In the concluding line of the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln voiced the most eloquent and compact statement of the meaning of the American experiment in Democracy:
... we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
All Americans and proponents of Democracy are familiar with those words. The problems we periodically confront in our continuing struggle to perfect our Democracy is one that centers on the very definition of the word People as Lincoln voiced above. It centers on the struggle of inclusion against the tyranny of exclusion.
To Conservatives "the People" means "the Powerful". To them Lincoln's "Government of the People, By the People, For the People" means:
Government of the Powerful, By the Powerful, for the Powerful
Conservatives
For Conservatives, Lincoln's word "People" means their kind of people, those with Economic power, the winners in the ongoing capitalist contest, the well-heeled, old money, and those with family connections to money and business power. Conservatives like the status quo where they have power and money and where their children are likelier to do well since they have structural advantages which they can pass on. Conservatives justify their position from a moral perspective with their belief that power is earned and their erroneous belief that each of us has an equal chance in a free society to acquire that power.
Liberals
For most Liberals, the People means everyday people, originally mostly farmers but now generally factory workers, service industry workers, business owners, even all of us poor and rich alike with everyone in between.
The problem we currently face is that the Leadership among Liberals and the Democratic party no longer uniformly believes this. There is a disconnect between the beliefs of everyday liberals and many leaders in the Democratic Party which bears the liberal standard. To understand this disconnect we must first examine how power invests in the Democratic Party and how this develops over time.
The Roots of Power
Liberal power comes from the concentration of the power of weak individuals. Periodically when those in Power on the right go too far, this liberal power voices its discontent in social movements, often with revolution and upheaval, sometimes with violent result. Power on the Left has always come from a struggle rooted in the anguish, suffering, and discontent of those who are not in power: the weak. Democratic power derives from the collection and concentration of weak forces. For this reason, Liberal power requires leaders to do the collecting and concentrating.
The important factor here is that the preservation of power in the Right does not require leadership. Those in the Right already have power and need only to use it to preserve their power in self interest. Money is the currency of power and is readily convertible in the lobbyist-dominated Beltway.
The Rich know how to manipulate the system to their ends as that is a skill which they acquired in their ascent to wealth. It is also a skill that the Right teaches their children, and one which is effective at the individual level. One rich white man or even one rich black woman has power in isolation. Conservative power does not require collection and concentration and for that reason it does not require leadership.
Historical Attenuation of Power
Liberal power derives from the pent-up anger of the times and its leaders come from those who are able to organize, collect, and motivate the weak to take up arms against their oppressors. The great 20th-century leaders, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandel were able to conquer much stronger forces by advocating non-violent revolution – in Mandela's case only towards the end of his life. The courage of the Indians and American and African blacks in the face of the stronger British, American whites, and Africaaners instilled sympathy in the people of moderate power. This sympathy undercut the Conservative power base and added to the power of the cause of equality thereby giving it decisive advantage.
Over time, as the strong original leaders of movements have died, and after initial gains have abated the anger which drove their respective revolutions, the Liberal cause was always left with the hierarchy devoid of its human force of power. This is why change occurs in cycles. Those who rose to positions of power and influence on the backs of human suffering often get caught up in their own power and the preservation of that power which is no longer predicated on achievement but rather on continued consolidation of groups.
We can see this in the U.S. Labor Movement and in the Civil Rights movement. Many Labor leaders and Civil Rights leaders have come to view their own positions as caring patrons doling out benefits to their subjects. Their power derives from their historical role as participants in a battle long ago won rather than the continued struggle for improvement. Meanwhile union membership has dropped and Civil Rights left the fore of American debate even while conditions for the typical worker and typical black family has not improved substantially. As leaders have focused more on maintaining power rather than advancing the cause of their members, the power of the movements they represent has attenuated and dissipated.
Our Current Race
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic perspective she represents are the dying vestiges of Democratic power which originated in the social policies of FDR in the 30s and peaked with John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson in the 60s. That perspective is elitist in nature. In some respects it represents: "Government of the Powerful, By the Powerful, for the People." It has the right ostensible goal but it no longer satisfies because of its condescending tenet: "We know what's best for you."
As Andrew Sullivan said yesterday:
It's "Yes, We Can," vs "I'll Take Care Of You."
And that's why a simplistic Obama-is-a-leftist critique won't work as well as some seem to think. He's a liberal, but a reconstructed one. He's the kind of liberal who sees dependency as a problem not a solution. And he's not a statist in the way previous liberal generations have been. He actually listened to and absorbed some of the conservative critique of liberalism these past two decades. And he has changed not just to protect his right flank.
The world has changed since the times of FDR and the Civil Rights movement of the 60s. In that time, "The People" were considered too ignorant and uneducated to handle power, they needed elite advocates to further their cause. Many of the political leaders viewed themselves as of a different class than the poor and oppressed they cared for. They saw their role as caretakers and trustees of power much like the better kings and aristocrats of old.
Our time is different. The world is connected. All of us everywhere demand the dignity and respect once only accorded to those who were well-bred and well-educated.
A politics which recognizes the freedom and dignity of the each of us as individuals is the only one that will satisfy. We must move towards the completion of Jefferson, Lincoln, and King's dream of inclusion: "Government of the People as Individuals, by the People as Individuals and for the People as Individuals."
I support Barack Obama because – like Andrew Sullivan – I believe he shares this vision of an inclusive Democracy. One where none of us is more important than the other. One where it matters if a single child suffers from hunger, or one young woman has her dreams dashed because of poor schooling, or a single Iraqi is killed because of our misguided foreign policy. One where "all God's children" will be able to sing "Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last" because each of us are cared for and fed and educated and mentored and allowed to pursue our respective dreams equally.