Know Your Place
Tuesday, October 14
Barack, Bill and the importance of not getting carried away
Still, this election is meant to be world-changing, right? After all, here's the USA, 'superpower' for over sixty years, going down spectacularly. Trillions in debt, much of its industry owned by China, fighting two hated and useless wars, the gap between its rich and its poor growing fast, millions of its people without health insurance, its ageing infrastructure polluting the planet at a rate even we can't match.
And here is its choice: a desperate, decrepit 'war hero' whose PTSD is still on clear public display, backed up by a terrifyingly ignorant far-right populist who thinks that children rode dinosaurs and sunspots cause climate change.
And then: Barack Obama.
Ah yes: Obama. A hero to us all. Young, slim, good-looking, cool. With his deep timbre and his cotton shirts, his brilliant rhetoric and his message of change. As times grow increasingly desperate, Barack is our hope: possibly our only hope.
I've lost count of the times I've heard this sort of thing over the last few months, from people who should know better. For a certain segment of the middle class intellectual left, Obama is their wet dream. He's coolly liberal, but not too threatening. He can speak like an angel without actually saying much. And, of course, he's black (well, sort of): and let's not pretend this doesn't hit the right buttons for a guilty white lefty.
I don't want to sound like McCain, but who knows what or who Obama is or will be? The new Lincoln or the new Clinton? The reality is that we have no idea. What we do know is that huge hopes are being loaded onto him, and that much of what people believe about what he will do to save/liberate/rescue America is based not on what he has done already in US politics (not very much) or what he believes (actually quite hard to tell) but what people want him to be. After eight years of Bush there is a desperate yearning for an archetype that represents something better, and millions have bought into the idea that Obama is that archetype.
This is tough on him, because he will never be able to live up to these projected expectations. I remember something similar happening when Blair was elected here back in 1997. It sounds hilarious to say it now, but people thought he was our young, cool, liberal saviour too. And then there was Clinton - triangulator, deregulator of banks, begetter of NAFTA, the man who is at least partly responsible for the current economic mess. Have a look at this video of Clinton debating during his 1992 election campaign.
See how cool he looks compared to the hopeless Bush: see how he packages peoples' hopes and carries them on his shoulders. See how he 'connects'. He's brilliant (and better at it than Obama, incidentally). People had high hopes for him too.
A little more circumspection is in order. Obama is just a man. He's a fearsomely ambitious young politician who's never run anything, but whose timing is perfect and whose fortune is to represent a number of things that people seem to want, even though they may not have known it until now.
Let's not get carried away here, people. There's probably nothing to see.
Posted by Paul at 8:19 AM 
7 Comments
Well hold on. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of an Obama win - but it isn't because I think he has a lovely smile (although he does though doesn't he?).
Obama has a real voting record in the Senate - and it is a clearly left of centre one, earning him the place of "most liberal senator in the house".
But more than that we know, down the line, what Bush and McCain are for and there is an opportunity for the US to reject it. That's a really big deal.
If we're opposed, for instance, to an escalation of the war drive and an invasion/attack on Iran then an Obama victory is a real and meaningful step in that direction.
A US with an improved foreign policy (and I don't say perfect) would be something that should bring a smile to the faces of millions around the world.
I didn't say I wouldn't prefer Obama to McCain, Jim. Who wouldn't? What I was saying here was that if people start imagining Obama is going to make significant changes to what the USA is and represents, I think they're going to be disappointed.
Obama may be the most 'liberal' senator in the US, but in terms of British politics that would probably put him to the right of the Tories. Kudos to him for opposing Iraq, absolutely - but bear in mind he has also unilaterally suggested invading Pakistan.
He's starting from a low base - it's hard to see how US foreign policy could be worse, unless Palin was running it - so I've no doubt he'll make improvements. And yes, hurray for that. But the US is a very aggressive nation, with a lot of angry voters who like free gas and don't have passports. It has an enormous military and its political system is deeply infiltrated by the corporate sector. I don't see any one man, even one with a lovely smile, making much of a dent in this.
But hell, I could be wrong. In which case I will gladly buy you a pint.
"I didn't say I wouldn't prefer Obama to McCain, Jim. Who wouldn't?" Sure, I was trying to put emphasis on the point rather than imply you thought McCain would be the same - sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.
I do think the gap is pretty big between JM and BHO and Americans are getting a real choice in November, albeit from a very limited selection.
"in terms of British politics that would probably put him to the right of the Tories." actually I don't think that's true, although that's a position I'm fairly new to.
The left of the Democrats is leftwing in the sense that they are for progressive taxation, oppose wars, are pro-union and pro-gay marriage (to pick a few examples). That's not to the right of the Tories.
Obama is certainly to the left of Brown but is operating in different circumstances.
EG Brown is for further privatisation of the NHS and Obama is for ensuring all americans are covered by health ensurance. On one level you could say well Brown's policy involves a nationalised health service and obama's doesn't - but that would not account for the fact they've inherited those systems.
The key thing is what they want to do with them. Brown is for more market involvement and for openning things up to allow for greater inequality, Obama is for more state involvement and direct intervention to create more equality in one of the greatest sources of social injustice in the US. On health Obama is a hundred miles to Brown's left.
In other words (sorry, I'm going on a bit here) Obama wants to move the country and the Democrats to the left and Brown is consistently steering them to the right (although I'm sure he's happy for any leftist impressions that might be created through the latest interventions in the market meltdown).
I don;t think these comparisons can be stretched too far, Jim - the UK is very different to the US. Though I started it, of course.
But We should be clear. Obama is not on the left of the Democratic party - if he was, he wouldn't be their candidate, and he wouldn't be in the lead. He's a centrist.
This is evidenced by his policies. His health care plan, for example, will not give Americans universal coverage. He is not 'anti-war', just anti-Iraq (he supports the war on Afghanistan, for example). He's against gay marriage (which in any case is not a federal issue; and which I have to admit not caring much about anyway!)
In US terms, Obama is certainly on the left; but in international and historical terms, you'd have to be a pretty desperate lefty to imagine that this makes him anything other than a mainstream representative of corporate America and its hard-pressed and much-mentioned 'middle class'.
Well, that's a good point Paul.
My original left democrat bit (wars, unions, etc) wasn't intended to include Obama - but I've allowed a bit of slippage there which you're right to pull me up on.
Obama's manifesto says he's going to ensure every american is covered - you're not going to tell me that people lie in their manifestos are you!?! ... but it is what he's advocating.
I totally agree he's not anti-war - but he goes further than just being against Iraq. He taunts McCain on the "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" that he sang, he was much more diplomatic and sesible over Russia/Georgia and has consistently advocating opening up discussions with regimes like Iran, Cuba, N Korea and Venezuela - and has stuck to that even under pressure from first Clinton and then McCain.
He doesn't advocate a socialist foreign policy (why would he? He's not a socialist) but he does seem be introducing some sanity - which is important!
Yes, sure, he's not superman but I am worried when people imply there is nothing significant on the table here. There are reforms worth winning.
Ah, 'reforms worth winning'. Such are the scraps we are forced to snaffle from the table of global power.
But you're right, Jim, and I hope he wins. Nevertheless, I bet you a pint that within twelve months of his inauguration you are protesting on your blog about his foreign policy! :-)
Can I get my protests in now?
Specifically I expect to be angry at US policy towards Israel (despite a little glimmer of a hope that Obama might open up new possibilities that weren't there before by giving people like Carter their head) and Pakistan (where I expect a continuation of military strikes within their borders in the name of the Afghan war)
I also expect Obama not to be an angel towards Iran, Iraq and possibly some Africa interventions... but that his policies on all those fronts will be markedly better than if McCain gets in.
Better in the sense that many people who would have died will not.
Just thought it might be worth getting on record that the moment he steps out of line I've been proved wrong - I'm supporting Obama because I think he'll make the world better, not perfect.
