In July of 2004, a relatively young man named Barack Obama shook up the DNC with a new message: a call to overcome the artificial partisanship of the Bush years and look again towards the shared values we have as Americans, which was confidently articulated as center- left ("with just a small shift in priorities"). It was a call for patriotism through good feelings and inclusiveness.
And for a brief moment-- in late 2007, and early 2008, this call seemed to be spreading like a wildfire across the nation. It was like magic. But somewhere, somehow, the magic was lost. The dream died. Hope faded. When? How? And what went wrong?
Looking back, at what a conventional politician Obama has become, it is fair to question whether there was a "there" at all, whether Obama ever really was truly revolutionary.
For example, a key part of Obama's message was this:
We are up against the belief that it's ok for lobbyists to dominate our government - that they are just part of the system in Washington. But we know that the undue influence of lobbyists is part of the problem, and this election is our chance to say that we're not going to let them stand in our way anymore.
Obama was right of course-- the undue influence of lobbyists is part of the problem. But Obama never had any plan-- and given the weakness in effort, one can only conclude, never any serious intention-- of fundamentally overturning the system in Washington.
And then this:
We are up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as President comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose - a higher purpose.
This paragraph is essentially a promise to "govern from the outside". And it often works well on the campaign trail-- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all campaigned as "outsiders". By the time Obama said the above words in January 2008, all of them had been discredited. Yet in the heat of the moment, in the heat of the energy Obama's campaign was building up, his words seemed deceptively credible. What was missing was a plan of how exactly he would govern from the outside, when it is Congress that is needed to pass legislation.
In the promise of "a higher purpose", is also a promise to elevate the debate. Again, there is no plan in exactly how this was going to happen.
And more on "a higher purpose"
We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner; it's the kind of partisanship where you're not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea - even if it's one you never agreed with. That kind of politics is bad for our party, it's bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.
This paragraph is a promise of bipartisanship-- a promise that has failed to play out. The problem Obama talks of here is more dire than ever, as polarization in 2009 (undoubtedly egged on by the recession and changes in the newsmedia industry) reached all time highs not seen even under Bush.
And finally,
We are up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics; this is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.
This paragraph is really quite amazing, looking at it 24 months later. Virtually all of Obama's broad, thematic promises before reaching this paragraph -- promise to shut out lobbyists, promise to govern from the outside, promise to end partisanship -- have spectacularly failed, and spectacularly failed due in no small part to lack of effort on the part of Obama after he won his election. He promised all these things. He never showed any determination to deliver. Yet here he is-- telling us that "We are up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election." The word Orwellian is overused, but it does come to mind.
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In retrospect, it's clear that Obama was doing exactly the thing he railed against: saying anything that his speechwriters handed to him to win an election. He won by engaging in precisely the kind of politics he campaigned against. The mistake of Hillary Clinton was in being too honest. She ran a dirty campaign, but it wasn't dirty enough. It wasn't dirty enough to present itself as revolutionary; Hillary had moments of honesty about how she really felt-- like when she said "lobbyists are people too," kind of defending lobbyists. Obama felt the same way, but he was smart enough to run against it.
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If you're reading this diary, it's likely that you, like me, want a truly revolutionary Progressive candidate. You still believe in all the things Obama talked about, even if you're probably at least a little disappointed in Obama himself. You still want honesty. You still think that the President should govern from Main Street and not Washington. You still think that lobbyist influence is one of the biggest problems in government today. You still believe in political engagement rather than cynical detachment.
Unfortunately, Obama's co-opting of all of these themes for his campaign have done immense damage to the idealism of the people, particularly Progressives. Ironically, it has done damage to everything that Obama stood for, because those who believed in him most are precisely the ones who feel it the most when he lets us down.
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If you're wondering how to get real change, and feeling hopeless or down, I just wanted to say that there is a way that real change can happen and I am about to tell you:
Change happens in response to events. It is that simple. The key to understanding politics is in understanding history. Technology changes, the faces change, but human nature never changes. That is why history is valuable. History would have told you that Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all campaigned as outsiders promising to clean up Washington, and they all failed because while it makes for a great campaign slogan (and people seem to fall for it every time), Washington is the way it is for a reason. Unless you have real momentum behind you-- historic momentum (which means more than just an election win) then you won't change the way Washington works.
How can you tell when someone has historic momentum?
It is in response to events. The more dramatic the event, the more change can potentially come of it-- change good or bad, depending on your perspective. Not all change is good. The long term consequences of the 1917 Russian Revolution might serve as one example of a bad change. That revolution arose in response to a very dramatic change: the conscription of millions of Russians to fight in a losing war which seemed to have no end. The "dramatic event" was World War I. The "change" was the Russian Revolution. The "transformative figure" was V.I. Lenin.
Transformative figures arise in response to dramatic events. Because they are responding to these dramatic events, the events propel that transformative figure into power.
Obama was not a transformative figure because he did not arise in response to dramatic events. He arose in response to real problems in American society: political polarization, race, political cynicism. But these are long-standing issues and problems, and the fact that they have persisted as problems for so long suggests that society is willing to tolerate them. Obama arose in the mid-2000s (2004-2008) when things, at least on the surface, seemed stable in American society. In this stable environment he created his political persona. Therefore, his political persona was suited to the environment of 2004-2008, and he would be more successful today if that environment had persisted.
Instead, two real dramatic events occurred in the past decade: 9/11 and the 2007-09 financial crisis. Of these, I argue that the latter will prove even more important in the long run. These two events upset the balance of American society and of international relations. Because of this, it doesn't require a political figure to overcome the status quo, the status quo has already been destroyed. The only question is what will replace it. And this is the raison d'etre of the overwhelming majority of the most transformative figures in history, including US Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and Ronald Reagan.
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To repeat, the point of this diary is that change can happen, but it happens in response to events, not political campaigns. The magic of dramatic events is that they do the job of destroying the status quo for you. All you need to do is to figure out what will replace it. To get real change, you have to harness an event: that is, to exploit it to establish a new direction that you want to go. That means, in part, a battle of intepretations of the cause of the event, and the effectiveness of potential solutions.