With his mix of inexperience and political “smarts,” candidate Barack Obama challenged Americans to do something that has become increasingly taboo in our secular world: have faith (in him, that is).
Voters were swayed by the message. A year ago, millions of them joined hands and took a collective leap of faith, choosing a candidate who confidently claimed he could do the miraculous: change not only the incumbent party, but politics itself.
Amazingly, this ligature was formed largely by a few very simple words and phrases (“bipartisan,” “hope and change,” etc.), which in normal circumstances would have sounded trite but ““ inexplicably ““ took on a new meaning when they were uttered by Obama.
After a year of tinkering with ideas from the liberal playbook, however, many of those who claimed to have “found religion” with Obama have already plunged into a new crisis of belief, portending an indefinite return to political pessimism.
This does not say much for the talismanic quality of the president’s rhetoric.
Liberal standbys, from Keith Olbermann to Jon Stewart, believing Obama can do no wrong, continue to tout his brilliance and avert themselves from the many contretemps he finds himself in.
Despite the tendentious selection of positives from Obama’s first year by the party faithful, however, the clearer-headed among us have seen seeds of doubt germinating for some time.
The obvious example is the tea parties, those endogenous bands of vocal Americans (so reviled on the left) who came out in numbers against the health care proposals and taxation last June and are still around today.
The left’s irritation with the tea partyers reveals an ugly side that is violently at odds with its self-image of compassion and equality.
The underlying accusation against the protesters seems to be this: As they lack a central organization, they do not carry sufficient refinement to merit serious consideration.
Note the superciliousness of Nancy Pelosi’s comments about the protests consisting of “AstroTurf” and people wearing swastikas.
Evident in these remarks is a thinly veiled sense of contempt that arises from a conviction in the speaker’s inherent superiority. As criticism of the reigning party has increased, this view has become de rigueur for anyone purporting to call himself a liberal.
Hence, the Democrats’ chief bugbear is what they perceive to be a lack of sophistication and education on the part of the protesters. It flares up whenever someone raises their voice to a congressman at a town hall meeting or brandishes a sign depicting a parodic image of Obama. It can be seen in the sneers that accompany the activities of the 9-12 Project.
In general, the view of these so-called elites is that the business of policy-making should be the sole province of our leaders, for only they possess the requisite knowledge to deal with our problems effectively. As might be expected, the Obama administration drinks deep from this font.
However, the wave of criticism directed at the movement also amounts to tacit acceptance of its power, a fact that has motivated the protesters. This power is reflected by the fact that, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, public approval of the tea party movement is now higher than that of either major party.
Needless to say, the prediction that Obama’s election would bring about a “realignment” of national politics has not materialized.
Obama’s lurch to the left has caused not only dizziness, but an egress of public support to his nearest political rivals, Republicans.
Independents ““ always the group to watch for a clear picture of who’s winning and who’s losing ““ have deserted Obama’s party in droves and found shelter in the GOP, which just a year ago was pronounced dead.
The ramifications of this shift are palpable. In Massachusetts, a state that has become a beacon for Democrats, Independents are gunning for the Republican senatorial candidate by a three-to-one margin, a set of circumstances that may occlude passage of Obama’s health care bill (barring the use of the “nuclear option”).
Ultimately, responsibility rests with Obama for the misfortunes of his party.
When the world was struggling to regain its composure after the collapse of Lehman and the near collapse of AIG, Obama sent people right back into a tizzy by proposing radical policy changes sooner than anyone bargained for.
After running as a centrist, he moved to remake the American landscape, starting with its central pilasters: health care, energy and education.
When people asked for clarity, Obama made things murkier. On health care, we got a 2,074-page Senate bill ridden with obscure details that experts will spend years trying to make sense of.
On cap-and-trade, we were graced with a “Climategate,” which made the “settled” science on global warming wide open to debate. The administration responded by continuing to issue certitudes about the anthropogenic causes of warming.
On the money front, Obama promised to eliminate the practice of legislative earmarks, only to stand idly by while hundreds were added to the stimulus and health care bills.
Finally, after promising to fix the system that gave rise to the financial crisis, he did the exact opposite by introducing “too big to fail,” a system that strongly encourages risky ventures and leaves taxpayers on the hook for potentially massive corporate losses.
Recently, the Treasury even said it would give unlimited funding to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for three years.
The combined effect of all of this has been to consolidate public opinion far to the right of where Obama said he would take us.
The heightened passions of a year ago, which had been held together by utopian visions and sophomoric bromides, have given way to sobering realities: high unemployment, a ballooning national debt, banks that are still not lending and menacing new threats from abroad.
So much for our passing fancies of “change we can believe in.”
E-mail Pherson at apherson@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.