Obama, DADT, and Political Tactics

President Obama announced in the State of the Union that he wants to end the military’s controversial Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.  For Obama’s base, it has been a long time since they have had one of their pet issues addressed.  Health care reform has dominated – some say hijacked – Obama’s agenda for the past year. Obama’s approach to DADT shows that he didn’t learn the political lesson that he should have from his health care fiasco.

The way Obama handled the health care debate turned out badly for him because it angered both sides.  Conservatives are upset because many of them are susceptible to exasperated cries of “socialism!” “government takeover!” and “death panels!”  Nevermind the reality that the proposal has been compromised to the point where none of the GOP counter-arguments are on point anymore; all these cries are attacking boogie man versions of the proposal, not the one that exists in the physical universe.  Liberals are upset because many of them feel betrayed that Obama so quickly caved on issues important to them such as the public option, and they feel like maybe the proposal is almost fully gutted.  Nevermind the reality that the proposal will still be a major reform and a major improvement over the status quo.  Pretty much anyone who cared about health care enough for it to influence their opinion of Obama is upset.

Gays in the military is another purely Democratic issue, but when Obama decided to take it on, he failed to recognize what his previous political failures meant.  From the way the first shots fired in this debate have come out, it seems that this will be another issue that only manages to make everybody angry.

So far, there have been few official developments from the administration.  Michael Tomansky from the Guardian said the way that Obama unveiled the proposal was “impressively choreographed.” The right military people stood and applauded when the line came, and the right people said the right things in the next 24 hours in the news.  Then the news came that it would take a year or more to study the effect of repealing the policy.

Obama’s approach to the controversial issue is admirable and may pay off.  A year long debate in the open could propel gay rights from the closet into the light.  Opponents will appear even more backwards as enlightened discourse discredits their old-fashioned thinking.  The longer timeframe for debate will allow the country to get on board as a consensus emerges and all the information comes to light.  The end result may be even better for the gay rights movement than just ending DADT.

But does that sound like how highly-charged debates go in this country?  I think it is at least as likely that the gradual approach to ending DADT will backfire severely on Obama and on the gay rights movement.  I picture, instead of information and civil debate on the issue, angry town halls, ignorant tea partiers, and religious backlash.  Obama is dreaming if he thinks that a long debate process will convince opponents or independents to join the liberal side.  The 1+ year debate on this issue will get ugly and make everyone mad.

Conservatives are already frothing over just the announcement.  The words alone are chalked up as additional evidence that Obama is the anti-Christ, or at the very least, “too liberal.”  Conservative groups will no doubt use this announcement to rally their troops and raise their funds to propel social conservatives to office in the midterms. We now know that a large portion of the Democrats’ congressional majorities hail from conservative districts and those politicians will be hesitant to support an inflammatory issue like this when under attack from passionate social conservatives.

Liberals are angry too.  Emma Ruby-Sachs of Huffington Post, John Aravosis of AmericaBlog, and others are complaining about the year-long delay.  Ending DADT, they say, should be incredibly easy.  Unlike health care, there aren’t a lot of details to be negotiated or studied.  You either allow gays to serve openly or not.  There also aren’t any new arguments popping up in the debate; it’s the same “social progress” vs. “unit cohesion” debate that we have heard since Eisenhower.  Furthermore, the Commander-in-Chief could effectively end the policy with orders against any investigations or prosecutions.  Congress could easily amend the UCMJ with a few words.  There shouldn’t be any 15,000 page bills on this.

There is no reason why the government cannot immediately suspend Don’t Ask Don’t Tell discharges. There is certainly no reason why they must wait a year to figure out how to stop discriminating against a group of soldiers who will spend every day of that year risking their lives to further U.S. government objectives.

-Emma Ruby-Sachs

Liberals will be even angrier if the year-long debate turns into a spectacle and Obama has to retreat from his original position.  The health care debate should indicate to us what is likely to happen here.

The president was right that he needed a liberal issue to reignite the base before the midterms, but his unrealistically optimistic strategy is likely to backfire in the end, and it isn’t good politics.  Obama has very little to win on this issue as it develops in this way, but he has a great deal to lose.