Americans' Real Bitterness

Senator Barack Obama has gone and done it again: he has said something which every politician (both Republican and Democratic), every reporter, every member of the press corps, every political operative, and even every voter recognizes to be true but is too afraid to say it out loud. To paraphrase Wilde, it is the issue that dare not speak its name: the middle class, small-town, blue-collar voter has been voting against his economic self-interest for quite some time, at least going back to Reagan’s election in 1980, while voting for their cultural self-interests, or, as it has been commonly referred to, the three G’s—God, Guns, and Gays.

Obama rightfully commented that these voters “cling” to any number of issues, such as religion, xenophobia, and gun culture in order to escape the doldrums and blues of their daily lives. The politically-convenient truth is that politicians aren’t supposed to say these things, at least publicly and definitely not at a fundraising on the Left Coast and never in the commie-pinko haven of San Francisco for God’s sakes! Unless you want to appear elitist, out-of-touch, professorial, and too intelligent, you risk losing the support of the ever-important, blue-collar, exurban/rural, white voter who lives in a swing state with lots of electoral votes.

Except, Senator Obama’s candidacy has been about changing all that—change in policies, from Iraq and the economy to healthcare and the environment, change in our politics, from bitter partisanship to bipartisan consensus, and change in our discourse on any number of controversial issues, like race, immigration, and class. On so many levels, in order to successfully secure the nomination and win the general election, this campaign has to experience a confluence, a perfect storm, of events, feelings, and attitudes. If there is ever the slightest chance for the candidacy of a first-time United States Senator, whose name, Barack Hussein Obama, is so foreign to so many Americans, whose message is rooted mostly in airy concepts rather than detailed policy proposals—if this campaign strategy is to ever succeed, then 2008 is the year.

The American people are anguished, frustrated, upset, disturbed, depressed, and yes even bitter over what has happened to our country over the past eight years. Actually, I believe our frustrations run deeper. For my generation, it’s been since the ‘90s, for my parents the 1960s. Each generation collectively feels as though our country’s morals and values are decaying. A recent New York Times poll concludes that nearly eight out of every ten Americans believes we are heading in the wrong direction. Those aren’t just voters from one political party either; Democrats, Republicans, Independents, whites, blacks, males, females, of all ages, feel as though America is no longer America.

No wonder the level of anxiety and distrust is so pervasive among such a broad swath of the electorate. We have witnessed an administration that has stood by while innocent Americans have died in New Orleans and while American soldiers have been in the crossfire of a civil war in Iraq. We have seen our country become increasingly dependent on foreign oil, while oil companies in the United States gauge prices and pocket billions of dollars in profits. Our educational system has remained stagnant while the rest of world continues to excel and move ahead. Our so-called “free trade policies” have been a race to the bottom, where the American worker gets to train his replacement in another country. Healthcare premiums, college tuition, mortgage and rent payments all go up, every year, sometimes by double digits, but our wages barely cover inflation. It is very difficult to love your country when you feel as though your government is solely interested in political gamesmanship and wealthy contributors.

Who is looking out for us? Doesn’t the Constitution read, “We the people”? Didn’t Lincoln famously declare, “A government of the people, by the people, for the people”? Under this administration, the Constitution has been shredded, ignored, and invisibly rewritten by right-wing judicial appointments and Supreme Court justices, along with signing statements and torture memos. Congress has mostly been impotent. Those running for president, namely Senators McClinton, offer the same policy prescriptions for the same illnesses that still seem to have no cure. Bold, brave political leadership has been absent; our elected officials are too timid and feeble to appeal to the better angels of ourselves.

Except for Senator Obama. His campaign promises to bring about the best that America has to offer. It is about a return to our common ideals, restoring our standing in the world. It also offers us the chance to look at ourselves in the mirror, to see who we are as a people, what we want to become, what we want to leave behind to future generations of Americans. Senator Obama’s candidacy is unlike any other we have experienced. It is about us, the people. His campaign’s slogan is, “Change we can believe in.” But, first we have swallow yet another bitter pill and wait until January 20, 2009.