But a few words in Obama’s defense first. Whatever its flaws, his speech on race, as Jon Stewart put it, was a highly unusual attempt “to talk to the American people as if they were adults”. I thus do not agree with Adolph Reed’s cynical prognosis on what his election might mean on that subject. In its very spontaneity, Obama’s alleged “gaffe” about negotiating with our “enemies”
said something about a different perspective from his predecessors. I honestly think his election would, at least at the outset, present a different face (literally) to the rest of the world. I would not rule out the possibility that his multicultural background might actually influence his way of dealing with it. Finally, there is no way of definitively predicting what a new president will do, for either better or worse, and Doug’s own references to JFK and Clinton are a good example.
But beyond Obama’s own history and viewpoints, as any good Marxist knows, individual political leaders must act within the context of historical and political struggles going on around them. And that’s where the “end of some eras” comes in. The next president will have to deal with exactly the phenomena that Doug describes. In an atmosphere of a rising leftist tide, the decline of neoliberalism, a dissatisfied American working class, and waning US economic and military power, which way might President Obama go? I’m willing to put my money on the possibility—only some of it and just on the possibility—of a positive and innovative response on his behalf.
In that regard, the most important point Doug raised is one he relegated to a throwaway line: “And what of this post-partisan business? Politics is about conflicts over resources and priorities . . . however could comity prevail in a world where interests and preferences diverge so widely?” Exactly—which is why Obama’s nonideological stance is either disingenuous or truly naïve. In the changing world that Doug describes, however, he must either move with it, ignore it, or resist it. Who is to say he may not be forced to choose the first option, precisely because he has raised “the audacity of hope”? JFK is a very good example here—he didn’t live long enough to have to make that choice, but he would have had to, and for the same historical reasons.
None of this justifies the progressives’ ridiculous enthusiasm for the man. And I may still write in Eugene Debs, as I so often have before. But it would be foolish to close off the historical and political possibilities that might be presented by his election.
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