“On second thought, no, we can’t.”
Published by violet May 27th, 2008 in Punkass!, PoliticsI’ve been loathe to write about the primaries in the U.S., mostly because I try to only write about those things where I feel like I have something to contribute, and I haven’t experienced any particular election-related insights.
(Also: I don’t have or want a side apart from “not another douchebag, please, the increased relevance of political songs is not worth it,” but it’s almost impossible to write anything without being shuttled into one camp or another. Hell, I went to the county Democratic county caucus not voting in the presidential primaries (I did the math. My vote wouldn’t have mattered either way, in our precinct.)
That said, here’s something a friend said a while back, the truth of which just struck me: Race and gender are, for me, the only interesting issues in this election.
The truth of this struck me when I realized that though I wasn’t exactly a strong Hillary supporter, I was saddened by her not (apparently) getting the nomination. I know, I know—either of them would be a historic choice, a great bloody leap for mankind. It’s not like having a woman as president would Change Everything, but I do think it would change a little, or at least bring existing problems to the surface. It would highlight for anyone looking and a lot of people who aren’t just how deep our sexism runs. I don’t think president Obama will have the same effect in terms of racism, because racism has a different shape. Look at the heavily manufactured Reverend Wright controversy—Wright was saying fundamentally true things, but the Obama campaign had to erase his voice in the name of political expediency.
Which leads in nicely to this: I don’t think either of them are going to be great forces for Change ™. I know cynicism isn’t particularly sexy right now*, especially with respect to Obama, but really? Do we really think he’s going to stride into the White House, throw up a few Solar Bureaucracy charms and change the world?
Why? Bush did that, but it’s a lot easier to break things than it is to put them right.
Electing a relatively liberal black president is going to be a nice symbolic move, but I can’t imagine the kinds of changes people are talking about actually happening.
It is, on the other hand, really nice to see a surge in people, especially people around my age and younger, becoming involved in politics**. Not exactly radical politics, but it’s nice all the same. It’s less nice to see it so thoroughly focused on one man. It makes me worry, just a little: what are you going to do when the world doesn’t change? When even if he is a great president, he does not shift into a world-shaping Leviathan, plant his heart into the earth, and bodily become true, universal justice***?
What are you going to do when President Obama says that U.S. forces are staying in Iraq, perhaps unto the 13th generation?
Do you give up? Do you look to someone else? Or do you pick up the pieces and think about what you were actually fighting for and—maybe—keep working to build something new?
* Or maybe it is. I have trouble keeping track of these things. (back)
** Credit where credit’s due—Bush is responsible for a lot of this. If he hadn’t fucked up so spectacularly, we’d probably be a lot more complacent. (back)
For me, to ask the question is to miss the point. It’s not so much what Obama will do that’s so great, but rather what people will do when Obama’s the president.
I don’t expect Obama to work miracles; what I expect is that if and when a good bill comes across his desk, he’ll have the good sense and good will to sign it. I don’t expect him to have especially liberal positions on issues; but I expect him to be receptive to increasing liberalism. Clinton may position herself slightly to Obama’s left now but I think you or I would be a fool to expect her to remain there. Clinton naturally drifts to the right, especially when threatened politically. Whereas I see Obama as starting off a bit more to the center, but more capable of being pushed (or pulled) to the left and more hesitant to drift rightwards.
Partly I blame this tendency of Clinton’s to the time when she and Bill learned their political reflexes; in the 90s, one COULD net more points moving rightward. Partly, I blame it on sexism: the national discourse is much less forgiving of liberal ideas (setting aside that these ideas don’t necessarily have any sins to be forgiven) coming from a woman than from a man, even a black man.
In short, the reason I support Obama is not that he’s so much more aligned with my beliefs, but because I think having him as President will more enable those with values similar to mine to enact their agenda(s), both through inspiration (as his campaign has already inspired many to take action) and through just plain getting out of the way.
For all my life and for the foreseeable future, the country has always been more liberal than its government. But Obama moreso than Clinton, will given the country the political and psychological space to continue its leftward march to liberty.
Wretched McCain, of course, is not even worth considering.
“Do you give up? Do you look to someone else? Or do you pick up the pieces and think about what you were actually fighting for and—maybe—keep working to build something new?”
Working on it now, switching over to Obama from Clinton. (sigh) I am greatly helped by the fact that Bush v2.0 With Feeble Attempts at Environmentalism and Pro-Immigration impresses me not at all.
Thank you. We need more liberal voices who are willing to take Obama to task. He’s clearly the best realistic candidate of the lot, but he has only gotten as far as he has by saying things which soothe the powers-that-be that he is no serious threat to their way of life.
Despite some of the vague heroic things he’s said about going after Wall Street, “seven of the Obama campaign’s top 14 donors consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages.” (Though he pretends he doesn’t take money from lobbyists, by slipping through the loophole that he does not take contributions from individuals registered as lobbyists– though he is quite happy to take contributions from every other person who works in that lobbyist’s company!).
And not only he pledges to keep increasing the size of our military, he pledges to use “military force in circumstances beyond self-defense…to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities.” Which is exactly the same as the “Bush Doctrine” of unending aggressive war, described in precisely the same terms that Bush himself would use.
Plus there’s the issue of the various hawkish imperial strategists and big-money Wall Street crooks he’s been gathering around himself as his top advisors. (I’d scare up a link for that, too, but I’m running short of time now. Maybe later.)
So while I do support him for president, and recognize that he is the lesser evil, and that an Obama presidency could lead to real, tangible improvements in hundreds of thousands of lives compared to now– I do!– I feel a bit like a neighborhood shopkeeper who, during a Mafia turf war, decides to side with Thumbscrew Tony over Autopsy Al.