History is Happening Now

Today, inauguration day, is an important day.

A country that at its founding was a brutal slaveholding society, that long after abolition systematically denigrated and segregated its black citizens, subjecting them to inhuman and cruel abuse, is celebrating the inauguration of its first black president. Despite the ongoing violence, terror, torture, and economic hardship that our country continues to participate in creating throughout the world, there is reason to celebrate. This moment is unambiguously historic — in a positive sense.

And yet I fear that in our embrace of the powerful symbolism of Barack Obama’s becoming our forty-fourth president we may come to rely on him too much as the sole legitimate agent of the change we claim to be seeking. Obama is one man in time and space. He is finite in his knowledge and limited in his power (despite what Dick Cheney would have you believe about the “unitary” executive). Decisions that we attribute to him — and rightly hold him responsible for, in an ultimate sense — will originate from all levels of his administration, sometimes with little to no input from him. When we talk about Obama in a sense we’re no longer talking about a person but a system of people, most of whom are very likely trying to do what they think is right, some of whom are cynically corrupt, others of whom will do thankless jobs of little obvious significance dutifully and anonymously.

I wish Obama well.

I hope the members of this new administration are sincere about their stated desire to lead this country in a better direction. I hope that Obama follows through on his progressive promises: moving us toward universal health care, rebalancing taxation in a more progressive direction, drawing down our troops in Iraq (ideally leaving no bases behind), curbing the emission of greenhouse gasses, investing in vital infrastructure, ending the practice of torture, using diplomacy more often, strengthening the international rule of law, and so on. I hope Obama changes his mind on other nationally and internationally important issues, such as his promise to add up to three brigades to Afghanistan, his desire to avoid war crime prosecutions, his continuing support of the 2008 amendments to FISA, and so on.

The future is not determined. It is not fixed. We will all choose together what kind of future we want to live in. In the days and months ahead we’re going to have to decide how involved we are in the politics of our country, for which we are all jointly responsible. I have previously on this blog distanced myself from the rhetoric of patriotism, because I am skeptical of how helpful it is in describing what we’re up to when we involve ourselves in politics — after all, who doesn’t claim to want what’s best for his or her country? — but today I’ll make an exception. I believe it’s the patriotic duty of every American to look within him- or herself and decide what he or she wants America to look like in the next decade — and the next century. What do we want to be true about the Obama years after they’re over? What sort of inaugural address will an American president deliver in 2109 as he, she, or it reflects back on how far we’ve come?

That is, we shouldn’t think about what some abstract entity called “America” wants to happen, what we think is “politically possible,” what we think will “sell” with the American people. We need to envision our personal idea of Utopia — along political, social, cultural, economic, gender lines (etc.) — and develop a clear and honest sense of how far we presently are from this ideal vision. This clear and articulate vision of what we want and where we want to go needs to guide our behavior and our forms of engagement with politics, our assessments of success and failure. In a sense, the exercise I’m describing was equally necessary under Bush, but I think if progressives of all stripes work together — with a clear sense of what they want to accomplish — we can produce greater change in this country than we’ve seen since the New Deal. We need to think big and long term.

But the change we’re seeking is only going to happen if we put pressure on those in positions of power, and if we create institutional barriers that’ll prevent the next Bush presidency from being nearly as destructive as the one we’re leaving behind. When one side of an argument fights passionately for its beliefs and aims, and the other side sits on its laurels waiting for its leaders to respond and do what was promised, the side that fights harder will win more of what it wants than the side that remains quiet. The Rush Limbaughs of the world have not gone away, nor will they anytime soon. They’re not going to stand by while their cherished political priorities are ignored or contradicted. That’s all well and good for them; they’re doing exactly what they ought to be doing, fighting for their sincere beliefs. We need to respond in kind, more forcefully, with a greater degree of coordination and organization, and at all levels: at the level of systems and at the level of symbols, in every state (and the District of Columbia, while we’re at it).

Without popular mobilization from below, Obama will not be nearly as progressive as he could be. Obama is quite right to say that we’re the change that we seek, in the sense that change will only come if we make it come and won’t if we don’t. We should honor his correctness by becoming the change we seek (another cliched-but-true statement): and by constantly pressuring Obama to enact changes we want, vigorously opposing him when he deviates from what we want. All of what I’ve written in this post is quite elementary, but it’s good to remind ourselves of these political precepts once in a while.