Shag reported:
"What makes Obama different from other candidates is that he asks people to do the heavy lifting."
"They were, just like me, there for the experience-event and had no interest in being 'political' or getting involved. It was a show."
I say:
Thanks for the diary.
In certain left-liberal circles -- circles chock-full of those wizened enough to be critical about Obama's centrist establishment backers, advisers, and platform -- it has long been understood that the latent potential of Obama's campaign/election is its mobilization of new voters (especially the young and "people of color"), its raising of heightened expectations, and its generation of democratic (small "D") energies. What's interesting and ironic is that it actually represents the signal triumph of celebrity worship and passive spectacle; it proves just how culturally hegemonic these forces are across the political spectrum. Certainly the motifs, symbols, and traits offered up by the Obama extravaganza are appealing, especially given how disingenuous and noxious are those offered by the putative opposition. In fact the contrast is so sharp it's difficult for the most hard-boiled skeptic to resist getting caught up in the whole contagion. I mean, what reasonable and feeling person would not find Michelle Obama's appearance on The Tonight Show highly compelling, and begin to revel in the looming prospect of the first black First Family? And who cannot avoid being touched by the fact that so many others are similarly touched? But Murray Bookchin would weep... the "everyone can be a spin doctor" levelling of the Web 2.0 era is the polar opposite of democratic revitalization, not its realization.
Of course, Adolph Reed, Doug Henwood, and others have argued this for quite some time. What makes the observation seem new and fresh is the way in which skepticism has ineluctably melted away in the face of McCain-Palin's intensifying awfulness, and in giddy anticipation of the coronation of an African-American president and the historic gravity on such an event.
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