Saturday, January 03, 2009

Efficacy

"Not even all human affairs are objects of deliberation; thus no Spartan deliberates about the best form of constitution for the Scythians; each of the various groups of human beings deliberates about the practical measures that lie in its own power."

—Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics (in Bk. III, 1112a)


At issue from some weeks back is whether Barack Obama should be respected or esteemed for being a conduit of popular will (or particular articulations of sentiment among the popular demographic). Alex, being the well-read and thoughtful commentator on political issues that he is, challenged me on this point and asked why we should esteem a leader for giving in to the demands of others. (Discussion here.) For weeks I have let this question sit on the back-burner (or maybe a back-back-burner) and yet I think if I had a strong and sound response it would have come to the fore more readily. As it stands I think I only have a partial response that needs tempering and revision. So either Alex is correct in his thinking, or if he is wrong it is not because I am right (or that I am yet right). I'll continue to think about this.

What lies in the power of the American electorate? Relatively little, on a federal level. But the electorate can pick its officials. Obama ran a campaign based famously on "change," and of course everyone who got behind him knew that the referent of this term had its roots that ran well outside of partisan politics. Of course it was partisan too. My point is that its popular appeal was not merely partisan. This was not solely a change from 'Republican' to 'Democrat.' Obama's campaign captured the speech, the votes, the labor hours, of so many millions of people because it represented a change to Washington culture in general. Certainly we cannot realistically expect Obama to deliver a sweeping transformation; nevertheless he was elected and given such a rapturous welcome by so many because of his symbolic negotiation of the office of the presidency:

"But ultimately, this race is not about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John McCain. This election is about you—the American people—and whether we will have a president and a party that can lead us toward a brighter future." (Here.)

I do not believe that Obama was refusing to play politics when he made this appeal—from one Time Person of the Year (Barack Obama) to another (You). He and his campaign knew exactly what he was doing, and a popular opinion so cultivated, so "played," is not an opinion that can be trusted for decisive and long-term policy. Nevertheless I think that what is at stake with this office is the issue of electoral efficacy. Obama must show himself to be a conduit of populist demands (or make a convincing illusion of it, which may or may not prove easy, we shall see). If he does not honor these terms of his electoral triumph, then I fear that no amount of Lincoln & King invocation will keep history from flicking him aside in a few more years.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I more or less agree with this. In fact, I'm pinning Obama's future success on that point: that he will be a conduit for populist demand. The thing is, what does that populist demand entail? As we have seen previously with the controversial invitation Obama extended to the pastor Rick Warren for his presidential inauguration, Obama is willing to appeal and seek alliances with reactionary and backward groups too. Whether this is at the expense of the causes of other progressive groups remains to be seen - but his actions during the elections leave me skeptical.

His unification strategy seems more like a strategy to quell whatever internal conflicts we have in this country so we can move on and get things done. This is part of the selling point: Obama is post-partisan, non-ideological, and pragmatic about how we need to work together and achieve... whatever it is our nation needs to achieve (I think solving the economic crisis is one solid goal - the rest, I feel, Obama is vague on).

I guess I'm too impatient and not very realistic. After all, Obama's election represented a repudiation of years and years of hard-right Repulican politics, and I'm disappointed he has to capitulate. If Obama is not a success then hopefully that will make people more skeptical of the not only the Democratic party but also of elections to accomplish anything and start making real changes themselves.

Look back on the support all the Democrats in the 2006 Congressional elections received... there was real hope that they would challenge Bush and his administration's agenda, and then they didn't and instead actively furthered it in many ways. I believe since August public support for Congress was lower than it was when Congress was primarily GOP-controlled. But now with Obama, hope for change via elected officials is back again and stronger than ever.

Of course it can be argued that any of blunders Obama makes cannot be blamed on him because the amount of long lasting damage the Bush administration caused was almost impossible for an Obama administration to overcome, and that, like Obama has said himself, it might take more than one term to even begin to solve all of America's current problems.

Joel Bocko said...

Good post, ZC, and I especially like the deftly worded nods to Persons of the Year, past and present.

By the way, I included your post on liberals and the left in my year-end round-up of good posts at The Dancing Image. You can see it here:

http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2008/12/dancing-image-in-2008.html

Jake,

I think you have to make a distinction between supporting the policies of the Right and reaching out to members of the Right. The choice of Warren for the invocation is not a capitulation, but a shrewd maneuver with zero policy implications but oodles of coalition-building potential (no, not on social issues, but perhaps on economic and environmental issues, among others).

Warren is not Falwell...whatever his views on gay rights, he has made efforts to include global poverty and the environment on the list of evangelical concerns. In other words, he's exactly the kind of squishily right-of-center individual (probably with a useful inclination to suck up with power) that Obama can potentially pick away from the decaying corpse of the GOP, and put to good use in assuaging the worries of those who remain skeptical of the incoming President.

This post-ideological aura Obama exudes is, as you rightly point out, part of the selling point, and a more potent one than any tangible progressive bona fides (as the country generally remains pragmatic and non-ideological in its policy inclinations).

The Left may be up in arms, but what they don't get is what conservatives didn't get when the lambasted Obama for his associates with Ayers and Wright: Obama gets along with all types, and will form alliances were necessary, but at no point does his involvement with a certain individual entain an endorsement of said individual's broader point of view.

Alex said...

"What lies in the power of the American electorate? Relatively little, on a federal level. But the electorate can pick its officials."

Remember that traditionally, this type of regime (where there are representatives of the demos, not the demos ruling itself) is aristocratic / oligarchic, not democratic / tyrannic. Not that this is apropos to your general comment, but I did want to point that out.

"Nevertheless I think that what is at stake with this office is the issue of electoral efficacy."

I think we need to analogize the problem - think of Roosevelt in 1932. FDR, like ourselves facing our current economic difficulties, did not know what precisely measures to take to combat the Great Depression. In FDR's acceptance speech during the 1932 Democratic Convention, he said: "Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth... I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people... This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms." Note that FDR is as equally vague as Obama is now - but that is the correct mode of the statesman.

The statesman (nor ourselves) cannot easily predict the course of future events. Thus, his primary function isn't to be a technocratic source of policy plans, but rather to use his virtue and prudence to guide the state through the tumult of politics. Again, thinking about Roosevelt - it was not that FDR had better plans to fight the Depression than Hoover did that the American people loved FDR. Many of FDR's plans were the same as Hoover's (but larger), or were entirely vague in 1932 or 1933. Nor did Americans love FDR merely because he did what they wanted him to do - how could he even do so? The American people had no single, stable concrete idea how to combat the Depression that everyone believed.

Why Americans loved FDR is that they saw he loved and understood the people and had far greater vigor in pursuing their good than Hoover did (i.e., in Machiavelli's sense, FDR had greater virtu than Hoover did). But they didn't love him solely as a conduit.

ZC said...

MovieMan, thanks for mentioning that post of mine in your year-end write-up. I'm flattered. I think you're correct about Warren, as a strategic choice. But I can't help but feel dissatisfied--I will be assuaged on this point when Obama reaches back out to Wright!

Alex, when you write, "Why Americans loved FDR is that they saw he loved and understood the people and had far greater vigor in pursuing their good than Hoover did" ... I remain unconvinced.

The Americans loved FDR, eh? But a considerable minority of Americans hated him (and his wife)! His highest approval ratings came (as all the spikes for modern presidents do) under exceptional conditions of war or something like it--Pearl Harbor (V-E Day, the Gulf War, 9/11). The anti-Roosevelt sentiment, which is the sentiment of those posterity has deemed to consign losers, simply becomes erased from our historical picture. Hence, FDR, beloved president.

That said, I understand your point w/r/t the "conduit," and I admit I don't have a good answer. A conduit isn't the best way to think of things. This is the problem! As Jake says in the first comment--even if we establish that we want (or need) Obama as such, "what does that populist demand entail"? Not worth it, perhaps--naive all along--to think of ourselves having even a shaky hold a statesman of this stature. For who are we, we contain multitudes within multitudes, etc., etc.

Alex said...

"The Americans loved FDR, eh? But a considerable minority of Americans hated him (and his wife)! His highest approval ratings came (as all the spikes for modern presidents do) under exceptional conditions of war or something like it--Pearl Harbor (V-E Day, the Gulf War, 9/11). The anti-Roosevelt sentiment, which is the sentiment of those posterity has deemed to consign losers, simply becomes erased from our historical picture. Hence, FDR, beloved president."

Of course vulgar understandings of history gloss over the tumult of actual politics - the opposition to FDR was certainly very substantial. But I do think it's correct to argue that FDR was loved by the American people: being re-elected three times, twice by margins over 20%? Certainly, the American people did NOT love FDR's main opponents such as Herbert Hoover or Robert Taft, both of whom even today are (correctly, in my opinion) viewed as at best technocrats who were not up to the challenges of the time.

Anonymous said...

"The Americans loved FDR, eh? But a considerable minority of Americans hated him (and his wife)! His highest approval ratings came (as all the spikes for modern presidents do) under exceptional conditions of war or something like it--Pearl Harbor (V-E Day, the Gulf War, 9/11)."

I think you could argue that the New Deal would have provided FDR with as high an approval rating as World War II if the New Deal had been as big as World War II, as it then would have ended the Great Depression in one year. The reason that it took World War II was purely ideological. People finally stopped sreaming about big government or the need to balance that federal budget as only the federal government could have fough World War II. What I sense is different now, is that there could be developing enough public support for a peactime public works program that for the first time will be as big as a World War.

Greg

Alex said...

"Nevertheless I think that what is at stake with this office is the issue of electoral efficacy. Obama must show himself to be a conduit of populist demands (or make a convincing illusion of it, which may or may not prove easy, we shall see)."

To be more practical and current, I would say that the new President's task is not so much meeting populist demands specifically (it's unclear what those demands even are beyond "more jobs"), but primarily correcting the severe economic policy mistakes of the Bretton Woods II era (or of neoliberalism or of neoclassical economics, however you prefer to phrase it).

But that correction isn't primarily about taking guidance - except perhaps in some 10,000 foot way like "have a better economy" - from populist demands. It's about a better economic policy - not whether the economic policy resembles the preferred economic policy of the populance (which, to be honest, probably doesn't exist in any substantive way).

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