Obama's anti-political utopianism

I thought Barack Obama gave a great speech tonight, but it's just silly for him to claim that he will end negative politics:

I didn't expect when I ran for president that I would avoid this kind of politics [GOP character assassination]; I ran because it is time to end it ... We will end it by telling the truth. Forcefully, repeatedly, confidently ...

Andrew Sullivan loved this passage. But to me, it's absurd. As I wrote last year, there's no way Obama can deliver on this promise -- polarization is not going to go away:

[M]ost of Obama's appeal comes down to his call for a new politics that is less cynical and polarized -- a vain hope. Bill Clinton and many other politicians have called for such a change, and none have succeeded. The underlying structural forces that promote polarization are unlikely to relent. And more importantly, polarization is a two-sided phenomenon. Calling for depolarization once you are president is, in practice, a call for the opposition to go along with your initiatives -- as in President Bush's call to "change the tone" (see All the President's Spin for more). It's an absurd promise that no candidate can deliver on...

And as I argued after seeing Obama speak back in November, there's something vaguely anti-democratic about his promises to end negative attacks and transcend partisanship:

He said the reason he ran for president is to "change politics" -- a goal that is, frankly, absurd and borders on the anti-democratic. The forces driving the trend toward increased partisanship won't go away if he's elected. Consider the only time in recent memory that the two parties "got along" and "worked together" -- the aftermath of 9/11. During that period, President Bush's high approval ratings silenced dissent among Democrats, providing the context for approval of the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq in fall 2002. It's not a great model.

To be fair, Obama could be right in the following narrow sense. If he overcomes the negative ads and wins a convincing victory in November, it might help force the GOP to move beyond its aging 1980s template of attacking Democrats as too liberal, elitist, and unpatriotic. But the trend over the course of the campaign has been for him to make statements suggesting that there's something wrong with partisanship and opposition. After living through the GOP's efforts to silence dissent since 9/11, he should know better.

Comments

[Rob]

Obama's own voting record does not reveal any serious desire on his part to move beyond partisanship. What he means by moving beyond partisanship is that everyone else should sing his tune. And if Obama is elected, I hope Brendan will be as quick to catalog Democratic efforts to silence and vilify dissent as he has been to identify GOP examples.

[Jinchi]

there's something vaguely anti-democratic about his promises to end negative attacks and transcend partisanship

Huh?

Certainly you understand the difference between saying "your health care plan sucks" and "your wife is a terrorist". Obama has no problem arguing policy. It's the personal attacks that he wants taken out of politics.

And partisanship is a focus on the party rather than on ideology. There's a big difference between being a liberal and being a Democrat. The votes on the Iraq war and the Bankruptcy bill proved that point.

[David]

Adding to Jinchi's point, to say that Democrats are too liberal is not a personal attack. It's a disagreement with their policies, which is an appropriate part of a campaign.

[Howard]

Saying that democracy is built on polarization seems to over-state its role.

Different opinions can (and should) co-exist. What's needed is more of a focus on the issues themselves.

I also happen to disagree with David, to a degree. Yes, labeling certain policies as "too liberal" isn't necessarily a personal attack, but what does it really mean? If I use that characterizations to denounce someone (or their policies) doesn't that, generally, just contributing to polarization without moving the discussion forward?

We see these characterizations put forward as proxies for a discussion of the actual policies themselves.

Dissent, from any side, should be more than just a "no". There should be a "why" or a "because" associated with it.

[Dave M]

I'm all for agon, and dissent, so maybe Brendan's post should worry me. But to think a President Obama would eliminate them somehow - or label them as 'unpatriotic' - is preposterous.

Obama is hardly anti-democratic (or utopic) when he talks about ending "negative politics". It doesn't rule out disagreement, only demonization. There's a clear difference and the latter has no essential connection w/ democracy. Politics is not (always) Hobbesian/Manichean; the other is not always the enemy. Those are lessons that this country desperately need to learn, if we're going to re-invest in infrastructure, change our disastrous energy policy, and fix a broken health care system.

[Richard]

You are right that a simple call for bipartisanship is meaningless. W has illustrated that pretty convincingly. But Obama is doing something more. He is more willing than other serious candidates to speak truth, to put sound policy before political points. The gas tax business is a good example. Obama is the first gentleman and scholar on this National stage since I don't know when.

[Nora]

Brendan, I don't think this is a fair charge. I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure what Obama means when he says "change politics." However, I take him to mean that he wants to end the kind of polarization that prevents serious dialoge. The kind of polarization in which dissenters become traitors/socialists/ facists, whose ideas are no longer worth considering and who probably don't even belong in this country. I don't see how this is un-democratic. At least, this is a common vision of democratic politics, embraced by Jefferson, Emeron and Dewey.

This may be a naive vision of politics, and it certainly should not be taken as a model for all times - I'm not sure we would have abolished slavery, if abolitionts had not been willing to use "polarizing rehtoric." Abolitionists like Thoreau, Douglass and Garrison all mainatned that dialogue with slave holders was pointless, as there was no merit to their position.

That being said, I'm not sure how the current political rehtoric helps us address our current problems. My understanding is that most Americans support Obama's health care plan, when both his name and the party label are removed. Perhaps Obama may be right about the kind of politics that is worth striving for at the moment.