President Obama’s State of the Union domestic agenda is dead on arrival. Congressional Republicans have already dismissed it.

But at least one of his proposals, two years of free community college, is moving forward through a process that involves the multiple levers of federalism and the agenda-setting power of narrative.

Out of necessity, this process should become an alternative strategy for progressives who support the Obama agenda. (I use “progressive” and “liberal” interchangeably.)

President Obama delivers his 2015 State of the Union speech.

So before we look at community colleges, let’s look at how the opportunities of federalism and the power of narrative work together to create political opportunities.

It’s an uplifting object lesson for discouraged liberals — a dose of reality and a dose of hope.

How This Process Works

A two-sentence civic lesson: Federalism allocates power to both states and the national government. Often both states and the federal government can act on the same matters.

For progressives today, federalism creates opportunities to outflank Congress by focusing on different jurisdictions instead, primarily the states.

Narrative is a force that helps make this flanking move possible because words are not limited by jurisdictions. So both narrative and federalism allow for boundary crossing.

Narrative is a tool for persuasion. As the preeminent scholar of the presidency Richard Neustadt put it, the essence of presidential power is the power to persuade.

Students on the Honolulu Community College campus. President Obama wants such institutions to be tuition-free, but such action will likely be taken state by state, not nationally.

PF Bentley/Civil Beat

Federalism increases the persuasion’s targets of opportunity.

Traditionally, liberals prefer a sweeping national policy as a way to deal with significant problems. FDR makes a compelling radio address or LBJ declares a war on poverty. Congress acts. And boom you get a policy that applies across the nation.

Liberals have seen their best-laid plans stymied by the states. States’ rights have been a bugaboo on issues from civil rights to the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act.

But when the national government was the obstacle, progressives have turned elsewhere.

The minimum wage is a recent and ongoing example of the use of this alternative strategy. President Obama has not been able to convince Congress to raise the federal minimum wage (by executive order the president raised the wage but only for federal contractors).

Despite this resistance, a number of states and some cities have recently gone ahead and raised the minimum wage. Over half the states have minimum wage mandates that are higher than the federal government’s. In 2014 while federal legislation to raise the minimum wage went nowhere, 11 states and at least one city increased theirs.

According to some members of the Obama administration, part of the president’s minimum wage strategy is to encourage states to do it on their own.

Obama’s rhetoric about the need for a higher minimum wage has kept the issue alive. His remarks often put a human face on minimum wage workers.

Gay marriage is another example. There is no national right to gay marriage, yet it is now legal in most states. Advocates of same gender marriage saw the national government as an adversary. They thought that a case advocating the right to gay marriage would go down to defeat in the conservative U.S. Supreme Court. Instead these advocates focused on the states.

How Community College Plan May Move Forward

The Obama free community college plan is moving forward through this same process, in three ways.

First, by raising the community college issue, the president made visible something that is typically off the radar. His proposal has received a great deal of coverage. Thanks to this, more people are now talking about the value of community college and the obstacles community college students face. The lives of community college students become more visible and more understandable.

These stories about community college work so well is because community college education has such a receptive audience that crosses party lines. Conservatives may object to making community college aid a federal program, but they share the president’s view about the importance of community college education.

Both liberal and conservative economists agree on two crucial things: 1) a community college degree is a valuable economic asset. Five years from now 45 percent of the available jobs will require at least a community college degree. 2) Something has to be done to address the enormous community college dropout problem. More than half of community college students never finish.

The president, whose confrontational powers will be even more limited during his last two years in office, will need to draw more and more on his often unpredictable but potentially effective power to persuade.

Second, because community college reform has such a receptive audience, the Obama plan can act as a catalyst for other states and cities to adopt their own free community college aid programs. In fact, Obama administration officials have suggested that this is exactly what the president had in mind when he introduced his plan.

Obama chose to introduce his plan in Tennessee, a red state that already had a statewide program. This was a clear signal to the states. This month some Minnesota state legislators announced that they were going to introduce a similar bill.

Third, the proposal is the beginning of an important conversation about a much broader issue, the universal-college movement.

The UCM’s goal is to make the opportunity for community college education as much a taken-for-granted part of American life as a high school diploma is now.

In fact the movement models itself after the highly successful, early 20th century universal-high school movement. A high school diploma went from being a privilege to being conventional wisdom. As a result, the U.S. developed the workforce that it needed, and the working class got good jobs.

The president has not explicitly mentioned UCM, whose goals are in fact broader than the Obama plan. UCM focuses on the overall cost of going to college. With the UCM, the basic problem is that students from higher income families are five times more likely to graduate from college than lower income students are.

The president is quite familiar with UCM. Susan Goldrick-Rab, a University of Wisconsin education professor and one of the strongest advocates of UCM, consulted with the president’s community college team.

“My entire goal,” she said, “was to get the president of the United States to put the words ‘free’ and ‘college’ together in a sentence.”

She succeeded.

Think of three simultaneous movements regarding aid to community college students. One, congressional action, is stymied. A second, which focuses on states and cities, is moving forward but in the haphazard way you expect in a federal system.

The third is the emergence of UCM ideas that the Ppesident might believe in but chooses not to advocate at this time. Nevertheless, and quite possibly with the president’s unspoken approval, the UCM link between free and college is likely to part of the national conversation.

Second Fiddle Is Better Than No Music at All

It’s easy to see the drawbacks of this federalism/narrative process when it comes to the president’s immediate community college goals,

For progressives, free community college is important enough to be a national policy. Instead the policy is at the mercy of who knows how many places and processes. As for the power of narrative, a good speech is nice, but in the short run it is just a speech, and in the long run who knows?

Iffy indeed, but that’s how progressive politics needs to proceed as long as the more desirable policy-making alternatives are not available.

The president, whose confrontational powers will be even more limited during his last two years in office, will need to draw more and more on his often unpredictable but potentially effective power to persuade.

Progressives will have to rely more on the recent same sex marriage and minimum wage playbook in order to make any significant progress at all.

This alternative strategy may be a tough, flawed choice, but it is better than wasting time confronting Congress.