Mr. President, We Cannot Allow A Hope Gap
Skip to 8 minute mark in this recording of Michelle Obama’s speech at UCLA. Shortly after that point she says this:
Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.
Apparently we are all activists now. There is something amusing about the idea that a political movement that has so far thrived on uninformed people being won over by cheery slogans is going to become a dedicated band of civically-minded, “engaged” and hopeful Stakhanovites. In a certain context, these remarks could be taken simply as expressions of strong conviction, but that doesn’t seem to be what she’s saying. She isn’t expressing the extent of Obama’s conviction, but instead is telling the voters that they are going to have to shape up considerably if they are going to be worthy of toiling in the fields of hope.
Michael once wrote about Mike Huckabee’s candidacy representing the introduction of the “life coach” ethos into presidential politics:
Unlike Obama or Bush before him, Huckabee asks us not only to rise above partisanship but to rise above ourselves.
This is a vision of the executive as “Uplifter in Chief,” the role Huckabee seems most anxious to play: “The president of the United States ought to lead Americans to think the best, be the best and act the best. We ought not pander to the lowest common denominator of thought.” It’s a message alternately inspiring in its aspirations and smug in its condescension.
Now it seems clear that Obama is the one who wants to play that role, or at least he allows his wife to cast him in the role. You have to marvel at the use of so many phrases implying coercion, rather than persuasion: require, demand, never allow. I’m sorry, but in a still nominally free country the chief magistrate of a republic does not make demands of citizens, but enforces the laws enacted by their representatives. That is what the President does, or is supposed to do. He does not, cannot, rightfully require things of any citizen that the citizen does not already owe to his country, namely loyalty and patriotic service. That is what he is allowed to ask from us, because it is something we are already obliged to render. It is not he who permits and allows, but, at least in theory, we who permit him to serve us. He will not be a jefe or archigos to whom we are swearing personal allegiance (despite the confusion of some Bush supporters on this point), but a public servant who executes the laws and obeys the Constitution.
8 Responses to “Mr. President, We Cannot Allow A Hope Gap”
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It is going to be interesting to watch the right wing noise machine crank it up to eleven one more time.
Genocide if we leave Iraq!
Terrorists will follow us home!
Spending through the roof!
He is a closet Muslim!
Obama is just another slick willie, a fast talker who is evasive, but that might be all it takes this year.
And now I see that Democrats just can’t think in terms of the large numbers that Republicans do. Sure they might come up with their little $2000 hope scholarship or some catchy name like that, but when you add it all up it amounts to 2.5 weeks in the Iraq war.
He couldn’t pass bills like this fast enough to exceed the wartime spending.
The Democrats are just not capable of spending like the Republicans, who have to dole things out in the tens of billions to keep their corporate benefactors fat and happy.
Let Obama go to town with is midnight basketball* programs and such. It will be years before the democrats figure out it was all just feel good stuff.
In the end I am going to save $ if he just gets us out of Iraq.
“Barack Obama will require you to work” And will work make us free?
Arbeit Macht Frei.
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Barack!
It’s starting to get really cultish, very weird. Serious Kool-Aid being draaank in that camp. He’s getting more messianic, and his followers are getting more evangelical. Creepy stuff. Today I was behind a bunch of kids (about 18, maybe) who were raving about him: “I love him, I absolutely love him, and he said he loved us, too, at the rally.” Reminds me of that old fundamentalist slogan: “Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship.”
Interesting that someone can write the very sentence “chief magistrate of a republic” and be seemingly unaware of the long republican tradition of civic participation as the essential basis for a free society. I doubt Michelle (or Barack for that matter) have such an ancient regime conception of freedom but inspiring public participation has often been democracies strongest weapon for securing the defense of the society and its freedoms.
Though outside specific policies requiring an acceptance of personal responsibility in return for state assistance (such as the College credit scheme) I don’t see any evidence of Obama seeking to coerce the population to act as he might wish. Interpreting Michelle’s message as she intended however we have already seen unprecedented numbers voluntarily turning out to support and assist his campaign. He doesn’t need to coerce. But a change in the culture and attitude towards civic participation wouldn’t be a bad thing in the slightest.
Obama and his wife identify the source of our problems not as a failure to pursue specifically liberal policies that he believes to be correct, even if controversial. Instead, the source is corruption, cynicism, a kind of spiritual malaise that we must collectively divorce ourselves from by endorsing him and his optimistic message.
But instead of seeing a romantic optimist, I instead see a typical politician, a man with great faith in himself that he hopes others will endorse without asking too many questions. He is also a man that is all too plastic, willing to avoid controversy because his number one issue is not Iraq or welfare or immigration, but himself and his salvific mission. Obama wants to be President not because he wants to commit to any particular policy but because he believes his mere presence will elevate our politics and that his intelligence will be able to see him through any particular issue on which he has not taken a stand. He finds it unseemly and constricting to commit himself to the liberal policies he has endorsed his entire career when it was safe to do so. This is all packaging that reveals someone for whom winning will trump matters of high principle and accountability.
Ironically, Bush too portrayed himself as someone that would clean up our political culture. He noted that he wanted a foreign policy that was humble (in contrast to the “arrogance†of Clinton’s) and was willing to work with Democrats in the House to pursue policies that furthered the common good. He specifically invoked his record as Governor of Texas, where he did enjoy a record for bipartisanship and comity with the unusually conservative Democrats in the Texas legislature.
Bush, Obama, and every president in recent memory that talks about elevating our politics is engaging in the worst kind of hubris; those that vote for them on this basis are engaging in an all too human kind of wishful thinking. This thinking is particularly common among those that do not follow politics closely, and this includes Obama’s wife who, surprise surprise, did not really get into it until he ran.
Ideologically inclined Americans with strong views on everything from abortion to foreign policy to the role of the federal government have deep disagreements about policy, about our history, about our identity. We’re a nation in the midst of a deep cultural rift between traditional America and those who have self-consciously labeled themselves the “counter culture.†It’s not just about “negative ads” or “the politics of personal destruction.” This focus on tactics misses the real, genuine disagreement about core principles.
That counter-culture is now entrenched in most of our major cultural institutions: universities, the press, the entertainment industry, and in the government. So long as there is a lack of real consensus on the level of ideas and values, no statesmen will be able to tamp down controversy on a whole host of issues which ultimately define what kind of nation we will be.
Obama either accepts this account or he doesn’t. Either way, his candidacy is flawed. If he doesn’t know this, then his narcissism and power for megalomania is peerless. If he knows this and all the talk of one united America without red and blue states is just salesmanship designed to mask what will likely be the same kind of liberal agenda he has pursued as an Illinois representative and as US Senator. He’s a fast talking fraud, and the American people appear ready to fall for it.
Did you see this, Dan?
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/americas-greate.html
Congrats, I guess. Do you actually support the idea of agrarian splinter republics? I knew you were a decentralist, but to *that* extent…?
He forgot the word “distributist.”
Daniel, as the most prolific Kirkian conservative around, you’re the very person to write an article about the “Gemeinschaft Gap”. My brother has been trying to use this pun for years, but never managed it, though I see a couple of others have.