Obama and the comforting myth of political consensus
Obama and the comforting myth of political consensus
By Gideon Rachman
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 7 2007 19:36 | Last updated: May 7 2007 19:36
I really like the US. It is the American dream I cannot stand. The idea that “you can be whatever you want to be” has always struck me as a self-evident untruth. And yet it is a myth that even leftwing American politicians cling to tenaciously.
Jesse Jackson, the first black American to run for the presidency, once said of US students: “If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.”
This is obvious nonsense. If you have no aptitude for something, you are unlikely to achieve great “altitude” – you are more likely to fall flat on your face. Maintaining a relentlessly positive attitude will not be much help. In fact, it may keep you plugging away long after you should have abandoned hope.
Income inequality has increased since Mr Jackson’s heyday in the late 1980s and complaints about a “squeeze” on middle-class living standards have grown. This has made Democrat politicians more questioning about the “American dream”.
But other great American myths are proving even more enduring. Barack Obama is now the most prominent black politician in America. Unlike Mr Jackson, he has a realistic shot at the presidency. He is clever, charismatic and his speeches are reassuringly free of infantile alliteration.
But Mr Obama seems to subscribe to another great American fiction. This is the idea that all would be well if only politicians could move beyond their petty partisan bickering. You hear this sort of thing all the time in Washington. If you want to appear statesmanlike, you need to appeal for “bipartisanship”.
Indeed Mr Obama made his reputation as an orator with an unusually eloquent riff on this very theme, at the Democratic party convention of 2004.
“There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America . . . The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red states and blue states: red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states.”
Mr Obama is at it again in his recent book The Audacity of Hope, in which he calls for “a new kind of politics, one that can excavate and build upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans”.
Well, yes, there are some things that most Americans can probably agree on. And, of course, a decent president will seek to bring the country together. But the idea that bitter political differences can be magicked away by an invocation of God and baseball is silly.
This bipartisan dream has a long history. In Gulliver’s Travels, first published in 1726, the hero encounters a professor who thinks that when political parties are violently opposed each politician should have half his brain swapped with half the brain of a member of the opposing party. “The two half brains being left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull, would soon come to a good understanding.”
Perhaps in the pursuit of his ideal of political compromise, Mr Obama could try this out. A brain-share with Hillary Clinton or John McCain might produce worthwhile results.
But the experiment is probably not worth trying, for reasons that go well beyond its risky and unproved nature. The fact is that there are serious disagreements in American political life, which no amount of goodwill – or Swiftian whimsy – can make disappear.
At times Mr Obama acknowledges this. In his recent book he notes that during the last presidential election: “Across the spectrum of issues, Americans disagreed: on Iraq, taxes, abortion, guns, the Ten Commandments, gay marriage, immigration, trade . . .”
Mr Obama seems to feel uncomfortable with all this vehement disagreement. But he should relax. Argument is what democratic politics is all about. Sometimes – often, in fact – it will be impossible to find a compromise that satisfies all parties. Christian fundamentalists will never accept Mr Obama’s views on abortion. Anti-war Democrats will never agree with George W. Bush on Iraq. These disagreements will be argued out in public and arbitrated through the ballot box.
Not only is bipartisan consensus unlikely. It is often undesirable. When all sides of the political divide agree on a major issue in the US (or anywhere else, for that matter), it can be a sign that critical faculties have been suspended – and a disastrous error is about to be made.
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution of August 1964 (which authorised Lyndon Johnson to go war in Vietnam) was passed 416-0 in the House of Representatives and 88-2 in the Senate. Only later did it emerge that the information placed before Congress was incomplete and misleading. In 1971, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was rescinded by Congress. Too late.
The decision to go to war in Iraq was marked by a similar outbreak of bipartisanship. In October 2002, the Senate voted 77-23 to give Mr Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq if Saddam Hussein failed to comply with all United Nations resolutions. More Democrats (29) voted in favour of war than against (21).
A delighted Mr Bush proclaimed: “America speaks with one voice.” To the extent that this was true, it was a bad sign. Once again emotion and the desire for bipartisan consensus had shut down debate.
To his great credit, however, Mr Obama – who at the time was still a state senator in Illinois – sided with the minority who opposed the rush to war. In doing so he demonstrated that he was able to resist the siren calls of bipartisanship.
Mr Obama’s record demonstrates that political courage is often shown by those who are willing to take an unpopular stand against the political consensus.
It is ironic – and a little discouraging – that candidate Obama has chosen to ignore this fact in favour of woolly calls for bipartisan consensus. The senator’s record and his rhetoric are at odds. Fortunately, his record may be the better guide to the man.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
Post and read comments at www.ft.com/rachman
By Gideon Rachman
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 7 2007 19:36 | Last updated: May 7 2007 19:36
I really like the US. It is the American dream I cannot stand. The idea that “you can be whatever you want to be” has always struck me as a self-evident untruth. And yet it is a myth that even leftwing American politicians cling to tenaciously.
Jesse Jackson, the first black American to run for the presidency, once said of US students: “If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.”
This is obvious nonsense. If you have no aptitude for something, you are unlikely to achieve great “altitude” – you are more likely to fall flat on your face. Maintaining a relentlessly positive attitude will not be much help. In fact, it may keep you plugging away long after you should have abandoned hope.
Income inequality has increased since Mr Jackson’s heyday in the late 1980s and complaints about a “squeeze” on middle-class living standards have grown. This has made Democrat politicians more questioning about the “American dream”.
But other great American myths are proving even more enduring. Barack Obama is now the most prominent black politician in America. Unlike Mr Jackson, he has a realistic shot at the presidency. He is clever, charismatic and his speeches are reassuringly free of infantile alliteration.
But Mr Obama seems to subscribe to another great American fiction. This is the idea that all would be well if only politicians could move beyond their petty partisan bickering. You hear this sort of thing all the time in Washington. If you want to appear statesmanlike, you need to appeal for “bipartisanship”.
Indeed Mr Obama made his reputation as an orator with an unusually eloquent riff on this very theme, at the Democratic party convention of 2004.
“There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America . . . The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red states and blue states: red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states.”
Mr Obama is at it again in his recent book The Audacity of Hope, in which he calls for “a new kind of politics, one that can excavate and build upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans”.
Well, yes, there are some things that most Americans can probably agree on. And, of course, a decent president will seek to bring the country together. But the idea that bitter political differences can be magicked away by an invocation of God and baseball is silly.
This bipartisan dream has a long history. In Gulliver’s Travels, first published in 1726, the hero encounters a professor who thinks that when political parties are violently opposed each politician should have half his brain swapped with half the brain of a member of the opposing party. “The two half brains being left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull, would soon come to a good understanding.”
Perhaps in the pursuit of his ideal of political compromise, Mr Obama could try this out. A brain-share with Hillary Clinton or John McCain might produce worthwhile results.
But the experiment is probably not worth trying, for reasons that go well beyond its risky and unproved nature. The fact is that there are serious disagreements in American political life, which no amount of goodwill – or Swiftian whimsy – can make disappear.
At times Mr Obama acknowledges this. In his recent book he notes that during the last presidential election: “Across the spectrum of issues, Americans disagreed: on Iraq, taxes, abortion, guns, the Ten Commandments, gay marriage, immigration, trade . . .”
Mr Obama seems to feel uncomfortable with all this vehement disagreement. But he should relax. Argument is what democratic politics is all about. Sometimes – often, in fact – it will be impossible to find a compromise that satisfies all parties. Christian fundamentalists will never accept Mr Obama’s views on abortion. Anti-war Democrats will never agree with George W. Bush on Iraq. These disagreements will be argued out in public and arbitrated through the ballot box.
Not only is bipartisan consensus unlikely. It is often undesirable. When all sides of the political divide agree on a major issue in the US (or anywhere else, for that matter), it can be a sign that critical faculties have been suspended – and a disastrous error is about to be made.
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution of August 1964 (which authorised Lyndon Johnson to go war in Vietnam) was passed 416-0 in the House of Representatives and 88-2 in the Senate. Only later did it emerge that the information placed before Congress was incomplete and misleading. In 1971, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was rescinded by Congress. Too late.
The decision to go to war in Iraq was marked by a similar outbreak of bipartisanship. In October 2002, the Senate voted 77-23 to give Mr Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq if Saddam Hussein failed to comply with all United Nations resolutions. More Democrats (29) voted in favour of war than against (21).
A delighted Mr Bush proclaimed: “America speaks with one voice.” To the extent that this was true, it was a bad sign. Once again emotion and the desire for bipartisan consensus had shut down debate.
To his great credit, however, Mr Obama – who at the time was still a state senator in Illinois – sided with the minority who opposed the rush to war. In doing so he demonstrated that he was able to resist the siren calls of bipartisanship.
Mr Obama’s record demonstrates that political courage is often shown by those who are willing to take an unpopular stand against the political consensus.
It is ironic – and a little discouraging – that candidate Obama has chosen to ignore this fact in favour of woolly calls for bipartisan consensus. The senator’s record and his rhetoric are at odds. Fortunately, his record may be the better guide to the man.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
Post and read comments at www.ft.com/rachman
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