The D.C. Redemption

Diagnosis:
D.C. Disillusionment

Prescription:

Hope

Last week, all I wanted for Christmas was cloture. I just wanted the Senate health reform debate to be done and over with. Now I’m trying to figure out how I got to this point.

When I first came to D.C. a year or so ago, the sentiment of Hope and Change had swept the nation through Obama’s presidential campaign.

As a pre-med kid fresh out of college and new to Washington, I let myself get swept away with it. Naturally, my hopes were pinned on the prospect of historic health reform legislation that would be sure to be enacted with Obama in the Oval Office.

The Obama campaign message about the reforms to our health care system excited me. I envisioned passionate speeches that lambasted our health care system’s free market ideals that treated a person’s health as a commodity that could be bought and sold. I looked forward to the beginnings of a greater perception of health as an innate, human right.

I found myself going into the depths of Virginia, where every other front yard had a McCain/Palin sign, going door to door to get out the vote. I booked a last minute flight to Chicago so I could be there for the celebration on election night. This is how much the spirit of the campaign got to me.

Flash forward one year and I’m grudgingly waking up at 7am on Christmas Eve to watch the Senate vote on its health care reform bill. I watch as every Senator marks their vote and I find myself muttering sarcastic comments. Lieberman – the Grinch who stole the public option. Ben Nelson – the Cornhusker Kickback that has the federal government picking up Nebraska’s Medicaid bill just to get his vote.

My hopes from the year before had been brought down by the harsh political realities of the recession, the deficit, tea baggers, town halls, midterm elections, purple states, blue dogs, moderates, filibusters, and the list goes on. I didn’t sign up for this. I wasn’t prepared for the disappointment I would feel when politics trumped the hope for reform I had.

All of this hit me at once back in September. Obama was giving his speech to the joint session of Congress. He spoke with passion and conviction, invoking the spirit of Ted Kennedy to push for making historic health reform legislation a reality. My optimism and hope was returning, and then Joe Wilson reared his ugly head. Then, in a press conference the next day, Press Secretary Gibbs got caught up in a line of questioning that led the administration to support a backwards policy that kept undocumented immigrants from using their own money to purchase insurance. Health became a commodity with the government, driven by anti-immigrant forces, potentially determining who could buy it, and who couldn’t.

I felt betrayed. It was like in the Shawshank Redemption when the Warden throws Andy Dufresne in the hole for calling him obtuse. Gibbs might as well have thrown me into solitary for a month. My hopes in what health reform could achieve were completely dashed.


(Author's Note: Couldn't find the actual scene from Shawshank, figured this would have to suffice)

Today, I find myself awaiting the New Year, when some sort of final product will come out of conference. Reflecting on the past year, it’s clear that by now my disillusionment has become palpable. I read scathing criticisms of Obama and his administration and I just grudgingly nod my head in agreement.

But, I think to myself, I can’t let this be how I start the New Year. There’s still too much work to be done. And despite the uphill battle that remains, continuing the effort is crucial in trying to make positive change happen.

I remember last year, after the election, there was a discussion about how expectations were being set too high for Obama, that there would eventually be a fallout. The younger generations who became politically conscious through the success of Obama’s bid for presidency would become inactive after witnessing political setbacks. The short attention span generation that gets everything right now when they want it and then posts about it on Twitter would be disenchanted once they saw how slow and difficult it is to change Washington D.C.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to let myself fall into that category. I’d prefer to rise above that supposed fallout, even with all of the disappointment, to continue to work towards something better.

In short, I need to work to find that hope again. To rebuild that energy emotion that everyone was full of just twelve months ago. But that kind of hope isn’t going to be found on a bumper sticker or billboard. It’s not hope in Obama or his presidency. It’s the stuff that keeps us waking up in the morning and going to work on our issues, whether it’s health or immigration or environment or education or whatever.

As Andy Dufresne tells Red, “hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

I’ll be hoping that this blog post finds you, and finds you well.

Your friend,

-DR