Fit To Print

Black is the New President

April 13th, 2008

I remember watching a scene from the epically forgettable First Knight where some guy asks Lancelot (Richard Gere) how to be a great fighter, after witnessing Lancelot do some amazing crap with his sword. Lancelot replies, “You must not care whether you live or die.” This seems to fall under the category of bold proclamations that sound intense, but don’t fare well under closer scrutiny.

Complete indifference to one’s fate doesn’t seem like the recipe for a successful sword fighting career. However, as a more general point, successful risk-taking does involve either conquering one’s fears, or at least refusing to let them dictate one’s actions.

Unfortunately, Democrats either never learned or forgot this message. They let their fear of losing elections and being called mean names by Republicans control what they say and how they govern. We’re playing a game so rigged that telling the truth is seen as politically damaging.

So then there’s this Obama guy, who’s trying to shift the paradigm a bit. He’s not completely honest (I am pretty sure he’d be for single-payer healthcare if it were more politically viable), but he has found a nice space to occupy where he says the essence of what he believes, and if some details aren’t fleshed out, or are rearranged a bit, oh well. There are very few politicians who even attempt this, and none who can connect with voters like Obama can.

Now he’s in trouble for telling some Democrats at a San Francisco fundraiser that:

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

He’s saying anger over bad governance is sometimes taken out on the wrong people. I suppose there is some arrogance (as the absolutely brilliant Glenn Loury has pointed out) to saying this is why people do what people do. Or this is what people should do. In fact, it takes a certain amount of arrogance to say I’m the best person to run the country. But that’s what leaders do. They look at what’s wrong, try and assess the problem, and then try and fix it.

Obama isn’t saying Midwesterners are dumb and petty, he’s not saying the only reason they like guns and the Bible is because they are angry and bitter, and he’s not saying they are to blame for what has happened. Nevertheless, Clinton called him condescending and then went on to say some of the most condescending shit I have heard in my life, talking about how when she tours Pennsylvania, she sees optimistic people, rolling up their sleeves ready to tackle the problems this country faces. McCain called Obama out of touch.

62 million people voted for George Bush in 2004. George Bush has not taken good care of the country. Is it condescending to point out that we need to find a way to convince people not to vote for any more George Bushes? I think condescending would be to refuse to admit that the American people are anything but perfect in all things, which seems to be the only appropriate way for politicians to address the electorate, these days.

Things is, by being honest about America’s imperfections, Obama gains a lot of credibility on his plan for the future and his appreciation of the American people. You don’t become a community organizer because you think people need to be talked down to, you become a community organizer because you have faith that with information and support you can help empower them.

Comments like the ones he made in SF will undoubtedly hurt his chances of becoming elected. As will his association with Reverend Wright. As will the fact that despite this heavily publicized crap about Obama’s Christian pastor, a good chunk of the electorate still think he’s a Muslim. This, “smart” critics say, is the continued raison d’être of Hillary’s candidacy. Obama has made himself unelectable, and Democrats must rally around her to stop four years of McCain.

Which brings us back to Richard Gere. If there weren’t a Reverend Wright, Republicans would focus on how black Michelle Obama is, or some other bullshit story. Loud conservatives will always lie and exaggerate and frightened Democrats will always rush to choose a less offensive candidate. Scared politics hasn’t worked out so well for us, so let’s ditch the fight-or-flight response.

Entry Filed under: Politics