The fake twitter account of a fake president – Josiah Bartlet from The West Wing – suggested that if the (real) president ended his State of the Union address with the (fake) president’s catch phrase – “What’s next?” – it’d be time to sue. But as someone who spends too much time watching both The West Wing as well as nonfictional politics, lawsuit notwithstanding, it would have been entirely appropriate.
In the fictional West Wing, “What’s next?” is the catch-all term for “okay, we’ve dealt with this one incredibly complicated problem; we’re ready for the next one.”
It’s a challenge to anyone who might attempt to slow down the Bartlet administration in its quest to fix the problems with the nation. Last night, President Barack Obama issued a similar challenge, although with slightly less-impressive language.
In a State of the Union entitled “Win the Future” the president challenged the nation to improve across the board. He issued a series of – as is standard for this particular speech – relatively vague commands towards fixing our nation’s economic problems. Innovation, education, streamlining the budget: these are the things we must work on to “win the future.”
Throughout the speech (and I’m limited by word count here – see whitehouse.gov for the transcript) the president made it clear that winning the future is not the kind of thing that should be held down by people playing politics.
Never mind the light irony of a man making a major political statement by trying to stave off politics getting in the way of real work – this is the message that will set the tone for the next two years of the Obama presidency.
The president made it clear that he wants progress for progress’ sake, that he’s willing to go further and further towards the center to accomplish the things he thinks will best help the country he runs.
Which makes it – and this is probably the best way to put it – cosmically delicious that instead of the usual republican response (singular) there happened to be two televised responses (plural) to the speech. First up was Paul Ryan with a typical “yeah, sure, but what about lowering taxes?” response, which was written and delivered with a polite, economical style. Next, Michele Bachmann gave a grandiose, imagery-laden list of Tea Party platform points and slogans.
So, dear reader, what it all comes down to is this: our president, facing a Republican House (Amityville Horror No. 9) decides that the best way to get things done is to come up with a list of things he wants done.
In order to do so, he makes a speech, essentially threatening to veto useless legislation at the same time as he offers cooperation on just about every major issue.
What does the Right do? Divide into the helpful faction and the half-crazed faction. The latter believes “Death of a Salesman” to be about some other country while the former is terrified of turning into Willy Loman.
This is the state of the union. The Democrats may slowly be realizing that they should start to act instead of react. The Republicans are splitting in half. Meanwhile, quality of education continues to decrease.
The education gap widens. The economic gap widens. Becoming Willy Loman should be the least of our worries. In order to “win the future,” I’d like to ask people to – just once – listen to the president. We’re locked so solidly in the present we run the very great risk of ignoring his pleas for nationwide advancement. But oh well. What’s next?
Noah Berman is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.
