Obama, Fate, and the Politics of the Expedient
By Miguel Guanipa (11/27/08)
Like many other cherished traditions, America’s guardedly dormant skepticism towards its felicitously inefficient political apparatus is rekindled on a quadrennial basis. Yet Americans still resign themselves to casting their greatest aspirations upon the brittle shoulders of politicians. In turn, the latter go on to pledge their commitment anew to the same old promises they will faithfully continue to break. This ancient storyline gained formidable mass appeal when it was cleverly exploited by the Barack Obama campaign strategists.
In this our curiously nostalgic days of massive government bailouts and morally bankrupt federal institutions, politicians proved once again to be less than trustworthy. By pitting this image of staggering incompetence against the collective optimism of a country bravely plunging into the valley of economic uncertainty, Barack Obama has successfully spun an alluring narrative using one of the most pillaged of expositional allegories: the journey of hope.
We were told that those who follow gladly, as well as those who may have no recourse to a sustained filibuster, will be traveling on a road full of promise. And though there will be many challenges ahead, at the end of the road a destiny of unbounded prosperity awaits. Our job is to merely take hold of Obama’s hand and trust that he is already prepared to lead us and sufficiently acquainted with the many perils that are an inevitable part of the trek. Obama’s team is already sprinting, though they haven’t yet hit the ground, so to speak.
No wonder N.Y.T. columnist David Brooks once wryly observed that the reason Obama loves the future so much is because that is where most of his accomplishments are.
But the real reason why Obama speaks in such abstractions is because he wisely recognizes that neither he nor any other sage in congress can absolutely claim to know what lies ahead. If anything this past election is a glaring testimony to that fact.
One should remember that despite his pre-election posturing as an outsider, Obama is still a politician, and like every politician, his plans abide mainly within the realm of the unforeseeable; a mere technicality that hardly ever got in the way of the young president-elect’s winsome eloquence. And it was this eloquence that lured those who mindlessly gravitated toward his sublime proposals. Like many an astute orator, Obama was able to persuade a weary populace to sign on to his daring, but not yet fully formed vision, by making them feel that they are also the indispensable partakers of a great odyssey.
But prudence may dictate that Obama periodically reposition his targets, and bodyguard them with tentative caveats and preemptory scapegoats – the perennial assets of any savvy politician. This way he can safely remind his followers that he is not to be held responsible if unexpected events should forestall the earnestly desired results.
He may continue, for example, to pour federal funds into the various culprits behind our gravely ill economy, but signal that the rescue efforts are not guaranteed to prevent an imminent recession; or he may stealthily launch his grand social experiment of universal healthcare, or his ambitious program of semi-compulsory citizen volunteerism, but warn that the still bitter conservative malcontents in our midst may pose an impassable barrier to his greater vision of fiscal equanimity and national unity.
Yet Obama may still retain the wind at his back, for a season, as there’s nothing like an iconic, vibrant figure with a shining vision of hope to reawaken Americans from their discontent – albeit potentially only to lead them on another path to disillusionment with the system in which they have invested so much hope.
But while it can not be reasonably expected that Obama will be able to please his detractors as well as his loyal followers, we should at least hope he will consider that, to a great extent, he owes his unprecedented rise to power to his glad tidings of unity, hope and change. If this all inclusive vein remains his driving principle as he gets to the business of running the country, perhaps Obama will be able to resist becoming too closely aligned with the extremist element in his own constituency, who frankly could care less if any dissenters are summarily removed from the face of the earth. But that is a big “if”.
So it is with cautious optimism, but optimism nonetheless - and a healthy dose of realism - that we should vigilantly indulge our limited expectations for Obama’s tenure. Perhaps as political realities set in, Obama may be compelled to stick to a more pragmatic script, and recognize that even many of his predecessors also made promises, that in the end were not wholly immune to the capriciously obstinate contingencies of fate.
And above all, one should remain mindful of the dictum that many a proverbial road that ultimately led to ruin was paved with the best of intentions.
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