Much already has been made on the internets about Barack Obama’s appearance today on Fox.
I don’t have much of an opinion as to whether this was a smart or dumb move strategically. But it strikes me that the debate about it is a proxy war of sorts. It both illuminates and distracts from larger issues that are of considerable importance. In particular, I think it exposes the ways he seems reluctant to express the very real, righteous anger at the Bush Administration that one sees expressed here at Daily Kos (and in the liberal blogosphere more generally).
One of Obama’s strengths is his ability to articulate and mirror back to Americans what they are feeling at this particular moment in our history. Presidential candidates always serve this role to a greater or lesser degree. (Think Andrew Jackson or John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan.) But to many – especially young people – he represents a new America. It’s an America many of us are already living in – diverse, high tech, future-oriented, dynamic, globalized, and practical (in a modern sense of that word, not the homespun sense). In this context our politics seemed mired in some crypto-past. It seems more of a morality play than a practical answer to genuine human problems.
While this mood is embodied most directly by upper middle class latte-sipping urbanites, the truth is, it extends more deeply into America than many – especially our press -- realize. I mean this literally – I’ve sipped espresso drinks in Laramie, WY and eaten arugula in Cleveland, MS. But it’s true figuratively as well, embodied in the form of rancher environmentalists in Montana and high tech farmers in Nebraska. It dominates the spirit of certain geographic spaces like the Research Triangle in NC, the increasingly diverse northern suburbs of VA, even the rolling exurbs of Tucson, AZ and Post Falls, ID.
Obama is so good at feeling our moment that he feels and is able to explain our anger and our resentments with a refreshing honesty and accuracy. Nowhere was this as plain as in his speech on race. He was able to take the caricatured media orgy about Reverend Wright and explain to us the very real resentments that many Americans both black and white actually feel towards each other. This also, I think, was the motive behind the “bitter” remark. He articulated a very real resentment that some Americans feel about the decline of many of our rural spaces. At these moments Obama is signaling that he understands us not just as tribal beings, not just as paradigms or characters in a morality play, but as real psychological beings with complex, messy and sometimes destructive feelings.
Strategically whether this was a good move or not is another matter. Some truths are painful to hear. Some Americans not want to or be ready to hear truth laid this bare. But uncovering these truths – the partially hidden and often misdirected anger and resentments that we have towards each other -- seems like one of Obama’s gifts. Whether our politics can handle it is another matter.
Perhaps that is what motivated him to appear on Fox today. Perhaps he wants to try to begin a dialogue, even with Fox viewers, to show them that, on some deep level, he knows them too. But that’s not what I want to address.
I think the reason many in the so-called liberal blogosphere – myself included – were instinctually so angry at his appearance on Fox today was a feeling that he has come to know everyone’s anger except ours. (I say this as a full-on Obama supporter. He has my vote. Period.) Many of us don’t just disagree with Bush administration policies, we feel like our country has been taken from us. Without repeating the full litany – the war, torture, habeas corpus, the Fourth Amendment, America’s standing in the world – these are not minor differences of opinion. And my anger extends to the press – from its war cheerleading to flag lapel pins to its ongoing depiction of Obama himself as elitist and effete and radical and brown and scary. If he gets Americans and our moment in history in so many other ways, why can’t he see my anger? And why won’t he validate it?
I am ultimately of the view – that Digby expresses frequently – that the broader forces at play will make it hard for Obama to lose this election. In that sense, I’m not sure many of the strategic fine points matter so much. But whether this election is merely a win or a landslide for Obama (and just as importantly for our House and Senate majorities) may go a long way towards determining whether, in retrospect, the Bush presidency is seen as a precedent for the future or whether it is seen (like Nixon’s or Hoover’s) as fully repudiated. An electoral repudiation could serve many of the same purposes as an impeachment would have: it is a way of saying what happened here was wrong.
Just as critically, the language Obama uses now will determine how much space he has politically once he is elected. If he doesn’t embrace some of our progressive anger, the capital he has to remedy some of Bush’s worst policies will be limited.
I would close by saying this. I think giving voice to progressive anger would actually be a political winner for Obama. I think a lot of Americans are ashamed that we torture. A lot of Americans feel ashamed that we hold prisoners without trial. A lot of Americans feel violated that our government listens to our phone calls and reads our emails without a warrant. And as the popular response to that ridiculous debate in Philly shows, Americans are sick of the vapidity of our press. Really sick of it. We want our country back. Couched in the right ways, Obama could express a righteous anger that I believe is every bit as present on the Great Plains and in the Rockies as it is here in my Manhattan living room.