implicit in their arguments that the public does not know the details or has been deceived by cynical Republican lies.
Obama also points to his reelection as if it conferred extra-constitutional power upon him.
As for its failure to command any Republican support for its biggest initiatives, the Obama administration mainly attacks the motives of those who have opposed them. This tactic has been a little awkward with the Iran nuclear deal since some high-profile Democrats have joined Republicans in resisting it.
Obama and his team have tried hard to generate popular support for Obamacare and the Iran deal, but they never seriously sought bipartisan backing in Congress for either. Some see that as simply good politics; others as an imperial presidency.
Obama and his White House is so convinced of their own intellectual and moral superiority that invocations of Republican President Ronald Reagan compromising with Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill or Democratic President Bill Clinton compromising with Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich failed to move them.
Are congressional Republicans blameless? Of course not.
Obama and entourage claim that Republicans, for reasons of partisan political advantage or worse, would not work with him. This is perhaps true for some, but the GOP has cooperated with him in good faith on other important issues, like trade.
On healthcare, however, Obama rudely rebuffed Republicans like Paul Ryan who were sincerely prepared to try to fashion a bipartisan bill. On Iran, Obama ignored the fact that he would have had lots of Republican support for a harder negotiating line just as he had enjoyed for tougher sanctions.
Because of how these big things went down Republican presidential candidates are running on pledges to repeal and replace Obamacare (and there are GOP alternatives despite what you may hear or read) and to renegotiate or terminate the Iran deal.
They do not explain how they would do this when the Senate appears destined to have either a Democratic majority or an increased Democratic minority. Moreover, just because Obamacare and the Iran deal still poll poorly it does not necessarily mean that junking them is either good politics or smart policy.
As some smart conservative commentators have noted, Republicans could suffer politically if “repeal and replace” deprives lots of people coverage they got under Obamacare. The same is true if a Republican about-face on Iran provoked the mullahs move openly and quickly (instead of covertly and at a moderate pace) for a nuclear arsenal.
It might not play well with the rabid dog Republican primary electorate now fueling the Donald Trump personality cult, but responsible Republican hopefuls should perhaps be talking about how they would heed public opinion and work with Senate Democrats to make sensible conservative reforms to Obama’s biggest bad ideas.
Instead, some Republicans seem ready to repeat the strategy and tactics of Obama and the Democrats, but in reverse and on an even larger scale. While understandable, this bodes ill for America’s political future.
John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney and a political commentator for WDRB.com. His e-mail is jddyche@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @jddyche.
