Neither Awe Nor Inspiration

The secret to Barack Obama’s non-success:

He has a strange, three-step habit that has the effect of turning off both opponents and his base supporters: (a) the initial audacity-of-hope call for civility, working across the aisle, and bipartisanship in melodic cadences; (b) followed by an unleashing of a Chicago-style assault on his opponents with a wide array of martial imagery (e.g. “hostage takers,” “gun to a knife fight,” “get in their faces,” get “angry,” “kick ass,” etc.), general derision (“moats and alligators,” “back seat,” “punish our enemies”), especially aimed at the affluent (“corporate jet owners,” “millionaires and billionaires,” “those making above $200,000,” “fat-cat,” “at some point” “made enough money,” spread the wealth, redistributive change, unneeded income, etc.). That has the psychological effect of making it nearly impossible for those targeted and caricatured to eventually work out a deal with the president.

And then just when his base is fired up by such combative and confrontational red meat, Obama either votes present and hits the links during debate and argument, or drops the “don’t call my bluff” braggadocio and settles for what he can get. The common denominator here is rhetoric — Obama’s once great gift and now greater nemesis. He sounds much tougher and more divisive to enemies than his later walk back would indicate and he postures as a Chicago-style Alinsky organizer only to disappoint the faithful wanting tough action to follow tougher words.

And the worst thing (from his and his supporters’ point of view) is that he is incapable of changing. It is who he is.

[Update a few minutes later]

Obama: Still the Alynskyite.

For all the good it will do him.

12 thoughts on “Neither Awe Nor Inspiration”

  1. Step (a) would be more effective if it wasn’t followed by step (b).

    Maybe the Obama should start with step (b) and then after a week or two switch to step (a). You apologize after a fight you don’t apologize before you start a fight. It would also make step (c) easier for his base to swallow.

    It is a curious tactic to insult your opponents in the midst of negotiations and expect them to work with you as was done with the chamber of commerce, health insurance companies, and numerous other groups.

  2. Above all, they are never openly ideological. Everything is portrayed as pragmatism.

    Pragmatism is an ideology — it is an ideology in which the ends justifies the means.

  3. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the words “light-worker” and “Obama” in the same sentence in HuffPo and the like. But it may not be long before we see even that crowd start to frequently use the words “light-weight” and “Obama” in the same sentence.

  4. “It is a curious tactic to insult your opponents in the midst of negotiations and expect them to work with you as was done with the chamber of commerce, health insurance companies, and numerous other groups.”

    Don’t forget the people from China. Remember those Global Warming Treaty negotiations, where was it, in Oslo or some such place? And the International Olympic Committee!

  5. I think the stuffing is coming out of his shirt. It’s certainly falling out of his head if you look close enough.

    The George Jefferson strut, combined with the Il Duce scowl, a few weeks ago was more ‘theater’ than substance. And he just kept threatening Congress (Republicans anyway) like children, “…I’ll take this to the PEOPLE!!!”

    (“…and your little dog TOO!”)

    But when the phone systems crashed at the WH and Congress, the majority of callers wanted to Balanced Budget Amendment, not MORE off the cuff, cow fart study, shrimp on treadmills, shovel ready spending. And the story I heard was 75% of callers were FOR the Amendment.

    That sounds like taking it TO the people and the people telling you where to STICK it.

  6. I’ve never understood the “great orator” claim. If you pay attention to what he says you quickly notice that he is ignorant about markets and business, that he wants the federal govt to dominate the private sector as a matter of principle, that he is ignorant about history yet wants the USA cut down to size as payback for wrongs and imagined wrongs it’s committed as well as for Americans’ impudence in believing their country to be exceptional, that he insults and demonizes his political opponents, that he tries to divide Americans along racial and class lines, that he hides his agenda (his actions often contradict his words), and that he avoids reasoned argument with the people he disagrees with.

    My impression is that most people who say he is eloquent are doing so out of either political solidarity or because they are evaluating him on his appearance and on what they perceive as his calm, thoughtful temperament. They are, in the case of his ideologically-grounded political supporters, responding to the evidence of who he really is. In the case of the many people who judge him on appearances, they are ignoring (or are too ignorant to interpret) that evidence.

  7. OK, people. Mr. Obama may not be a great leader, but he is still President of the United States. He may not be African American in the sense of the Middle Passage and the Emancipation Proclamation and the Black Experience in America and his mom was as white as I am, but he still self-identifies and is identified by others as being black.

    Can we forgo the George Jefferson remark? Can we please leave the subject of the temperment of one’s dog out of the discussion?

    My two cents is that the President happens to have a poor track record of negotiating with anybody, foreign or domestic, and he seems to do as badly facing off with Chairman Hu as he does with Speaker Boehner. It has nothing to do with race and I would really like to leave race out of this or even the most oblique association with race.

    Thanks for your consideration of this, everybody.

  8. “Can we forgo the George Jefferson remark? Can we please leave the subject of the temperment of one’s dog out of the discussion?”

    You’re the one who introduced race to this discussion. Obama does indeed resemble both George Jefferson and Mussolini in some aspects, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing it out. We’re discussing the man’s behavior. Saying that he behaves like some other well-known person in some way is a helpful shorthand.

    Also, in case you missed the point, the remark about the dog was about logic (calm temperament does not imply competence), not an assertion that Obama is a dog.

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