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Obama's Violin: Calibrating Hope Since the Election
By Paul Street
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February 27, 2009
This article reviews Barack Obama's record since the day of his election. Thatrecord, we shall see, is deeply consistent with his record-setting corporateelection funding, including more than $900,000 from Goldman Sachs and $37.5million from "FIRE" (the finance, real estate, and insurance industries), andwith the fact that like, George W, Bush in 2004, small donors (people giving atotal of $200 or less) accounted for just a quarter of his total campaignfinance haul.It matches former Clinton administration official David Rothkopf's early post-electionobservation that Obama was following the "violin model: you hold power with theleft hand and you play the music with the right."It fits New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar's description (in May of 2007) ofObama as a "deeply conservative" individual who "values continuity and stabilityfor their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good" andRyan Lizza's portrait (also in The New Yorker, in July of 2008) of Obama assomeone who has been "marked" at "every stage of his political career" by "aneagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions."If reflects well on the left black political scientist Adolph Reed Jr.'sfollowing description of Obama at the very beginning of the future president'spolitical career in 1996: "a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentialsand vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics."It fits the comment by a leading Washington lobbyist, who told journalist KenSilverstein in 2006 that big donors would not be helping out Obama if they didn'tsee him as a "player" for "What's the dollar value of a starry-eyed idealist?'"(Ken Silverstein, "Barack Obama, Inc.: The Birth of a Washington Machine,"Harper's, November 2006).It jibes nicely with the formerly left Christopher Hitchens' onetime descriptionof "essence of American politics" as "the manipulation of populism by elitism"and with Edward S. Herman's observation (in an article titled "DemocraticBetrayal") that Democratic presidential candidates make "populist and peace-stressingpromises and gestures that are betrayed instantly on the assumption of power" (EdwardS. Herman, "Democratic Betrayal," Z Magazine, January 2007).It speaks favorably to Laurence Shoup's argument that U.S. politics arestructured so that "electable" candidates are vetted in advance by "the hiddenprimary of the ruling class" so that the rich and privileged Few continue to bethe leading beneficiaries of the American system." (Laurence H. Shoup, "ThePresidential Election 2008," Z Magazine, February 2008).It matches Sheldon Wolin's recent description (in his haunting book "DemocracyIncorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism") ofU.S. culture as a form of incipiently totalitarian "corporate-managed democracy"wherein both wings of the "one-and-a-half party system" operate within a
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profoundly narrow spectrum that prohibits relevant substantive criticism ofbusiness and militarist rule.It fits former Richard Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips' description of theDemocratic Party as "history second-most enthusiastic capitalist party" and withthe Marxist author Lance Selfa's recent historical depiction) of the DemocraticParty as "one of the chief pillars of the [capitalist] system that perpetuatesoppression and exploitation" (The Democrats: A Critical History [Chicago:Haymarket, 2008], p.198).It is consistent with the following judgment in a report issued by researchanalysts with the leading Wall Street investment firm Morgan Stanley one dayafter Obama's presidential election victory: "As we understand it, Obama hasbeen advised and agrees that there is no peace dividend."It is in harmony with former Obama advisor Samantha Power's description (in aninterview in February of 2008 with television talk show host Charlie Rose) ofone of Obama's key tasks once he attained the highest office: "expectationcalibration and expectation management" (something Power said "is essential athome and internationally"). As The New York Times candidly noted on February 12,"since Election Night, when he warned of 'setbacks' and 'false starts,'" Obama "hasassiduously managed the politics of the moment with an eye toward tempering [popular]expectations."And it fits the following observation recently sent to me by a friend who worksas a substitute teacher in an inner-city public school system:"Today, I asked a class for which I was subbing (high-school English students,about a dozen, all-black, at one of the system's actually nice high-schoolfacilities) what they thought of Obama. Their initial reaction was one of, forlack of a better way to say it, pride and joy.""But upon closer inspection, this turned out to be a rather shallow sentiment.For when I asked them if they expected any real changes under Obama, they allsaid no.""So while they are (currently) happy he is in the White House, they know fullwell that he will be no different from any other president -- and it's notsomething they only know 'deep down.' They know it pretty close to the surface."As President Elect (November 4, 2008-January 19, 2009)The highlights of Obama's violin performance as President-elect included thefollowing:* A conservative Election Night speech that said nothing about rampant andrising poverty and economic (or racial or gender) inequality and made a point ofdampening down popular expectations with warnings of "setbacks and false starts."Obama's victory oration claimed that "change has come to America" because of "thiselection" and that his ascendancy proved that "democracy" was still "strong" inthe U.S.
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