| Current mood: |  contemplative |
Inauguration Day; or, why my liberal friends accuse me of being anti-Obama
I am not an Obamaniac. As a liberal Californian, this marks me as strange and unusual, indeed. I am nearly censured for this at every academic crossing, even more than I was chided for liking Clinton in the primaries. Recently, a good friend asked me what it would take for me to "admit" that Obama is a good president--more than a month before the man was even to take office! In this climate, it has seemed to me that to express any reservations about the future world to be found under Obama's administration has been treated as conservatism at best, cynicism at neutral, and sneakily hidden racism at worst. So, I have simply watched the events unfold, the rhetoric grow more florid and untenably worshipful, and the expectations mounts well past any hope of their being met by any one man. But, contrary to the suppositions of my peers, I have also been quietly rooting for Obama and his big-tent administration. It is, in fact, part of my support for the aims of the administration that I refrain from the hyperbolic rhetoric and the grandiose self-congratulation (at personal and national levels) circulating around the installation of our 44th President. Let me see if I can explain what I mean.
At the gym today, I watched on CNN and MSNBC as some of the inaugural events unfolded. The most remarkable thing, to me, was the spirit of the crowd. The 2000 ceremony was filled with bile, picketers lining the streets of the motorcade, hissing and booing to be heard in the crowd during appointee-Bush's speech. The mood was divided, dour, at most resigned. Today, the mood was light, expectant, almost jubilant. Celebrants lined the streets. People wept in hopes of their dreams for the U.S. being embodied, realized and even elevated by one man, Barack Obama.
And, he played to just that mood. He appeared hopeful, relaxed, ready for anything. His wife and family were proud, elated, but controlled, aware of the eyes of the world. His speech was, as his speeches tend to be, stirring, patriotic, concilliatory, and steeped in references to those values (and the historical figures most symbolically associated with them) closest to the heart of our national pride and truest to our best ambitions as humans and as a nation. It was, in short, an Event. This Inauguration, on the heels of a more widely-celebrated than usual MLK day, conspicuously featuring our then-President-Elect, will be the stuff of national mythology--a "where were you when?" day, one of the few positive such events to occur in my memory.
It works on me, too. I am hardly immune to nationalism, nor to the effects of a brilliant orator. I, like so many Americans and world citizens, root for Barack Obama. I think he faces enormous challenges, more than most presidents have faced, and enough to mire an entire administration in endless policy debates and moral quagmires. He will be at more risk than most presidents, in all likelihood, due to the U.S.'s eroded position in the world theater, particularly in the Middle East, due to the sweeping nature of his policy plans and the very real consequences they might mete out for those who've most raped the system in recent years, and due to the enduring legacy of racism.
He seems like a relatively good guy, all told. His heart seems to be in the right place, he's got a good head on his shoulders, a lively and challenging partner to keep him on track in his private moments, and a team of outstandingly well qualified and seasoned policy-makers and diplomats behind him. I hope that all of these things are enough help to make the next few years tenable for a man who just became the most scrutinized and pressurized human being on the planet. I hope he has the vision, the talent, and indefatiguable optimism, and the support system to survive the scrutiny without compromising himself into oblivion; I hope he can weather the storm, and that he deserves to do so. For me, though, all this remains to be seen; unlike seemingly millions of others, I will not give him or any other leader carte-blanche purely on anyone's say-so.
And that's still a sticking point for me...the hero-worship, the full-court press idolization of the man in the media and amongst the rank-and-file. It's not that he's not worthy of respect and admiration, not at all. It's that he's an untested leader, in part. More, it's that no one man can "save" a nation, any more than one man can "break" a nation; much as we'd like to pretend that Dubya put us where we are and that Obama can rescue us from that fate, neither is true.
Politicians are ultimately more a measure of their people than a shaping force upon them; Obama will succeed to exactly the extent that he can stir us, the commoners, to action. Dubya succeeded; his words and actions (both his own and those of his inner circle), true or untrue, justified or not, shaped the decisions we as individuals made and therefore that we as a nation endorsed, directly or not. The same will be true of Obama. This makes it doubly important that we keep a critical eye on our leaders, that we examine their rhetoric, that we not simply take on blind faith their words, their plans, or their actions. It is because I hope that Obama's sweeping vision of a fairer, more peaceful, and more worthy nation proves accurate that I treat him with skepticism; my own understanding of politics and its real dangers and contributions leads me to believe that a good leader can take the scrutiny and a bad leader will always be outed by it.
So, I guess what I mean by this is: celebrate, certainly. Enjoy a historic moment, and the promise of a better nation and a better world that it implies. Use that enjoyment, that inspiration, to fuel some real work toward lasting change, even seeminlgy minor change, in yourself and your world. But don't think the work is done, nor that a single symbolic moment makes for a changed world. Racism has not vanished because we elected a black man to high office; the world and its many problems are not fixed because a conciliatory liberal has replaced an anti-diplomacy authoritarian. Remember that inspiration is easier to generate than is follow-through. And when the bill comes due for the real changes needed, remember that it takes more than pretty words to remake the world: it takes real work, real time, and real sacrifice. We will all have to contribute those things. All Obama can do is lead us, in equine fashion, to the waters of high-minded reform. All of us must choose, individually and collectively, to drink--even when the brew is bitter indeed.
So here's to you, Mr. President. May you withstand the trials you will face, may you continue to inspire others in word and deed, and most importantly, may we all prove willing and able to unite in the face of adversity in the pursuit of the admirable goal of bettering conditions for all people. I, for one, will be watching. I hope you make us proud not of you, but of ourselves and what we accomplished with your motivation and guidance.
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