Republicans, be afraid. Be very afraid. The rest of you: be hopeful. If Obama can keep his machine together after the election, he will be in a very strong negotiating position when it comes to getting his program through Congress.
I’ve heard some people say, “Too bad Obama is going to have such a tough hand to play.” I’ve said things like that myself. But there’s another way to look at it. When a crisis, an inspiring leader, and a mass movement coincide, that creates the possibility of major transformation. Think “New Deal.”
As Machiavelli said, someone capable of spotting opportunity can convert what looks like bad luck into the occasion for greatness.
Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus … in examining their actions and lives one cannot see that they owed anything to fortune beyond opportunity, which brought them the material to mould into the form which seemed best to them. Without that opportunity their powers of mind would have been extinguished, and without those powers the opportunity would have come in vain.
It was necessary, therefore, to Moses that he should find the people of Israel in Egypt enslaved and oppressed by the Egyptians, in order that they should be disposed to follow him so as to be delivered out of bondage. It was necessary that Romulus should not remain in Alba, and that he should be abandoned at his birth, in order that he should become King of Rome and founder of the fatherland. It was necessary that Cyrus should find the Persians discontented with the government of the Medes, and the Medes soft and effeminate through their long peace. Theseus could not have shown his ability had he not found the Athenians dispersed. These opportunities, therefore, made those men fortunate, and their high ability enabled them to recognize the opportunity whereby their country was ennobled and made famous.