Mr. Obama and the End of History
When President Barack Obama took to the stage this week, reacting to his party’s historic drubbing at the polls, he sounded almost pathologically reasonable.
Democrats had been kicked to the curb by a Republican movement that described Mr. Obama’s agenda as dangerously anti-American, while portraying the president himself as a racist, a foreign interloper, and a false Messiah.
Republican leaders made it clear before and after the vote that they had zero interest in compromising with the White House — unless “compromise” meant capitulation.
Yet here was President Obama promising once again to work toward some kind of bipartisanship, suggesting that he was open to deal-making, and promising to “reinvent” the way Washington DC works.
Everyone else has taken a stab at trying to understand the thinking that led the Democrats to this moment of fairly abject humiliation.
For my part, I say it all stems from Francis Fukuyama. Who the heck is Francis Fukuyama?
He’s an academic philosopher who in 1989 published a highly influential paper called “The End of History.”
The core of Fukuyama’s argument was that all of human affairs had led us toward the establishment of Western-style liberal democracies.
In political and cultural terms, we had arrived at a kind of evolutionary end-game.
From here forward, “history” would amount to very small tweaks and adjustments of the system, designed to make it a little more fair, a little more efficient, and a little more sustainable.
Fukuyama’s text fit very neatly into the progressive, liberal worldview held by a lot of Democrats. Big vision thinking was passe. Shining-city-on-the-hill style rhetoric was to be distrusted.
The future would belong to a class of technocratic policy-wonks, who would use a complex system of institutions to mitigate the world’s problems, from racism to global recessions.
I’m convinced that this is largely the view of the world that Mr. Obama, like a lot of Democrats, clings to.
He sees the economic recession the way a very smart car mechanic would see an engine that’s running rough. He plans to try various tune-ups and and tweaks until the motor runs smoothly again.
He sees the deep corruption and villainy on Wall Street not as the objects of a moral crusade, but as a system that is functioning poorly and needs refinement.
If I’m correct, then Mr. Obama sees his relationship with the Republican “opposition” in much the same light, as a political ecology that needs a bit of pruning, a bit of a trim.
After all, we’re all reasonable people right? And we all want more or less the same thing.
The trouble for the Democrats, of course, is that Republicans see the world entirely differently. They don’t think history has ended at all.
They see the United States in bluntly Biblical and even millenial terms, as a nation that is following a very specific trajectory, one that is divinely inspired.
Thinkers on the right from Ayn Rand to Rush Limbaugh have outlined a very nearly utopian vision of a world-to-come in which dangerous “enslaving” institutions — from welfare to Social Security — are no longer needed.
Personal liberty and entrepreneurship will replace the liberal state.
Ronald Reagan spoke of of this Better America as a “shining city” upon a hill, and in his victory remarks Tuesday, John Boehner – the new House Speaker — echoed that passion.
Boehner laid out an aspirational vision for our society, one so beautiful (in his eyes, at least) that he wept.
Put simply, conservatives believe devoutly that the great fight of history is not over.
They are convinced that existential challenges (communism, socialism, secularism, Islamic facism, etc.) surround them on all sides.
And given those stakes, losing is not an option. And it is crucial to note that in their estimation the Democratic vision for America represents defeat in no uncertain terms.
That’s why thinkers such as Limbaugh were so comfortable hoping out loud that Mr. Obama’s efforts to fix the economy would fail.
“Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails?,” Limbaugh argued.
“Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it?”
My guess is that in the short term at least this kind of passion and conviction will win out over Mr. Obama’s more technocratic, tidy-up-the-accounting world view.
After all, Mr. Obama has already made it clear that he doesn’t have any particular principles upon which he is unwilling to compromise.
He appears convinced that global warming (to name one issue) is a threat to our society and our planet, yet he has drawn no lines in the sand in terms of doing anything about it.
He seems to think that economic unfairness is a growing problem, but he hasn’t offered a single visionary plan for reducing the gap between rich and poor.
He seems to think the American middle class is truly imperiled, but where is his great Marshall Plan for restoring it to security and prosperity?
He seems to think that expanding renewable energy is crucial for our economy, our national security, and our environment — so where is his Manhattan Project, his quest for the moon?
Mr. Obama’s fiddle-and-adjust approach might have worked a decade ago, when we were a more prosperous and patient people.
But these days Americans of all political persuasions don’t particularly like the country as it exists. We desperately want the next chapter of our history to deliver us a big step closer to that shining city.
Unless Mr. Obama and his party begin to think very big about their dreams for the Next Great American Century, more and more of us will look elsewhere for leadership.
Tags: election10
Knucklhead,
It is not a good move. He sets his schedule, he can promote it however he wants, the fact is he is in India and we are in a depression, where is his Secretary of state?
The guy is bogus.
Hillary 2012.
Myown said:
Your question isn’t valid, it’s silly. This is just a distraction to avoid actually discussing the issues we have now. You have already demonstrated that your knowledge of history is lacking. Even recent history as I will point out.
You can’t even make a consistent argument. You prior made the claim that “they” (whoever “they” is):
Before it was “eliminate” taxes and regulations, now it is only cutting them. So what you are saying is the taxes and regulations we have now are without fault and that we only need more of them. So how is your Utopian vision any more flexible then the Utopian vision you accuse others of having?
Only in your distorted perception of history. In fact you made the claim:
The only problem with this argument is there wasn’t any deregulation of the financial industry under Bush’s watch. The last regulatory bill passed was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act in 1999. It was signed by Bill Clinton.
We were never in “Nirvana” and we never will be so your point is pointless. Just keep beating that straw man.
Brian:
You and everyone have sparked a great discussion . Keep it up. We need to talk to each other.
Mervel, Hillary has been busy on other international initiatives.
But maybe you’re right. Maybe Obama should be in Washington working on setting up WPA and CCC projects. Ooops, sorry, I forgot. Obama isn’t a liberal.
Quotes like this from Bret,
“Deregualtion has it’s place. Regualtion also has it’s place. The conservative trend I see and believe in wishes to learn form the mistakes of the past and not repeat them. Part of the problem is that whenever there’s money or power in play the guys that know the ropes will manage to worm their way into the game enough to make sure they get taken care of. I don’t care if it’s a staunch Democrat or staunch Republican, that’s the thing we need to stop. “How?” is the problem.”,
demonstrate are entirely reasonable. But the higher up you go in the conservative plutocracy, the less of this reasonableness you find. Bret, please read the article about the Koch Brothers by Jane Mayer in the August 30th New Yorker (available on-line). Like George Soros, they have given hundreds of millions to causes they support. Unlike Soros. however,1. much of what they give is untraceable, or hidden behind phony-grass roots titles like “Citizens for a Sound Economy”and, of course, the Tea Party Movement, and 2. much of their donations dovetail nicely with economic welfare of their privately-held corporation, Koch Industries (which, with incredible irony, their father started by building oil refineries for Stalin in the ’30’s).
While grass roots conservatives may believe in a country where limited government and low taxes will produce a more effective and fairer society, the actual results seem to be greater and greater concentration of wealth among the very wealthy, and ever-diminishing wealth among the bottom 90% of us. And, yes, the Democrats are only slightly less culpable.
The term “Beijing Consensus” has lately been mentioned as succeeding the “Washington Consensus” among world governments. The Washington Consensus favored political freedoms and free enterprise. “Beijing” tolerates private enterprise, but does not tolerate individual freedoms, and it many are saying it is working better. I think the US , like Russia, for example, is moving toward the Beijing model. However, unlike China and Russia, opponents are not arrested, beaten up, or murdered. They are simply outspent in the media and in elections. The results appear to be the same, control by a small, hugely wealthy, elite.
Yet more fact-checking of Bret: “Clinton did NOTHING about welfare reform until the Republican congress got on his back,”
Sorry, but this is flat wrong. Did he pass welfare reform in the Dem Congress in the first two years? No. Because he wasn’t in charge of Congress. But to say he did nothing is really just a lie, Bret.
Read this, from a Heritage Foundation guy (Heritage is on YOUR side, Bret): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/22/AR2006082200741.html
“A major turning point in the debate over welfare reform came in late 1993 when Clinton made a series of remarkable public statements about the links between social problems, welfare dependency and unwed childbearing. No president before him had addressed this topic….
That’s why many welfare recipients began to change their behavior even before welfare reform legislation was adopted. Indeed, the day the welfare caseloads started to decline was the day Bill Clinton went on national TV and said that if we stopped giving welfare checks to low-income women, they’d have fewer out-of-wedlock babies.”
Read this whole article, Bret, and read the Jason DeParle book. Or just do a real Google search before you make factually incorrect statements.
Unless you just hate Bill Clinton, or anything Democratic, or anything Glenn Beck calls liberal (even if it’s not actually liberal), so much that you don’t care.
Mervel said: “How is Obama’s speeches on his two week sojourn around the globe helping health care or job creation in the US?”
Fyi…
http://www.bombaynews.net/story/703926
“Ahead of US President Barack Obama’s address to CEOs in Mumbai, the White House announced the following deals worth almost $15 billion that will support 53,670 jobs in the US.”
Brett
I am not suggesting that pride in one’s heritage is somehow a bad thing. Quite to the contrary, that sentiment is critical to the functioning of a healthy society. Loss of confidence in basic values and institutions is likely to lead to corrosive cynicism and perhaps even despair. But, an unbalanced belief in the exceptional nature of our place in the firmament is an impediment to fixing the things that are broken. It can preclude a sense of historical perspective and the recognition that other cultures and societies (yes, maybe even the French) have learned lessons that can benefit us.
I believe that there should be a balance between pride in our values and institutions and the humility to understand that not everything good has to be made in the USA.
I’ve read a lot about American Exceptionalism but have yet to see a clear definition of just what it means. I’m afraid that it has become one of those slogans that make the disenfranchised and the disenchanted feel good, and my concern is that it is an amorphous idea that politicians and talking heads can use to demonize adversaries.
Mervel, as oa points out this trip IS about jobs.
You may say that Obama didn’t have to go to India to announce the deal, he could have sent Hillary, but in international relations sending the Head of Government sends a signal.
But there is more, much more. I haven’t been following the news on this trip but presumably our war in Afghanistan is one of the top issues to discuss. There will be no withdrawal from Afghanistan without involvement of India (not to mention Iran). Turning down the heat between India and Pakistan will help get us out of Afghanistan sooner and we will save American servicemen’s lives (and allies) and save on military spending.
Isn’t all that worth a presidential trip?
I know knucklehead, I was being petty.
It just seems externally like bad timing. It just does not seem like he has any sense of urgency about two wars and a national recession. I mean I see him indulging in touring India visiting the Ghandi museum etc, which is all fine and good, but you know we are fighting a war just up the road from where he and the first lady are appearing in dancing photo ops, it just does not look good.
You’re a big man for admitting a moment of pettiness, Mervel.
It may not look good from the point of view of an American but sometimes we need to understand the world through other peoples eyes as well as our own
OA, do some more research. Even Wikipedia supports my position. Paying lip service to a problem was one of Clintons strong points. Doing anything about the problem…eeeeh, not so much. Nothing got done until Newt’s gang got Congress and forced the issue. For that matter, Nixon did more first hand work on welfare than Clinton ever did. Of course Nixon would have put millions more on welfare, but that’s another discussion.
Nixon would be a liberal Republican in today’s world though Bret.
You beat me. Seriously. There’s absolutely no reasoning with you.It’s just a huge waste of time pointing out facts. So you win. And this is how modern right wins. They just keep up the anger and demonstrable falsehoods, and never back off, until people wear out and give in. (Notice how hardly anybody pushes back on assertions about the “gimme mines” in New Orleans, and the Obama voters who wanted “bling”–it’s just too tiring to point out the code words.) Conversation is pointless, so most people just walk away. Which I should have done a long time ago.
May the rest of your days be filled with the rage and misinformation so dear to you.