Political Polarization
Health care reform passed without a single Republican vote and has deeply divided the country, helping to fuel the Tea Party movement that has embraced some of Obama’s harshest critics.
The political polarization of America has been going on for some time, Obama said.
“I do think that we now have a pattern of polarization not just with George Bush, but also previous to George Bush with Bill Clinton,” Obama said. “Frankly, it gets spun up in part because of how the media covers politics, in the 24/7 news cycle, cable chatter and talk radio and the Internet and the blogs, all of which try to feed the most extreme sides of any issue instead of trying to narrow differences and solve problems.”
The president said he believes the problem can be solved, but on health care, he said, “I am frustrated that Republicans who I think had an opportunity to help shape this bill declined that opportunity.”
He said that the bill that he signed contained many elements that were in the health care reform bill that Republican Mitt Romney supported and signed when he was governor of Massachusetts.
“What’s interesting is that if you actually break down the specifics of the bill, you will see that this, historically, has had a lot of Republican support,” Obama said. “I think what happened is that they made a calculation, which if you are thinking in terms of short-term politics, you can see the argument. Their attitude is, look, if we stop this bill and we stop this president here, then that will give us a lot of political benefit in November. What I’ve tried to say throughout is, I will continue to reach out to Republicans. I will continue to incorporate their ideas even when they don’t vote for the ideas that I’ve presented. But what I’m not going to be dissuaded from is us going ahead taking on these big challenges that are critical in terms of America’s long-term economic health.”
The Tea Party
Moving back to domestic topics, Obama took a measured view of the Tea Party movement that has focused its anger on him and his administration. He took care to distinguish between the people who question his citizenship and who are convinced he’s a socialist and those who are simply concerned about the future of a country going through economic turmoil.
“There’s a part of the Tea Party that actually did exist before I was elected … where there’s some folks who just weren’t sure whether I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist. Then I think that there’s a broader circle around that core group of people who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much. And I think those are folks who have legitimate concerns. And my hope is that as we move forward and we’re tackling things like the deficit, imposing a freeze on domestic spending, taking steps that show we are sincere about dealing with our long-term problems, that some of that group will dissipate.”
It has not been an easy year, but, the president said, tough decisions on the part of his administration are making a difference.“One of the things that I take pride in is that we took on a lot of tough decisions last year. But because we took those tough decisions, you now have a financial system that is stable, a stock market that’s recovered a lot of its value, which has a direct impact not just on folks on Wall Street but people with 401(k)’s and retirement accounts who have a little more security than they did.”
Sources: MSNBC, Today Show
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