I had to read it twice to make sure I understood what he was saying, but James Poulos's critical reflections on popular enthusiasm for Obama and Huckabee really are thought-provoking and rewarding.
In his view, enthusiasm such as Andrew Sullivan has expressed for Obama, and I have expressed for Huckabee, are signs, I think, of decadence, or at least they're juvenile. Now, before I go further, let me say that I'm not sure Andrew and I like our respective presidential candidates for the same reasons. Andrew, I think, believes in Obama straight-up. I'm more skeptical of Huckabee, but am rooting for his candidacy more for broader strategic reasons (i.e., because I am hopeful that he will be able to steer the supertanker of American conservatism more toward a direction I favor).
Anyway, James contends:
So I think that part of the anxiety striking people like Rod and Andrew who are uplifted and inspired by Obama and Huckabee is the result of our cultural inability to decisively defeat our fear that if we don't remain bound in commitment to reality then we risk not just anxiety but great agony. On the one hand, we want real change, and people who promise, or evoke the promise, of real change therefore generate much genuine enthusiasm. On the other hand, we also long for the simple enjoyment of a sense of change. We've revised our expectations about politics downward, as a therapeutic prophylactic and analgesic, against the agony of realizing that the major structural change necessary to truly solve the huge problems that we can only cope with from year to year is actually impossible. With the feverish dislocation and trivial pursuit of the market, the dissolution of authority in our personal relationships, and the ominous contingency of terrorism and ecological change, we want to 'live in the moment', to be 'heroes for just one day', we want the freedom to be carried away without guilt or nervousness into the swell and flush of true fellow-feeling, following the proud yet inclusive call of politicians that seem to redeem politics by transcending it.
In other words, deep down we know that we as a society can't really make the changes necessary to address our deepest problems, so we content ourselves with politicians that give us the exhilirating feeling of change. And because we've become exhausted by the grubbiness, the pettiness and the unheroic quality of everyday democratic politics, we long for a politician who will deliver us ... from politics. Which is childish, and even a dangerous form of escapism.
This I understand, at least I think I do, and it's why I try to see Huckabee not as a cracker version of Obama Messiah, but as a politician of generally sound instincts who is open to a kind of conservatism that I favor. I wish he would drop the Fair Tax nonsense and instead start talking more plainly about getting our economic house in order. But look, is there a single Republican presidential candidate other than Huck who is likely to pick up a copy of Ross and Reihan's forthcoming book on Sam's Club Republicanism and understand intuitively what they're talking about? I don't think so, and given how dismal I've been feeling for a long time about the GOP field, I'm thinking that Huck, while far from perfect (take a bow, I.J.R.!), is the best thing going now on the Republican side. But you knew that.
So, back to his point: what does the body politic's longing for change mean? Is James's Rieffian analysis accurate? Is it really true that the American people, though understandably fed up with the status quo, are too afraid, unwilling or faithless to make the real changes that might address our anxieties, so instead long for the feeling of change? In other words, do we want a preacher who will inspire us, but won't actually require us to change our lives? Is all this hunger for change really a matter of everybody wanting to get to heaven, but nobody wanting to die?
Maybe. Probably. But what's the alternative, right here, right now? Four years of listening to Hillary's big mouth on TV every night? John McCain storing up rage in his jaw like a passive-aggressive albino chipmunk, and telling the nation we'll stay in Iraq for a hundred years if we have to? I dunno, you tell me.
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Hi, Rod. Thanks for your comments. Certainly your (and Andrew's) enthusiasm for Huckabee (or Obama) isn't simply decadent and juvenile! But surely a portion of that enthusiasm does express the fear (as opposed to the knowledge) that the only way to face impenetrable decadence is with a self-conscious escape into shared emotional puerility. Obama and Huckabee both offer a therapeutic release from politics -- or, more precisely, the opportunity to pretend that doing politics together can be redeemingly about 'more than politics'. But they simultaneously offer a chance to recover the energized engagement of conscientious and spirited citizens that's vital to doing any kind of healthy politics. That's the paradox I tried to sketch out. At first, several months ago, I was too quick to see Huck and O as purely therapeutic candidates. The therapeutic style and flights into gauziness are dominant, but not necessarily decisive. Whether or not they go down in history as yet two more false prophets of the fleeting wank of a 'sense of togetherness' is ultimately for we the people, American citizens acting as proper citizens, to decide. Both your and Andrew's honest, open, and not at all uncritical support for these guys is an important contribution to what we all can hope is a good outcome.
I wish he would drop the Fair Tax nonsense and instead start talking more plainly about getting our economic house in order.
The only candidate talking about the real nuts and bolts of our economic house is Ron Paul, and it's not happy talk. His supporters love him for the economic straight-talk, but his disdain for the Fed has earned him a kook label with most pundits that he'll never pull off.
If you want plain talk about the economic house, read Kunstler. We're in for a major economic down-turn, and soon. A clusterf*ck of biblical proportions. No candidate that has a prayer of being elected wants to talk about what really needs to happen to our economic house.
“Is it really true that the American people, though understandably fed up with the status quo, are too afraid, unwilling or faithless to make the real changes that might address our anxieties”
Yes, I believe this is true, at least as far as people being unwilling to make real change. Actually I am not sure folks are all that fed up with the status quo either. But it seems to me that the vast majority of people do not want to discuss any significant changes.
For example, Rod recently mentioned Ron Paul talking about the gold standard which Rod dismissed as “waaaaay out there” as do many other folks. If we really do have huge problems facing us, it is not unreasonable to think the solutions to those problems are going to be somewhat radical (I mean ‘radical’ literally, as in ‘at the root’). But as soon as someone proposes a radical change (such as returning to the gold standard) it is dismissed as being too kooky. I don’t think most folks are giving careful consideration to the problems and the proposed solution, and then rejecting the “kooky” solution after careful study. I think it simply sounds like too much change to them, and so it must be kooky. But they don't have any other solution either, at least not one that will actually change anything significantly.
Like the fair tax. One of it's selling points is that it won't really change anything, it's revenue neutral. It just makes tax season go away.
Personally, I do believe we have huge problems facing us. I do not believe anything will be done about them because major changes are deemed “kooky” by most.
"Passive-aggressive albino chipmunk"? Man, Rod, and I thought I loathed Sen. Clinton ...
To answer the larger question, people's aspirations can only be placed in who's running -- and who can conceivably run.
Would Democrats rather have stood behind Mario Cuomo in 1988 than Michael Dukakis? No question, but they called him "Hamlet" for a reason, one reason he eventually lost even the governorship (ironically, despite Rudy's last-minute plug).
Would Republicans rather stand behind Jeb Bush than any of today's contenders? Of course -- but Dubya jumped him in the Bush dynastic line in 1994, and we know what's happened ever since.
(Indeed, Obama -- despite Tuesday's defeat -- still benefits as much from Clinton dynasty concerns as from his own positive "audacity of hope" campaign message.)
Hell, you want change? Put me in office! I'll fix things up and straighten the naughty non-believers out. I'l promise you every promise I can spit out of my never-ending always-running mouth. I'll make sure you think I will bring the moon down to earth so we can colonize it without going anywhere. Imagine that: the moon in our own back yard! And I'll do it with a smile on my face and a flag in my hand (or no my lapel, whichever looks better for the cameras).
Okay, that's satire. The truth is, and I think we brought this up a while ago, America is not ready for and will not accept the changes we need to make. We just don't remember how to really sacrifice for the god of others. We don't understand teh value of altruism. We refuse, due to supply-side economics and other things, to follow the teachings of those we hold most dear religiously (something about saying Jesus, as shown by his own words, was a borderline Socialist always gets me in trouble).
We are not ready to give up our "independent" lifestyle. We are not ready to stop growing out and start growing up. We are not ready to say, everyone will pitch in what they have to get our butts out of debt (or at least to a managably reasonable level of debt). We are not ready to give up our cars to build and then ride public transit (which has the added bonus of getting people free excersize). We don't even have enough ambition to get off our lazy backsides and turn off the TV. And yet we expect change? What kind of idiocy have we sunk to? What kind of morons are we?
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