Barack Obama And The Enigma Variations

I have to say the last few days have been a fascinating unraveling of the left; it's one thing to expect people to be dismayed at the way the tax cut story devolved, but another entirely to see Obama's remaining base more or less fall apart.

I don't think dwelling on the "Bush Tax Cut" story just now is worth the time; we'll see if "the deal" that was negotiated succeeds or not (my hunch is that Democratic fears of retribution for ending the Bush rates will trump the outrage), but I think the lasting effect of this week's events is to bring into the open the two realities that will define lefty politics in the comingmonths: the reality that Democrats lost in November in a significant way, and that tensions within the left are making it impossible to move forward towards a shared goal.

Lots of people are recasting familiar arguments about a two way divide in the left - "realists" or "pragmatists" versus "idealists" or "hardcore lefties", that sort of thing - but I think the divide is in threes and not about ideology per se. I think the three way divide comes down to this:

1. the vast number of Hillary Clinton supporters who never particularly came around to supporting Barack Obama.
2. the Clinton supporters and others who came around to supporting Obama, but were never especially convinced by the "hope/change" rhetoric or notions that Obama was especially exceptional.
3. the diehard Obama supporters who embraced the whole Obama Movement and used support for Obama as a litmus test for whether one was a "good Democrat."

Perhaps the biggest problem that the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration has faced is that they never - and still don't, in most ways - take seriously the fact that the first group has never supported Obama, disagrees with most of his policies, and is now actively looking for alternatives in future elections. That's the real seed of the divides that currently roil the party, and have everything to do with the failure , in 2008, of the Obama team to do the work of treally uniting the party not behind Barack Obama, but behind a notion of Democratic principles  that brought the party together around shared goals. The only goal, really, was electing Obama. And PUMA power was born.

Over time, the second group - never fully invested in the Obama storyline - has drifted away in various ways. Many were put off by the heathcare debate, whether over "public option" debates, the generally messy process, or, as I did, with a variety of specific objections to policy choices. Others were dismayed by environmental policy, or other issues. And the tax cut debate was, for many, a final straw... and one can't ignore that a variety of economic factors - the unemployment picture, the foreclosuremess, the continued poor performance of the economy overall - have also driven many away.

And so it is that Obama's remaining support comes, mainly, from the diehards - a mix of establishment bloggers and journalists close to the DC whirl, and the still dominant contingent of educated, elite, liberal professionals who made up the core of Obama support. Loyal to a fault, they have accepted every compromise, every muddled argument, every tetchy defense (hence the distinction, often, that they represent a "pragmatic" or "realistic" notion of politics).

It's odd, in some ways, that the Bush tax cut extension may, for many of these diehards, be a last straw. Of all the President's decisions and compromises, this is one where, all things considered, Obama probably is right that he had no choice: havingf made no argument for letting the cuts expire, and having no way to force Reoublicans to back an arbutrary line of $250,000, Obama made a deal that combined some preferred liberal options (unemployment benefits extension, a modest return to the estate tax) and a temporry extnsion of all the Bush rates, and decided to go with it. Frankly, it's not his worst moment.

But I think the "last straw" quality - underlined, no doubt, by yesterday's self-defeating press conference - comes from some diehard Obama supporters beginning to arrive at conclusions anti-Obama liberals and disaffected Democrats reached months ago: the problem with Obama has to do with unknowability. And what we don't know, and can't define... is ruining his Presidency.

Some call it the "what does he believe" argument; I'd say the problem is that President Obama is what he was all along: essentially unknowable, a lofty thinker unable to deal in specifics, who is little interested in the kind of personality driven politics that have come to define our modern age. It is a Presidency of abstractions lacking in focus.

The armchair psychologizing of Obama is striking not because it tells us anything about him, but because no one, really, knows where the real answers lie: he is considered imperious, superior, unwilling to be questioned. He is touted as a corporate apologist and an unrepentant socialist, a radical "community activist" and a shill for the interests of millionaires. Often all of these accusations are made at once. He is all of these things... and none of them.

Mostly, he is not especially well known, or understood.

I've given up on trying to figure him out; I have no use for speculation, no interest in piling on more speculative notions of what he might believe or what he might do. I honestly don't know what Obama's "Democratic ideals" are or what specific policies he envisions as way to achieve his goals. At this late date... I don't care, and knowing more won't change all that much. I think the Obama Presidency will be viewed, ultimately, as a one term mistake, proof that when the appeal of an unknown quantity lies in what you don't know, there's a problem.

The fallout of the failure of Obama's Presidency is hardest, of course, on those most invested in his success; aside from the pains his most ardent supporters are feeling, I suspect the lasting damage of the Obama Enigma will be, naturally, to the black community. That the first actually black President turned out to be mediocre at best, and bad news for African Americans on many levels will be enormously disconcerting. And in some ways, it will change the historic links between the Civil Rights era black and white activists who have, for a long time, shared a sense of a common liberal purpose.

I don't think it's at all surprising that we have reached such a moment of crisis for the left, driven by the combination of the Democratic Establishment's decisions to win at all costs coupled with Obama's essential unknowability. The sense of what it means to be a Democratic - to espouse specific plans and polices to achieve specific, concrete goals - has been utterly lost in pursuit of charismatic leaders and maintenance of a broken machine badly in need of fresh ideas and new blood. I don't know what Barack Obama can possibly do next to reverse the quickening downward spiral of his presidency.

But then, not knowing is really what this Presidency is all about.

Comments

[Leigh]

I like this analysis, but I have a quibble/some confusion w/your argument.

You describe Obama as unknowable and not interested in the personality stuff of politics, but then you attribute his election in part to the Party's desire for more charismatic politicians. How does President Abstraction remotely fulfill this characterization? It reads like you're contradicting yourself...?

[weboy]

I don't think the two ideas are necessarily in conflict: how many arguments did you or I have with people in 2007 and 8 with people who found Obama so moving, yet were flummoxed when we pointed out that "hope and change" were vague, non-specific ideas that few could disagree with? I think Barack Obama's success was built entirely on seeming charismatic and personally exciting, while avoiding any clear indication of who he was or where he came down specifically on most key issues (all the "I'm sure he thinks that..." followed by the writer or speaker saying basically that Obama shared whatever POV the speaker held). I found - and still find - 2008 to be a surprising lesson for myself in that I always thought I'd be one to fall for a pretty face or a charismatic voice. How heartening to discover that what I really yearned for was a thinking person with specific ideas. How depressing to discover that it's not a quality I share with most people who are supposed to be on my side.

[jinb]

spot on post, depressingly so