In my mind, there are two lessons from the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to support President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan: 1) how starved the country is for leadership that puts the nation’s interest before partisan politics, which is exactly what Chief Justice John Roberts Jr did; and 2) the virtue of audacity in politics and thinking big. Let’s look at both.
US President Barack Obama
I know that this was a complex legal decision. But I think it was inspired by a simple noble leadership impulse at a critical juncture in our history—to preserve the legitimacy and integrity of the Supreme Court as being above politics.
This is still a moderate, centre-left/centre-right country, and all you have to do is get out of Washington to discover how many people hunger for leaders who will take a risk, put the country’s interests before party and come together for rational compromises. Why do we all jump up and applaud at NBA or NFL games when they introduce wounded Iraq or Afghan war veterans in the stands? It’s because the US military embodies everything we find missing today in our hyperpartisan public life. The military has become, as the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel once put it, “the last repository of civic idealism and sacrifice for the sake of the common good”. To put it another way, Roberts undertook an act of statesmanship for the national good by being willing to anger his own “constituency”on a very big question.
I see no sign of Mitt Romney being ready for such a “Roberts moment”. I still have hope for Obama. He’s entitled to a victory lap for daring to go big—ignoring his advisers—to bring healthcare to the whole country. It’s a huge achievement. But he needs to go just as big on the economy if he wants the Affordable Care Act to be something we can actually afford. That requires economic growth. Yet, Obama’s campaign has been all small-ball wedge issues, trying to satisfy enough micro-constituencies to get 50.1% of the vote.
Listen to the broad reaction to Roberts. Look at the powerful wave he has unleashed for big, centrist, statesman-like leadership. That all tells me that people are also hungry for a big plan from the president to fix the economy, one that will bite and challenge both parties at the scale we need, fairly share the burdens and won’t just be about “balancing the budget”, but about making America great again. The opportunity for such a plan is hiding in plain sight. America today is poised for a great renewal.
Our new-found natural gas bounty can give us long-term access to cheap, cleaner energy and, combined with advances in robotics and software, is already bringing blue-collar manufacturing back to America. Cloud computing is giving anyone with a creative spark cheap, powerful tools to start a company with very little money. And dramatically low interest rates mean we can borrow to build new infrastructure—and make money.
If we can just get a few big things right today—a Simpson-Bowles-like grand bargain on spending and tax reform that unleashes entrepreneurship, a deal on immigration that allows the smartest immigrants to enrich our nation and a plan on energy that allows us to tap these new sources in environmentally safe ways—no one could touch us as a country. Connect the dots for people, Mr President—be the guy taking the risk to offer that big plan for American renewal, and Romney will never be able to touch you.
Thomas L. Friedman is a columnist at The New York Times.
©2012/The New York Times
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