One of the great ironies of a change in political assumptions accompanying a crisis is that it comes at a time when belief in the old assumptions has reached a peak.
This is extremely frustrating to those who have come to embrace and represent new assumptions. It fires their anger and drives them forward.
What is most interesting to me, as an amateur historian, is how the transformative figure thrown up by these changed assumptions leans against their own Thesis. Rather than directly challenging the failed assumptions, he stands as a moderate, apart from and above the fray, often seeking to be a consensus figure at a time of peak contention.
You probably learned in high school how Lincoln did this. You may be less aware of how FDR did this, but if you look closely at pictures of his 1932 Chicago convention you will see him identified as supporting "progressive" government — progressivism was a set of assumptions best embodied in the career of Herbert Hoover.
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And so we return, again, to Barack
Obama and the Netroots.
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Obama’s seeming passivity in the face
of media unfairness and Republican myth-making drive Netroots writers
like Digby of Hullaballoo crazy. Atrios rightly notes, repeatedly,
that liberals (by which he means Netroots thinkers) are still being
kept off the TeeVee, despite the fact that they now reflect how the
vast majority of Americans think.
One thing I’ve pointed out repeatedly, and must remind these
worthies of again-and-again, is this is the way it always is. It’s a
change of mind within the public which comes first, then the emergence
of transformative leaders, and only later does the press rewrite its
own behavior, knitting its new assumptions into a seamless whole.
Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania. Eurasia has never never
been at war with Oceania.
Much of this happens unconsciously. Voters personalize their change
of thought pattern — they just don’t like Bush. They are reluctant to
admit what they are in fact feeling — Obama’s popular support is
actually minimized by polls (despite his racial background).
It also infects the candidate and his campaign. The Obama campaign
remains positive and thematic. He is reluctant to directly attack the
target-rich environment of his opponent’s life story, political
background or self-contradictions. He doesn’t even hammer the press on
their acceptance of John McCain as a modern warrior-saint — he frankly
endorses it.
This drives many in the Netroots crazy. What’s true now was true
before — the new Thesis grows out of the old AntiThesis. So people
like Digby and Atrios have never felt they were "in power," or really
heard in those corridors. The Clinton Administration triangulated
between their beliefs and the assumptions of its time — they didn’t embrace liberalism. Jimmy Carter
tried to do this, too — he ran to the right of his party in 1976 which
is why he won.
To know you’re right, to see your vision approaching fruition, yet
to see the world acting as though your assumptions are loony while the
false assumptions of the day are fact, is a deep cup of sadness. But
this is our lot. When you live far over the next horizon, the myths and
values of our todays and yesterdays look and feel like bizarro world.
But Barack Obama and his people must win election in this
environment. They don’t have time for perfection. Even though they know
a majority is behind them, they must continue to run uphill. Despite
its manifest unfairness, they cannot embrace the new assumptions they
may themselves believe in.
Because this election is not the Crisis. The Crisis comes after.
Especially this time. What we call the Crisis of 2008 only begins when
we begin, as a nation, to face the task of turning this world from war
to peace, from carbon to hydrogen, and realize the enormity of the
challenges before us.
Just because Americans have changed, or America is changing, doesn’t
mean the rest of the world will accept our new beliefs, or adjust to
them quickly. Just the opposite. The rest of the world, like the media,
is a lagging indicator of the new direction.
The people lead. Brave politicians follow. The media, history, and
our political adversaries will not change readily or easily or quickly.
Accept it. You’ll feel better when you do.
