The Presidential Principle of "Make Me Do It"

by Michelle

categories: Activism & Advocacy, Darfur & Sudan, Obama Administration

Published July 27, 2009 @ 08:00AM PT

Not long after his inauguration, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously told members of his own party, "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."

His point, ostensibly and perhaps among others, was that a president's agenda is set not just his (and hopefully someday, her) own priorities, but is shaped by the stiff competition of public demands --- even a president needs external pressure to act on an issue with which s/he agrees.

Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch argued last week for a sunset clause on the Save Darfur movement. Noting the successes of the movement, he asserts that "the time for activism is long gone," that "outside pressure has reached its limits" and "it is now up to the movement alumni in the White House to see that their policy options are implemented."

The role of thousands of grassroots activists may not be in the "weeds of the policy debate" currently ongoing within the halls of the Obama Administration, but their role, as with any activist movement, is in keeping the issue on the agenda. Just because Darfur has become a household name and made its way onto Obama's list of professed priorities does not mean that it will remain in such a place, nor does it mean it will receive the attention and resources it merits.

Do anti-torture and anti-war activists stand back because Obama promised to close Guantanamo and pull out of Iraq? Do universal health care advocates go home happily knowing that Obama is addressing the issue? Just because the president doesn't need convincing of an issue's importance doesn't mean that he doesn't need pressure to push him towards, and keep him moving on, meaningful action.

Fellow Dispatcher John Boonstra takes a slightly different stance from his colleague, arguing that the movement's new task is "navigating the complicated and unsexy terrain of policymaking." This is, indeed, familiar terrain for the movement's leadership and full-time staff --- terrain dealt with largely out of the public eye, but it is the public demand that helps get our policy wonks through the door and into the corridors of power.

But that is not to say that the public face of "the movement" (which is by no means the monolithic entity that the title suggests) does not need to change tactics not only for a new administration, but for a conflict that looks substantially different from the one the movement originally coalesced around.

The key question for everyone involved, then, is through what means can our activism most productively support our policy objectives?