Mark Schmitt considers last night’s State of the Union address and determines that there’s still hope for America:
The main argument within the center-left coalition in American politics, for at least 20 years (coinciding with the life of this magazine), has been between Big and Small. It’s not liberal versus moderate, or the people versus the powerful. Rather, it’s between a progressivism of big gestures, emphatic programs, and ballsy claims to power, on the one hand, and on the other, small, tactical, non-scary transactional bargains that nudge the country, or some subset of us, in a better direction.
Somehow, most of the time, small wins. And last night, although the State of the Union Address was strong in many respects in tone and substance, Barack Obama signed a non-aggression pact with small.
