Obama and the nihilists?

George Packer imagines the likely outcome of the jobs bill:

My guess is that the House will give him just enough of his plan—further cuts to payroll taxes paid by employers and employees—to be able to say, We’re not rank partisans and blind ideologues: we are doing something. But this wouldn’t be nearly enough to reverse the downward economic slide, allowing the opposition to go on playing the game it’s played since Obama’s inauguration—to lay the blame on him for the results of their own acts of legislative sabotage. Power without responsibility requires a high degree of self-restraint, something lacking in the contemporary Republican Party.

Then Obama’s best hope will lie with the public. Do Americans still have enough faith in him, and in government, to give the President a second shot at reviving the economy? I’m not at all sure. When he called on citizens to make their voices heard in Congress, my heart sank. Those who have tried over the past couple of years have been drowned out. In a climate of political rage and economic despair, nihilism plays a lot better.