Writing this election day, a few hours before Obama's almost certain victory, I am sure that his election represents a great leap forward for America. Certainly, Obama's election represents the most significant advance, since the end of Jim Crow and the passage of the voting rights act, toward cleansing the moral stain from the body politic that is the continuing legacy of the system of chattel slavery -- in all its horror, brutality and injustice -- which was integral to the social and economic life of these United States for far too long, and which has continued to cast its long and dark shadow over American life ever since. Whatever else Obama accomplishes, if only on this one front, his election will have been of profound moral and historical significance.
Alas, as the contours of the ongoing economic crisis and of the Wall Street bailout have reminded us, there is more to what ails America today than our long and continuing legacy of racial injustice. Clearly, America also suffers from profound socio-economic injustice and from profound inequities of political power and influence that parallel these socio-economic inequities. On this front, that is, with regard to the moral imperative of socio-economic redistribution, I must admit that my sympathies are more with Nader than Obama, and my expectations for transformational leadership from Obama on the socio-economic and social-justice questions of the day are quite low, especially as he has surrounded himself with Wall Street plutocrats and establishment economists.
Ultimately, the solution to the problem of socio-economic inequity and injustice will not be solved until a new politics emerges on the ground. Indeed what America really needs in not so much a new President as a new politics. In Obama's early rhetoric (in Iowa) when he presented himself as the catalyst of something bigger than his own aspirations, he sounded this note, calling upon Americans to recommit themselves to an activist politics inspired by passion for the common good and the res publica. This note has not been sounded by him much since, and so it is an open question whether he (or anyone) will seek to build on the unprecedented levels of political interest and engagement which his campaign has engendered, and to transmute these publicly spirited energies into the genuinely participatory politics which could genuinely transform this country. Obama has certainly tapped into the collective hope for a very different kind of America, but how interested will he be in creating new channels of political expression and deliberation that look beyond the goal of his own election and reelection, and which look toward a revived polity and renewed civic life, when these new channels are likely to generate political ferment and moral demands for socio-economic change which will pose a challenge to the moderate and prudent course that no-drama Obama and his team are intent upon. Time will tell.
All this being said, voting for Obama was not a hard choice for me, mainly because I saw it as an important step -- not the last step and not the only step -- along the road to rectifying the legacy of America's primal sin of slavery. And while I hope for the best from an Obama presidency, and expect to be disappointed, I have no doubts about the intrinsic historical and moral significance of his being elected to the highest office in the land by the people of the United States, and that is enough to make today a day of profound importance and makes me proud to have been part of it by voting for Obama's election. And, with that said, now it is time to turn our attention to fight against those with a vested interest in the socio-economic status quo and to fight on behalf of creating the organs of a vitalized and active democratic body politic.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
To a Republican Friend Regarding the Choice of McCain or Obama
A note to a Republican friend in response to his reflections on whether to support Obama or McCain
Dear friend,
Some would say the bottom line is all that matters, the answer to the question who are you going to vote for. But with you, I would agree that the reasoning is important. From your note it is clear that in the main your vote for Obama is a vote of no-confidence for McCain in the face of campaign decisions that give you grave doubt as to what kind of president he would prove to be. His decision to choose Palin, his uncertainty and flailing about in the face of the deepening financial crisis, his low-road campaign tactics and penchant for mind-numbing slogans instead of offering analytic formulations which suggest a grasp of the problems facing America, all are good reasons to not vote for McCain. It is also disturbing that McCain's entire campaign has been about tarring and feathering his opponent and not at all about the structural challenges that America faces at home and abroad. If McCain does have a broad strategic and systematic vision of the problems facing America today, his inability to express this vision is disturbing, for if he cannot express it there is reason to doubt that he will be able to approach the problems that arise in a holistic manner and make cogent judgments grounded in such a macro-level understanding or valid world-view.
All of this being said, your doubts about McCain hardly add up to a strong case for Obama, and I can understand your uncertainty on this score. His resume is short, his mettle untested, his ability to make the tough calls uncertain. The one thing we know about him is that he is smart, reflective, systematic in his approach to problems, and able to bring all relevant parties to the table in order to hear from all sides before making a decision. These are all good habits of mind, which suggest a prudent pragmatic orientation, which suggest an orientation that should be relatively capable of dealing with whatever comes across the transom. These habits of mind, are, moreover, the very ones which have been strikingly absent on McCain's part.
Do we know enough about Obama's inner convictions or political principles? No. With a short resume put together almost in its entirety while he had his eyes on the presidency, pragmatic opportunism is clearly his strongest suit -- though that is not necessarily a bad quality in the case of a president who is likely to govern with an eye to his reelection and legacy. In your note I hear your concern about where he really stands regarding economic questions. So far, I am struck by his refusal to demagogue on these questions. Surrounded by an advisory corps drawn almost entirely from Wall Street and/or the Clinton economic team, his tone has been moderate, cautious. If he is ready to declare himself a tribune of Main Street and the Middle Class, he has been unwilling to play the radical populist card or to steal a card from Nader's playbook and declare himself to be the tribune of the people. I think he will follow the Clinton model, offering a pro-middle class political rhetoric while advancing policies that receive the imprimatur of the financial elites. Whether this policy course will be up to the challenges of the times is another question, but it will be a moderate approach which his very well-heeled corporate supporters are comfortable with.
In foreign policy, while again his record is short and his true convictions are unknown, all signs are that he will follow a relatively centrist policy line, a consensus position that hews to the editorial line of Council of Foreign Affairs. While he has said a few things that suggest naivete and leftist instincts, I sense that his pragmatism and his relative inexperience in this area will also lead him to craft establishment approved policies, perhaps with a slight leftward tilt.
My bottom line, and I sense it is yours as well, is that McCain has not shown himself to be up to the task of meeting the challenges of the tough times ahead. His judgment calls during the campaign, while hardly a great indicator of how he would govern, suggest an imprudence and lack of reflective capacity that do not augur well. Obama's approach to the campaign, and especially since winning the nomination at which point his campaign operations took on something of the quality of a shadow government, do suggest a reflective and systematic approach to dealing with problems that could only serve him well when it comes to government policy formulation -- at least when there is enough time to approach these things systematically, Of course, therein lies the greatest unknown: how will Obama respond when there isn't time enough to proceed systematically? What kind of decisions will he make when he must trust his gut and go on imperfect information? We have no way of knowing the answer -- and a career in legislative office is not really a good indicator either. And while we do know more about McCain's instincts in this regard, the verdict in this regard is mixed, and we know that he errs frequently by making snap decisions in cases where in fact there was time enough for deliberation and thorough consideration of all the options and all the implications. Obama may end up failing by erring in the opposite direction, but I would rather place my bet (and it is only a bet) on his deliberate and pragmatic approach to problems since I think more of the problems that will face the next president are of the kind that are amenable to such an approach.
Time will tell.
Dear friend,
Some would say the bottom line is all that matters, the answer to the question who are you going to vote for. But with you, I would agree that the reasoning is important. From your note it is clear that in the main your vote for Obama is a vote of no-confidence for McCain in the face of campaign decisions that give you grave doubt as to what kind of president he would prove to be. His decision to choose Palin, his uncertainty and flailing about in the face of the deepening financial crisis, his low-road campaign tactics and penchant for mind-numbing slogans instead of offering analytic formulations which suggest a grasp of the problems facing America, all are good reasons to not vote for McCain. It is also disturbing that McCain's entire campaign has been about tarring and feathering his opponent and not at all about the structural challenges that America faces at home and abroad. If McCain does have a broad strategic and systematic vision of the problems facing America today, his inability to express this vision is disturbing, for if he cannot express it there is reason to doubt that he will be able to approach the problems that arise in a holistic manner and make cogent judgments grounded in such a macro-level understanding or valid world-view.
All of this being said, your doubts about McCain hardly add up to a strong case for Obama, and I can understand your uncertainty on this score. His resume is short, his mettle untested, his ability to make the tough calls uncertain. The one thing we know about him is that he is smart, reflective, systematic in his approach to problems, and able to bring all relevant parties to the table in order to hear from all sides before making a decision. These are all good habits of mind, which suggest a prudent pragmatic orientation, which suggest an orientation that should be relatively capable of dealing with whatever comes across the transom. These habits of mind, are, moreover, the very ones which have been strikingly absent on McCain's part.
Do we know enough about Obama's inner convictions or political principles? No. With a short resume put together almost in its entirety while he had his eyes on the presidency, pragmatic opportunism is clearly his strongest suit -- though that is not necessarily a bad quality in the case of a president who is likely to govern with an eye to his reelection and legacy. In your note I hear your concern about where he really stands regarding economic questions. So far, I am struck by his refusal to demagogue on these questions. Surrounded by an advisory corps drawn almost entirely from Wall Street and/or the Clinton economic team, his tone has been moderate, cautious. If he is ready to declare himself a tribune of Main Street and the Middle Class, he has been unwilling to play the radical populist card or to steal a card from Nader's playbook and declare himself to be the tribune of the people. I think he will follow the Clinton model, offering a pro-middle class political rhetoric while advancing policies that receive the imprimatur of the financial elites. Whether this policy course will be up to the challenges of the times is another question, but it will be a moderate approach which his very well-heeled corporate supporters are comfortable with.
In foreign policy, while again his record is short and his true convictions are unknown, all signs are that he will follow a relatively centrist policy line, a consensus position that hews to the editorial line of Council of Foreign Affairs. While he has said a few things that suggest naivete and leftist instincts, I sense that his pragmatism and his relative inexperience in this area will also lead him to craft establishment approved policies, perhaps with a slight leftward tilt.
My bottom line, and I sense it is yours as well, is that McCain has not shown himself to be up to the task of meeting the challenges of the tough times ahead. His judgment calls during the campaign, while hardly a great indicator of how he would govern, suggest an imprudence and lack of reflective capacity that do not augur well. Obama's approach to the campaign, and especially since winning the nomination at which point his campaign operations took on something of the quality of a shadow government, do suggest a reflective and systematic approach to dealing with problems that could only serve him well when it comes to government policy formulation -- at least when there is enough time to approach these things systematically, Of course, therein lies the greatest unknown: how will Obama respond when there isn't time enough to proceed systematically? What kind of decisions will he make when he must trust his gut and go on imperfect information? We have no way of knowing the answer -- and a career in legislative office is not really a good indicator either. And while we do know more about McCain's instincts in this regard, the verdict in this regard is mixed, and we know that he errs frequently by making snap decisions in cases where in fact there was time enough for deliberation and thorough consideration of all the options and all the implications. Obama may end up failing by erring in the opposite direction, but I would rather place my bet (and it is only a bet) on his deliberate and pragmatic approach to problems since I think more of the problems that will face the next president are of the kind that are amenable to such an approach.
Time will tell.
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