Obama’s Failed Narrative
Did the presidency ruin a good storyteller, or vice versa?
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He spends a lot of time telling the stories of the people he met: his extended family, the residents of Altgeld, his buddies and acquaintances at Columbia. Obama doesn’t use these people to talk much about policy or conventional political maneuvering, eschewing even obvious opportunities to do so. The daily grind of politics doesn’t seem to drive him; actual human beings do. Along with the literary sensibility, it’s probably the most appealing thing about his first book.
On those occasions when Obama does talk about politics, it’s mostly to register unease or reduced expectations, and the focus is almost always local and personal. In his early days at Altgeld, he recognizes that he and the people he represented didn’t “yet have the power to change state welfare policy, or create local jobs, or bring substantially more money into the schools.” But they could “begin to improve basic services in Altgeld—get the toilets fixed, the heaters working, the windows repaired.” It wasn’t about changing the world; it was about fixing the toilets. “I don’t like politics so much,” he recalls his sister saying, perhaps portentously. “People always end up disappointed.”
The Audacity of Hope
Much of Obama’s famous, career-vaulting speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 was cobbled together from elements in Dreams from My Father. Again, Obama put himself at the center of the story, explicitly weaving himself into the larger national narrative. “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story,” he declared. “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.” He wasn’t just writing his own story any more, he was writing one for the whole country, with himself as the protagonist.
But as Obama’s ambitions grew, so did the size and scope of his political expectations. And the stories he began to tell no longer served the individuals they were about, but the conventional political and policy goals he espoused. Early reservations about politics began to disappear, replaced by grander, self-centered narratives and promises to match.
Unlike its predecessor, Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, is a fairly conventional politician’s tome. Released in the autumn of 2006 as the senator was gearing up for a long-planned presidential run, Audacity splits time between explaining Obama’s basic outlook on life and politics, and talking about political issue areas that motivate him. Unlike his first book, it’s designed more for mass appeal than literary kudos. There’s nothing punk rock about it.
With its early invocations of touchstones that would define Obama’s first presidential term—health care, corporate jets, Warren Buffett’s taxes—the book often reads like a demo tape for the Obama presidency, laying out what have since become familiar riffs. It also predicts some of his failures.
One of Obama’s most oft-repeated fears is becoming a conventional politician, a compromised careerist who lives only for power, prestige, and reelection. Versions of this anxiety appear throughout Audacity. When Obama gets to Washington as a United States senator in 2004, he finds himself sympathizing with legislators he might have previously viewed as sellouts, and wonders if he’ll follow the same path, “transforming into the stock politician of bad TV movies.”
As he closes out the book’s introduction, he recalls a journalist asking him if he could be as interesting with his second book as he was with his first, which he takes to mean as a question of whether he could be as honest. He admits to wondering the same. Tellingly, he implies that we’ll know if he has changed not by his actions, but by his words. “How long,” he asks himself, “before you started sounding like a politician?” The transformation had already begun.
The lyricism of Dreams is mostly gone by Audacity, replaced with banal lists of binary pairs. He imagines, for example, people “waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don’t always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting.” He goes on like this, back and forth, on the first hand and on the second, seeing one perspective and then its opposite, viewpoint A and viewpoint B, until you are ready to thwack him, on the left side of his head and then on the right, with a perfectly balanced Styrofoam scale of justice.
Obama insists in Audacity that he will take a “pragmatic” approach to policymaking, navigating a course between the “false or cramped choices” (later shorted to the simpler “false choices” that would pock his presidential speechifying) that create “political polarization.” Yet his very word choices suggest that his preferences are anchored near the pole of modern Democratic thought. In the Obama lexicon, there’s no such thing as “funding” for science and infrastructure, there are only “investments,” usually in our future. Debates over education policy, he writes, are “stuck between those who want to dismantle the public school system and those who would defend an indefensible status quo, between those who say money makes no difference in education and those who want more”—a convenient but false choice of his own creation.
But Audacity does retain some of Dreams from My Father’s façade of humility and superficial wariness about asking too much from the political system. Obama still writes as if he is keenly aware that most people don’t really like politics and don’t have any desire to make it the focal point of their lives. He starts the book by declining to offer either a “unifying theory of American government” or “a manifesto for action.” Instead, he writes, “What I offer is something more modest: personal reflections on those values and ideals that have led me to public life, some thoughts on the ways that our current political discourse unnecessarily divides us, and my own best assessment…of the ways we can ground our politics in the notion of a common good.” When he actually starts to make demands of government, they turn out to be a little bigger than his aw-shucks introduction suggests. But he still starts from an assumption there’s only so much politics can, or should, do.
Obama was already well into his political career when he wrote Audacity, with multiple terms in the Illinois legislature and a partial term in the U.S. Senate under his belt. So it’s understandable that there’s far more discussion of policy this time around. But he still evinces concern with others’ stories, and he often stops to offer succinct character portraits and recollections of conversations with constituents. He suggests that their experiences are the guideposts by which he makes policy decisions. Empathy, he writes, “is at the heart of my moral code,” serving as “a call to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.”
It’s prose, not poetry, a politician’s calling card rather than an evocative literary memoir. But it still retains a vague sense of self-awareness and self-questioning, some interest in lives and perspectives outside of his own. Even that, however, was rapidly slipping away.
Probably the most frequent rhetorical tic Obama displays is an obsession with creating the appearance of even-handedness. Early in The Audacity of Hope, he offers a half-apology for his lack of partisan balance, admitting up front that he is in fact a Democrat, just in case anyone failed to notice. But even this apology has to be draped in a veneer of partisan balance: Right after, he proceeds to list all the ways in which Republicans are kinda-sorta-theoretically right about lots of things, even though they’re obviously also deeply wrong and need to be stopped before they continue driving the bus of state into the ditch.
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But the power to imagine is not the power to accomplish. Vague, high-minded goals get sullied when translated into specific, practical policies.
It's not his fault that everybody didn't clap their hands and believe hard enough. Cut the guy some slack, it take a lot of work to get a fairy off the ground.
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it take a lot of work to get a fairy off the ground.
Andrew Sullivan can definitely confirm this.
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Failed narrative? The narrative was failed long before the dunce adopted it.
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That's the part that gets me too. We've seen this shit played out many times before, and it doesn't get any prettier in the retelling.
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Like in a third-act revelation of a cheesy Hollywood screenplay, their stories are what help him find himself. Learning the tales of their lives, he writes, “helped me bind my world together…they gave me the sense of place and purpose I’d been looking for.”
Unfortunately, Cher is not available to slap that vacuous mooncalf face and yell, "SNAP OUT OF IT!"
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Interesting analysis and you obviously did read the books. I don't agree with the outcome,as for me, there are times I wonder what ever made Obama believe he was really a Democrat. I think if he had been the Republican that he actually is, he would not have pushed the right further over which they did just to make an opposition to his 'left' views, that no one else in the progressive party believes is left at all. He has sided with business, the stock market has never been healthier; the uber rich are doing great; there is still a paltry showing for middle class progress. Obama is progressive in that he does, as you describe, make more optimistic observations about culture, people and lives, which makes him a great ambassador, the U.S. foreign policy standing hasnt seen better times since just post world war II. But domestically in matters of trade, business, he is a redstate politician. That fact is born out of the financial situation today.
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Obama is progressive in that he does, as you describe, make more optimistic observations about culture, people and lives, which makes him a great ambassador, the U.S. foreign policy standing hasnt seen better times since just post world war II.
This is just unsubstantiated nonsense.
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That is some of the finest parody I have ever read.
*applauds vigorously*
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You bleach the meaning out of all the descriptive words you use, so you can recolor them again to mean anything. No matter Obama gives the 'private sector is doing fine' speech, no matter his race baiting and West Coast hippie stoking 'fuck the suburbs' rhetoric, no matter his empowerment of public employee unions über alles. He is just a right-centrist moderate. The elasticity of your rhetoric is very similar to that I see in a lot of young British writers. You sound like a Brit living in a left culture with the mistaken belief capitalism and Marxism of equally normative systems of political economy. That doesn't make you sophisticated; it just means you are unable to make distinctions in classification that give your argument any backbone.
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Marxism
ofare equally -
"..I wonder what ever made Obama believe he was really a Democrat."
A Republican occasionally has to pay lip service to staying within th bounds of the Constitution and respecting natural rights, Deomcrats do not. No need for you to continue wondering.
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One more piece of the proof that he's the second coming of Mussolini; the left is now redefining him as a man of the right. We have always been at war with Obama.
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He's the 2nd coming of Caligula, who also declared himself a God.
Caligula's end was not pretty. -
Is there someone pushing this idea now? Can someone find the article so we can mock it? No fun bringing up stuff from 2008.
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Ahhhh. This is the indicator that the bottom truly is falling out for Obama; when the Left concludes that Obama is really a closet republican.
But, the Left MUST do this. Either they blame the message or they blame the messenger. The Left cannot blame the message; they cannot admit that european style socialism is every bit as much a failure as marxism. Sooooo, they must blame the messenger.
As the article said, it's like the businessman who says it's not that we have a bad product, it's that we have bad marketing.
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How bad will it get when he loses? Will they disown him? Will he be shunned? Or will they blame the bleeting masses of gun-clutchers? Or claim a conspiracy to steal the election by racists? OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?
November is going to be sweet! So much schadenfreude, so little time.
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The SP 500 is below where it was 12 years ago. That's not what "never been healthier" looks like.
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Obama writes like a teenage girl longing for the captain of the football team, only more shallow and self centered.
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Somehow, reading this article made me think of that obnoxious Flowbots(?) song.
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The narrative of Barack Obama is alive and well among Americans. He's honest, unlike that lying Romney. He's genuine, unlike that fake, robotic Romney. He's for peace, unlike that warmongering Romney. He's going to make sure that the womyn are taken care of, unlike that patriarchal, misogynistic, rape-apolozing Romney.
As the Obama's time in office most resemble the failures of Carter, I have to ask myself: did the media help Carter this much?
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And then there was Obama's creating US foreign policy around himself and his experiences in Indonesia. Remember how everything was going to change on the day he was elected because of who he was?
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Let's face it; we had a perfect storm in 2008. Eight years of the incompetent Bush who jacked the national debt to $8T. Two unpopular and failed wars. And then six weeks before the election we had the most severe financial collapse since the Great Depression. McCain was tarred by association.
And what did we have? An elegant, debonair black man who successfully sold himself as the redeemer. Man, he was gonna change EVERYTHING; he was gonna make america post-racial, he was gonna usher in a "different kind of politics", he was gonna cut the debt and fix the economy. He was even going to heal the planet and cause the oceans to recede. The Left wing MSM utterly fell in love...literally in love...and lots of voters swallowed the whole thing.
Well, it was nothing more than hype and BS. Obama is inexperienced, a poor leader, and his BIG IDEA is...wait for it....1970s era european style socialism. The man is an unmitigated disaster, and hopefully future generations will learn to beware of the grab bag wrapped in pretty new bows bangles.
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Sad thing is...all that information about BO's true nature was easily available to anyone with the slightest curiosity and open mind. It's not like he was cloaked in mystery.
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reason. FREE MINDS AND FREE MARKETS... AND FREE BS. WTF? I'd like to leave some constructive criticism but it's hard to constructively criticize crap. Washington Times, NYDP level of reasoning. Have fun with the rest of your career as a right wing blogophite. I hear Redstate.com is looking for some conspiracy theory writers. And yes, this is the civil version.
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I guess you don't want to know what the REAL right wing blogophites think about this.
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Care to actually, you know, point out why you disagree rather than go off on a typical, left-wing rant?
At least you didn't say Faux-news.
Point to you...I guess.
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I'm guessing this is a reply to dbmd.
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Yes.
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Oh sure, I'll guess I'll bite. This is an "opinion" piece written by a right wing blogger... er... "writer"... who uses inference and suggestion to write a salacious narrative of the "illegitimate" President of the United States". I'm sure that the author (whatever his name is... won't matter next year) is heartfelt in his criticism and would "never call the President illegitimate". But it is ideologically motivated. It has no more truth than the fairy tales we read as children. It is opinion. It is simply one man's mental masturbation. There are people in America that consider Mien Kampf thougthful reading as well. This article is not a policy argument. It is an attempt to belittle a sitting president who "only believes in stories". I grew up poor and am now a rich physician. Long live America and Long Live the American "Story". Despite it's moribund detractors.
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You obviously didn't read the article at all.
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And again, you offer no actual criticisms of the author, you just make strange ad hominem attacks. And I mean REALLY out there. Where did this critique even come from? You REALLY didn't even glance at more than the first few sentences, did you?
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Should read, "criticisms of the article".
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I've never known a leftist who could read more than highlights.
Want to have some real fun? Argue with a leftist/Demo about one political subject for more than 30 seconds. Any political subject. Once the Maddow sound bites and Daily Kos headlines are exhausted, it's all emotion and invective.
And YOU will be the fucking idiot, naturally.
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I should probably be more specific. I'm not including the .2% of leftists/Demos who can articulate their beliefs, and stand on principle.
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This is so true. I can never get them to stay on the subject at hand. They just go from one boogey man to the next.
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Huffington is that way.
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I think we're a little farther left than Huffington Post, here. This is more on the level of Media Matters stuff.
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Like many liberals, Obama prefers to see the story in his head, rather than reality. Psychiatrists say liberalism is a mental disorder specifically because of this. Liberals ignore reality to avoid the pain of cognitive dissonance (holding contradictory thoughts).
And it explains much of Obama's lies, like his continuing lie (which he repeated in the debate) that if you like your insurance you can keep it.
I guess many folks bought his story, preferring to believe in him, rather than reality.
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Psychiatrists say liberalism is a mental disorder specifically because of this.
SURE they do.
Liberals ignore reality to avoid the pain of cognitive dissonance (holding contradictory thoughts).
Unlike people in other political persuasions, who NEVER ignore reality.
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I wonder if this white Regina with the vision of a black life is the same one who tied James Levy in knotts.
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He sure did "rewrit[e] uncomfortable truths about his own history? He wrote (in Dreams) that his dad got a scholarship to go to Harvard but was too broke to bring along wife and child. Lots of poor students bring their families: I doubt that was the reason. Then he writes "a separation occurred." Can you think of a more passive way to write that? Dad didn't leave me, he just magically got not there. He left his wife and kid in Africa to come for a scholarship then he leaves a second wife and kid to go back. It wouldn't be the last time. He would leave two more and die while married to the fifth, leaving seven children behind. Obama tries to make a hero out of an unheroic man by writing that he went back to fulfill a commitment to a continent, to apply what he learned in America to Africa. Sexual continence wasn't one of those things. This is what the incontinent father applied what he learned in America to Africa. 1) Since not keeping it in his pants had no adverse effects on him, he continued the practice, 2) Socialism is the answer to the single mother problem since I have no intention of taking care of my own.
I fail to see how "rewriting uncomfortable truths about his own history" is something praiseworthy.
Obama reminds me of those kids sent from relative to relative, learning to be charming in constant terror of yet another rejection. It may be that force, that search for love that led to his strange psychology and need to be adored. A loss would be grievous.
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very nice
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Great superman! People are missing you.
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good thanks sohbet
cinsel sohbet