Political symbols

Misunderestimating President Obama

It’s fun to see conservatives try to rationalize how one of ours had the wit, and the, uh, balls, to go after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, without Pakistan’s say-so. Here’s Erick Erickson from RedState:

Say what you will about President Obama, but it is hard to imagine two years ago he would have taken unilateral military action in Pakistan without telling the Pakistani government. He has grown in office.

That’s demonstrably false, and an obvious lie, since Politico‘s done us the favor of dredging up Obama’s campaign position on Pakistan, for which he caught all manner of flak from his primary opponents. From CNN, August 7, 2007:

Last Wednesday, the Illinois senator said that if it were necessary to root out terrorists, he would send U.S. forces into Pakistan without the country’s approval.

Obama hasn’t become anything. He simply never was the liberal caricature that the Republican Party imagines him to be.

Diminishing by Nickname: “Obamacare”

Megan McArdle does her level best to defend the right’s favorite legislative sobriquet.

I will stop referring to it as ObamaCare when we stop calling them the Bush tax cuts for the rich.  It is an effective shorthand for a law that is otherwise unwieldy to describe.  If legislators wanted me to call it something else, they should have given it a catchy name like “Medicare”, not a hypertrophied piece of propaganda like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  I don’t know why the left considers the term particularly perjorative; it is a health care program, and it is Barack Obama’s signature legislation.

Personally, I have no such lofty agenda; I just don’t have a better term for it.  But surely progressives think it is going to succeed.  Shouldn’t they be thrilled that the rest of us are associating Obama’s name with it at every turn?

Representative usage. Classy.

Pundits and Andrew Sullivan’s readers conclusively answered the question a while back: “ObamaCare” is pejorative, because it is only used pejoratively. Why are any slurs — ethnic, sexual, etc. — offensive? Very few have an offensive root meaning. They acquire their potency only through consistent usage to marginalize and insult. Meaning depends upon context.  McArdle suggests we “reclaim” the word: but that can’t happen until the pejorative use ceases to be the majority use. Using the phrase “ObamaCare” invokes all manner of classless, offensive, and even racist images, like the one at right, and cannot be divorced from that history. It’s that simple. We needn’t come up with a fancy rhetorical justification here: we can simply acknowledge the reality of the situation.

Let’s try anyways. “ObamaCare” offends in a way “Bush tax cut” does not because “ObamaCare” deletes a descriptive name for a policy and replaces it with the President’s, thereby transforming the policy’s name into a way of making some value judgment about the President (McArdle seems to agree on this point). Whichever way you use it, positively or (more likely) negatively, the phrase diminishes the office of the President, and suggests the President’s direct involvement not with the bill, but with care decisions, which plays nicely into the misleading and inaccurate right-wing narrative about “death panels,” and what have you. The possessive (“the Bush tax cuts,” or “the Obama health care act”) does not offend because it is strictly, and by connotation, accurate. The comparison would be to something like “BushFare” — a way of implying that the tax cuts were Bush’s form of welfare for his rich buddies — not “the Bush tax cuts.” Which would be equally tacky.

Simpler still, using pejorative, cutesy phrases is not how statesmen conduct themselves when discussing matters of national importance. “ObamaCare” is part and parcel of a political dialogue that diminishes, insults, and oversimplifies, all to make sure that when we talk politics, we do it at an an emotional rather than an intellectual level. I expect better from the party of Lincoln, in a government built by men like Adams, Jefferson, and Washington.

Framing the Individualist Argument

A close friend and comrade of mine says the age of the individual is upon us: technology allows increased exposure and personal expression, while sweeping away privacy barriers, the confluence of which, with the populace’s accelerating trend towards social libertarianism, makes individual uniqueness, and the protection of the values it entails, resonate stronger than ever.

Corporate forces seem to have noticed as much, and deployed the rhetoric to their great advantage in the last election. Arguments against the “socialism” of regulation, after all, collapse to arguments about the state’s meddling in private lives. But it’s not clear to me that the rhetoric of individualism ought to work against those who are, after all, seeking to increase the power of the individual against forces otherwise beyond their control, like health insurance companies, corporate soft money, and powerful investment banks. Since when is protecting Deutsche Bank and Blue Cross Blue Shield a “populist” cause?

We — Democrats, or whoever continues the work of protecting the individual against exploitation by big business — need to develop a vocabulary to make that case. Red-baiting has worked for the right, but the field remains open for a positive rhetoric exalting the individual and his independence, as procured and enforced by the government, from those forces that do not have his best interests at heart. It can be as simple as changing a word, like Fox News did with the public option “government option.” I welcome suggestions; we’re working on it here.

President Obama and “Arrogance”

When I see articles spotlighting the President’s “arrogance,” I have to wonder two things: why is this relevant, and why is this something we care about, now, in this politician, but not in others? It takes a type of arrogance to run for office, but an extraordinary arrogance to run for President. Palin’s dismissive promise that she’ll run if there’s “no-one else” spotlights the question all presidential candidates must ask: am I the only individual capable of leading the free world?

Anyone who answers “yes” will necessarily be more “arrogant” than the common man; but this isn’t something we talk about in other candidates, or other politicians. Why?

I can identify two combining narratives, responsible for the label’s unfortunately common attachment to President Obama: the first is the “elitist” narrative, which the President has actually not lived up to. Playful boasting (“I’m Lebron, baby”) cannot be read for the truth of the matter asserted, and perhaps more importantly, is made in the common rhetoric, without “Harvard” flourishes (cf. “I’m Pompey Magnus, baby”).

The second relates to race. It’s hard to speak of the “arrogance” of a black man in high office without hearing “uppity.” This may be one of the times that the over-reference to race blinds us to an actual problem: talk about the President’s “arrogance” is a fairly explicit dog whistle to the racist right, but it’s something pundits can get away with, because we expect smart people, and liberals, to be arrogant.

The inescapable conclusion is that the myth of Obama’s “arrogance” is a tale built on his identity as a powerful, black, liberal, intelligent politician; not his acts. There’s nothing he can say or do to escape it. Clinton-style self-deprecation (“Bubba”) worked because it drew its essence from Clinton’s Arkansas roots. President Obama’s story of success from humble beginnings is a quintessentially American tale, but not the type we expect to hear from our leaders, and what we don’t understand, we essentialize.

I Come Not to Praise Bush

With the publication of Decision Points — a curious title for the memoir of a man who learned of some of the most important decisions of his presidency* only after they’d caused mass resignations — the canonization of President Bush, through the same antifactual procedure that continues to glorify Reagan out of all merit, has begun aright. Let us play Devil’s Advocate.

Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review leads the charge. We can take her panegyric as final proof that her publication has ultimately abandoned the goal that first animated it, and its founder: the subjecting of the conservative movement to the intellectual rigor that it had lacked for so long. By focusing on Bush’s words, rather than his deeds, Lopez truly returns us to that dark age.

We hear at absurd length about Bush’s piety, and “deep appreciation for human life,” without any mention of the acknowledged fact that this appreciation, if it existed at all, was at all times heavily mediated by an exclusionary and narrow worldview. A Presidency predicated on divisive social policy is not one lived out “with malice towards none, with charity for all.” This is the price of Bush’s “faith”: grace towards some, and ignorant hatred toward the remainder.

Decision Points itself can form the basis of this judgment. We learn how Bush ran, headlong, into and illegal an inhumane torture program. To the legality and propriety of torture, “Damn right” is not the answer of a man with “appreciation” for life. Nor can one mention Bush’s work on AIDS in Africa without noting that he did less than he could have, because his God prefers that foreigners risk death, than His agents be thought to encourage promiscuity by teaching people about condoms. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Lopez attempts. (Colin Powell’s polite dissent and leadership deserve a mention here.)

Like all of us, President Bush is entitled to look back on his life, and try to reconcile the thousands of isolated incidents experienced in its course towards a unified portrait, with some story to tell. This is how we all approach our lives: they must have meaning, and emphasizing certain episodes over others is one way to reach that goal. But we don’t have to suborn a second author choosing inspirational quotes, devoid of reference to the deeds that give them context. Bush was a flawed man, whose shortcomings translated to destruction. Posed piety ought not (and does not) save him from that judgment.

* = cited for the event’s occurrence, not the Independent’s construction of it. The overwhelming consensus of insiders (Jack Goldsmith, e.g.) is that if Bush did order the hospital visit, he did not know the background events that made the order necessary.

Keeping Our Symbols Intact: Remember History, Not Spin

With Texas and Virginia set to receive license plates patterned after the Gadsden Flag, in “honor” of the tea party, it’s important to remember: despite the tea parties’ attempt to co-opt this revolutionary icon, the Gadsden Flag is bigger than their petty movement, and stands for something far more important.

In our shared history, we have fought and defeated true tyrants, who killed our countrymen, stole our property, and held us back for the exclusive profit of a far-flung imperial power. We’ve ended genocide, and toppled dictators with some regularity.

Nothing that we experience in this country today approximates that level of oppression. Modest tax increases, imposed on an isolated portion of society by a legitimately elected government, bear no resemblance to any of the evils we’ve conquered to get to where we are, and when tea party “patriots” suggest to the contrary, they insult our history and everyone who strove to make it what it is. The Gadsden Flag honors our commitment to the liberty of all; not the pocketbooks of some.

This Veteran’s Day, remember that there are real enemies out there; that our friends and family members have (and continue to) put themselves in danger to hold them at bay; and that our fellow citizens and our elected government do not number among those enemies. Don’t let isolated radicals diminish our history.

Mitt Romney Slumming It in Buckhead

From Mitt Romney’s Twitter feed, one sees he stopped to have lunch with the regular guys at the OK Cafe, a restaurant in Atlanta. The presidential implication is that Romney’s in touch with the “common man”; but as Atlanta residents will tell you, the OK Cafe isn’t really the common man’s lunch spot. It’s in the middle of residential Buckhead, at West Paces Ferry and Northside Drive. One has to drive for five minutes to not see a house worth upwards of two million dollars. As such, it’s fairly expensive (by Atlanta standards), and serves mostly the upper-middle and upper class students & parents of the three nearby private schools (Pace, Lovett, Westminster).

Don’t get me wrong. I love the OK Cafe. I used to live and go to school not ten minutes away. Mom & dad had lunch there all the time (before we moved away). But this all demonstrates just how easily the optics of any situation can be manipulated to make it look “populist” or “elitist.” Romney’s decision to sit with the guys from Marietta, wearing baseball hats, and not with the business-dressed men and women surrounding them, makes the staging pretty obvious.

Calvin gets it. Click to enlarge!

“Mourning in America”: Tone & Substance

Anyone loosely conversant in American politics will recall Reagan’s “Morning in America” 1984 re-election ad. Almost as famous as the “Daisy” ad, and justly so, it, almost alone, is responsible for the modern-day rhetorical equation between the name “Reagan” and the mood “optimism.” The ad’s message is simple, as simple as it needed to be: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Of course, query whether the picture Reagan paints is accurate, but when times are good, for the incumbent, a positive tone substitutes for any substantive discourse. The candidate can plausibly promise more of the same, more of what people want.

Now, pick up the nearest flashlight. Place your hand between the flashlight and the wall, and turn the light on. When you look at the resulting shadow, you’re looking at a darker, infinitely more shallow representation of your hand, something with actual depth, and actual substance. This is essentially what the modern Republican party, through Newsmax, has done with “Mourning in America,” a nearly shot-by-shot remake of Reagan’s ad, warning of the veritable downfall of American civilization. We have a shadow remake of the original, deprived of any power but fear, and bereft of any actual utility as a message.

Set aside the complicated questions of causation that make the ad’s attribution of blame somewhat questionable. “Morning in America” was a promise. It told voters what they’d get. “Mourning in America” contains no such pledge and offers no clue as to the opposition’s policy. And by abandoning hope and positive thought, it’s an utter derogation of everything Reagan’s legacy, as represented to us by conservative America, stands for. Negative campaigning, in optics and effects, is profoundly different from positive campaigning. Its modern heirs have fallen from whatever majesty the conservative movement, or Reaganism, once possessed. One can only hope that the electorate will hold them responsible for ads like this one.

Soooo Many White People

I count one (1) non-white person, a little kid, in this entire 1:20 video.

Also, there’s the meme, popular among the far-far-right, that Obama is “arrogant,” because he wears his intellect on his sleeve. How do we feel about a video, putatively about the “common people,” spattered with shots of adoring fans waving Sarah’s book, and concluded with a showy signature?

“One Nation Under God”: Co-opting the Fringe Narrative

For as long as I’ve been politically conscious, the line, “One Nation Under God,” a new adornment to our currency and a belated addition to the Pledge of Allegiance, has been pushed by the Christian right as proof that, in opposition to both the constitutional text and any fair reading of American history, we are a “Christian nation.”

President Obama today:

We are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

This is successful messaging: a national symbol restored to national purpose.