For Obama supporters as well as the critics who call him excessively committed to bipartisanship or think his speeches lack substance on policy, here's an argument you've yet to hear, one that casts new light on Obama's message and his views.
We should look at the genesis of Obama's ideas about government and society, as well as his rhetoric to get a better handle on what he represents. For all the comparisons made between Obama and Bobby Kennedy, his speeches and his ideas are most similar to work of Roberto Unger, a professor and adviser to the Brazilian government who was Obama's mentor during his time at Harvard Law. Here's a great example of his writing: "What Should The Left Propose?".
I took two courses with Unger in college. When I learned about his connection to Obama, I realized that Obama's message, proposals and purpose are more innovative and revolutionary than even his most ardent supporters assume. Here's why (after the break):
Obama's agenda and his speeches that allegedly lack substance look a lot more meaty and more ambitious when you're familiar with Roberto Unger's critique of the modern left. Unger makes a compelling (at least in my opinion) case for the failures of the left over the last 25 odd years and a plan to revitalize it. I increasingly think Obama's message is at least partially a direct attempt to fix the problems Unger identifies. And since Unger's critique is unconventional, it's hard for people to appreciate the broader implications of the goals Obama lays out in his stump speech. I think Obama doesn't spend much time talking about Unger's work, even though rhetorically they're quite similar, because it's too academic and esoteric.
But let me try to explain some of Unger's big themes because they shed some light on what Obama's trying to accomplish.
Unger's books and articles on the left address what he calls "the dictatorship of no alternatives." He means that while the left has certainly produced many new policy ideas in recent history, we've failed to develop a new political worldview, or a systematic argument, that ties our policies together as part of a political common cause, a cause that's more specific than core beliefs in equality, fairness or progress. Old fashioned socialism was one such worldview, but it's been discredited. So Unger argues that leftist politicians throughout the world, both those of the far left and third way types like Bill Clinton, adopted the position of the right (we accept that markets are great, we're resigned to a mostly laissez-faire system) as the inevitable course of progress and added some social programs to make it nicer.
As Unger sees things, the modern left lacks a common purpose ambitious enough to pull together a popular majority that can implement our specific policies (along with the cohesive broader agenda we've yet to develop). In America Democratic politicians offer voters very little: promises to protect popular progressive accomplishments from the past, and small-scale efforts to soften the negative consequences of unrestrained capitalism with tax credits and social programs. These goals are all worthy, but they attempt only to soften the consequences of a political and economic system that has left most Americans feeling disenfranchised and powerless when it comes to taking control of their futures.
Socialism offered something bigger--maybe too big--a total transformation of society and human life. The contemporary right also has a bigger purpose, to remove impediments to the free market so the power of American hard-work, ingenuity and free enterprise will create prosperity, and just as important, using the government to turn back the clock on our culture by sixty or seventy years. These goals may be silly, they may be horrible, but they aim a lot higher than we do. The bigger purpose of the Republicans has let them beat us even though far more people approve of our policies than approve of theirs. It's why they're a lot more vicious about the culture war than we are. In comparison, we usually justify our policies because they're fair, just, because they help the deserving, or they right a wrong. These aren't bad reasons, but neither do they connect to a broader collective purpose that creates a new future, one that's not just more fair, but beyond that offers more opportunities for people to give their lives meaning.
How does this relate to Obama? I think it forces us to look at his rhetoric about coming together and working for a common cause--stuff that many here have rejected as Liebermanesque bipartisanship for it's own sake--differently. He knows Unger's stuff, and while I don't know if they're close now, he's certainly familiar with it. When he talks about bringing America together, he doesn't mean compromising with Republican officials, he means stealing their voters with a cause that's larger than any particular policy and makes people feel like they're part of something important.
That common cause isn't as developed as I'd like, but you can see it in his Iowa speech:
You did this -- you did this because you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.
Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.
This isn't just fluff, it's part of a coherent political perspective where connecting our policies to a broader agenda that promises to enlarge people's lives is the key to engaging voters and enacting our policies.
I'm hardly the first person to say Obama's campaign is about empowering regular people, but empowerment doesn't capture the scope of what he's doing. He's changed the rationale for Democratic policies. No longer are we simply trying to right wrongs or make the world a better place. Now we're engaged in a collective struggle to fulfill the american dream and take control of our destiny.
These aren't just word, they're not just a new frame, this is Obama solving part of the problem highlighted by Unger. Obama isn't arguing that we should try to patch up the injustices of a system that can't really be changed. He's turned the democratic platform into a set of policies worth pursuing not just for their own sake, but also because they further our broader mission to collectively strive against adversity, to beat problems and not just political opponents.
I think he can and should do more to flesh out his big picture mission that ties everything together. But his fluffy rhetoric will give every democrat a tool they can use to stop fearing the right and start effectively attacking them. They say Edwards is the most pugnacious of the candidates, but I'd call Obama the best armed. If we can call out Republicans for opposing or even just not participating in the great struggle to fulfill the American dream by fighting against the problems of our time collectively, that's much more effective than saying their proposals will hurt this or that group of people or won't do what they're supposed to do.
When they call us weak on terrorism or defense, instead of listing our positions and explaining why they're better than republican ones (notice,"weak on terrorism" is a big picture point about protecting the fatherland, trying to debunk it with facts, while correct, doesn't operate on the same level) or siding with the right out of fear, we can say, "No, you're weak on defense, I'm fighting against the greatest threats to this country every day. Until the Republicans join the fight against global warming, shoddy healthcare, and nuclear proliferation, the great tests of our time that threaten more lives than a bunch of nutty and poorly armed terrorists living 7,000 miles away, until they join the real fight they're turning their back on this country and their sacred duty to protect American lives." We could do that now, but we don't.
I think for most politicians making an argument tied to even a thinly developed theme doesn't even occur to them. They try to talk about what they stand for one policy at a time and using facts that lack the power of one argument, one message tying every policy to a goal that's more important, more compelling, and resonates with more people.
Maybe a lot of you saw this on your own, but it didn't occur to me until I connected Obama's rhetoric with the ideas of his old teacher. In this context at least, those words have substance. The message isn't "hope," or "change," those are just buzz words. It's that our purpose is to struggle against and overcome the problems of our time, and while those problems are usually cast as left-wing concerns, taken together they're the common cause of all Americans. He's not running against the other candidates, he's running against abstract forces holding us back.
I don't think that makes him a cipher. His policies are all plenty liberal, but he's not selling policies--a real loser for us politically in the past--he's selling a view of the world that let's the left be just as proud of america, not just american principles or our rights, but the country as it is right now along with everyone in it, proud in the same way the republicans are, nationalistic even, but in a non-xenophobic way. Their are aspects of this country that many democrats clearly hate, but the Republicans have decided to simply exclude the stuff they despise from their vision of the country, which for the last 27 years has been the dominant one. Now Obama's done the same: America is defined by our constant common struggle against adversity and the belief in our ability to change it. You can sell that to anyone.
This guy understands politics differently, and I think his perspective is superior to most others.