Two Misconceptions

1) The "Center-left" "center-right" kerfuffle: many commentators are taking to task the assumption that the United States is a "Center-right" Country. My question: how do we judge "center right" versus "center left"?

If you go by international opinion, we are clearly far to the left fringe in terms of democracy, civil rights, and freedom; economically we're somewhat to the right but not very far. But I don't think the pundits are comparing us to countries like China, Indonesia, Iran, or Afghanistan (just to name a few).

In terms of comparing us to "The West" or the other first-world countries, I think it would be accurate to say we're "Center right." After all, Barack Obama is considering a National Health Care plan, and will meet into a lot of opposition; but even his plan does not go as far as England's, France's, or Canada's (unless I'm misunderstanding his plans and theirs, which is possible). Then again, one question that comes up is how much does this "left-right" polarization actually mean when you leave the conventional two-party system and compare different world multiparty governments?

Why the pundits are wrong: when I heard CNN consultants and other talking heads defend this claim, they said that yes, the election did lean to the left, but Barack Obama and many of the Democrats ran a fairly centrist ticket. One commentator (and her sentiments were echoed) said that the Dems couldn't win without endorsing "certain right-wing philosophies: anti-abortion, pro-gun" etc.; basically, the social conservative litmus tests. This is a bad argument, because firstly, it ignores the more important issues of economic and foreign policies in favor of the old "culture war" model (why did the Democrats and Obama win? because they abandoned the "culture war" model).

2) McCain's Campaign Is No Worse Than Any Other Republican Campaign. Perhaps. Perhaps it's true that McCain is no less or more toxic than Bush in 2000, or Reagan in 1980. That is not the point. The point is is that this time, we've decided that it's not acceptable. The point is not that McCain's campaign's race baiting and McCarthy-era rhetoric is unprecedented, or that it conforms to the previous norm. The point is that we've decided to change the norm. We just won't put up with it any more. A politician who goes down that road will be punished. If we reward the politicians who play cleaner, and knock the politicians who go on the offensive, we'll get a better class of politicians. After all, the entire meme of "Change" is precisely that the old norms no longer apply. We are not content to have our politicians match up to the politicians of 2002, or 2000. We're out to change politics.

Open Letter To Barack Obama

President Barack Hussein Obama.

Congratulations sir. As someone who saw your speech in 2004, and instantly heard your call to transcend the red-versus blue to create United States as one of the most genuine calls to unity in our time, you've had this coming, sir. I had initial doubts about your readiness in 2004, and you answered them--not through stunts, or through loudly insisting that you were ready, you were ready, you were ready, but simply by being ready. You've earned the "historic" label that has been foisted upon you; you've earned a 64% turnout.

Now, it is government time.

There are incredible opportunities across the world, and you've got to act quickly to make sure you're taking full advantage of them. The strange world of the "President-Elect" is odd to navigate, and it may not be fully proper to be starting until the transition period is over, but you need to keep these things in mind.

The Democratic Party is yours. We in the party (I have never conceived of myself as being in the party until today) are looking to you for guidance. And while the past eight years have been an indictment on the failed policies of the neoconservative movement, they're also an indictment on the failed leadership of Nancy Pelosi; especially in the last two years, where as Speaker of House she failed to use her position to significantly advance a progressive agenda past the first 100 days. Our inability to create a useful opposition to Bush is our collective burden. But our partisanship, our tendency to cast blame and not provide solutions, that is part of what created the huge rally to your side.

The Democratic Party will look to you for leadership, and you must be willing to take on those in the party who "fight" Republicans, who "fight" conservatism, who take your Presidency or their ideals as dogmas which cannot be questioned. If Nancy Pelosi squelches debate the way Dennis Hastert did when he Spoke for the House, if she drives out those Republicans who are still in congress, you may still be able to win votes, but the bipartisanship that you have staked your claim to the presidency on will be ruined.

Turning our attention abroad, there is another even more incredible opportunity overseas. Unnoticed by the media, a great excitement has built up in the moderate Muslim and Arab worlds; the idea that someone of your unique heritage and background can succeed in "The Great Satan" is a repudiation of the fundamentalist view of the United States, which sees the very worst in us. Tentative optimism has been heard from all quarters, expecting solid talks. Syria is optimistic. Muqtata al Sadr is optimistic. You will have an important moment to leverage in the Middle East. You need to use it. It will be difficult, because the financial crisis at home will want to take a lot of attention. And yet, as a President (as you said yourself), you need to multitask. You need to be exploiting that goodwill before it goes away.

A new, young generation has come out for you; you and us are taking the baton of American leadership from an older generation, one that served in Vietnam and ended the Cold War. But in the Middle East, a new, young generation is coming of age as well. There is a danger that this new, young generation will come of age in a broken world, with warlike leaders and inspirations, thinking that America is all that is bad in the world. My professor Jan Urban quoted Gallup polls that indicated that 80% of these young Arabs hate the West; but 56% hope to live there one day. Many are fanatic, but they may not be as unreachable as older fanatics like Osama Bin Laden. The hope that you brought to the young in America needs to be hope you bring to the young all over the world. A young man who has just reached voting age in Iraq needs to be just as exuberant over his voice making a difference as the young man in North Carolina who helped turn that state Blue for the first time in decades, as all of the young men and women who proved that they can turn the country if only they get out there, organize the community, and make a difference.

These are the two big opportunities in front of you. There are many more. One of them is that you may, interestingly, have an influence over the face of conservatism for the next generation, as a broken and injured Republican Party looks for a new message. You'll have the opportunity to extend them a hand, to invite their fiscal sensibilities to the table. The libertarian movement, underrepresented by both candidacies, is looking for a seat at the table; Ron Paul proved that the promises of libertarianism can get people as excited as your own progressive agenda. In engagement, you can shape the form they take in the same way that your engagement with China, with Syria, with Iran, and with Cuba will help shape their futures.

I draw this letter to a close with my own intentions. If you stand for what you believe in, if you take advantage of these situations, if your presidency tolerates the dissent that I and many others may sometimes voice; if you turn our hope into a definite agenda that reaches to all of America, not just those who agreed with you in this past election, then you will have my resources to put them into action. There are a lot of IF's attached to that, and I make no apologies for putting strings attached to my support. You have an incredible opportunity, and an incredible responsibility.

Your humble servant
(another gawky kid with a funny name)
Guy Yedwab

Election Reaction. Duh.

Three days ago, the President of the United States was elected to be a black man, for the first time in history, with over 300 electoral votes and a 64% turnout, the highest since women won the vote.

I'm not going to talk about that for very long. I have a few posts in mind as reactions to various people. This first one is a reaction to this article by Will Wilkinson

The government of the state is profoundly important. And I think American voters picked a competent, decent, and sober executive officer. But this is not, headline writers, Barack Obama’s America. He is not your leader, any more than the mayor of your town is your leader. We are free people. We lead ourselves. He is set to be a high-ranking public administrator. Sure, there is romance in fame. But romance in politics is dangerous, misplaced, and beneath intelligent people. Were we more fully civilized, we would tolerate the yearnings projected on our leaders. Our tribal nature is not so easily escaped, after all. But we would try to escape it. We would discourage and condemn as irresponsible a romantic politics that tells us that if we all come together and want it hard enough, we’ll get it. We would spot the dangerous fallacy in condemning as “cynicism” all serious attempts to critically evaluate the content of political hopes.

I both agree and disagree.

Agree: You're right. We must remember we are still free people. We must allow the critical evaluation to take place; through criticizing Barack Obama, we can force him to be an even better president; to live up to his full potential. We need to balance out Obama's flaws as they emerge, we need to represent those in this country who are still strongly conservative, and we cannot let Rich Lowry's "starbursts" (I can't bring myself to link you directly to that post without the sane counterweight of Andrew Sullivan) distract us from Obama's reality.

But I want to very quickly take issue with one part of that argument, even though I have a hunch you don't actually mean it in the way I'm taking issue with it.

He is not your leader, any more than the mayor of your town is your leader. We are free people. We lead ourselves.

It is true that we lead ourselves, and are a free people. But he is our leader; we in the left movement, we who banded together, made him our leader. Now, "our" leader still has our criticism coming, and he needs to be our leader not just someone who leads us, but I want to defend the use of the possessive pronoun, and the ownership that implies.

We Obamanauts are invested in this Presidency. That means from this day forward, a duty falls to us to keep fighting, to keep engaged. Yes, we voted in record numbers. But if 2010 goes back to apathy, goes back to the old way of community disengagement... well then, everything reverses. If we think our job is done on Election Day, that now we can just sit back and snipe on the President, we can't. We own this presidency.

One of the failures of the Bush presidency, I think, is that conservatives did not own the President enough, with the exception of a few neoconservative thinkers who did. Those on the right who went into the conservative movement back during its Contract With America days... what did you do to keep the Contract alive? What did you do to keep the principles that you fought for in action? Where were you in the Primary season?

Now, the other failure of the Conservative movement is exactly what Mr. Wilkinson said; they took President Bush to be their leader, they marginalized and finally (when they latched onto Sarah Palin) closed the door on dissent. And that, too, will be coming in the near future. We shall see if Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert can fulfill their duties the way they have until now, dispassionately. I am optimistic.

We own this presidency. We have to keep it ours--not in the sense of fighting to defeat its opponents, but in the sense of making sure it remains the presidency we fought for.

Conversationalism + 2008: On The Street Where You Live

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

This is the paragraph, in 2004, that turned me into an ardent Barack Obama supporter. It was a promise that there was an idea of America separate from party politics. And a rejection of the cutting and dicing of America. It contrasted sharply with another political candidate of the time:

Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America - middle-class America - whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America - narrow-interest America - whose every wish is Washington's command. One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants, even a Congress and a president.

This is an older meme, but it gained equal traction when John Edwards deployed in 2004. Like the Obama view of America, it unites people regardless of ideology--but unlike Obama, it still creates a huge division in America. The "narrow-interest" America versus the "middle-class" America. It harkens back to How The Other Half Lives. But it's still a politics of division. A politics of the enemy. The rich, entitled (bourgeois?) versus the everyday, ethical man.

In 2008, it reared its head again not just in the visage of John Edwards (still under the Two Americas name), but under Mike Huckabee:

I'm not a Wall Street Republican, I'm a Main Street Republican.

Perhaps a testament to the lasting influence of Huckabee is that now, during this economic crisis, you literally cannot open your mouth to talk about the bailout plan without saying the phrase "It has to work for Main Street, not just for Wall Street."

Even Barack Obama has been using this phrase, which makes me sad. What happened to "These United States of America?" Certainly, it hasn't been visible in Nancy Pelosi's "leadership," which most recently consisted of blaming House Republicans for this mess. That doesn't mean that House Republicans don't share the blame--the point is that we're not even talking about the issues, the solutions, or reality.

Instead, we're trumping up this economic division. Is everyone in the financial industry evil? Maybe the CEOs and the Investment Branches. But I have several close friends who work as bank tellers. You know who suffers if Washington Mutual or Wachovia branches close? They do. I agree that there have to be strings attached, etc. etc., but if we start employing the language of a culture war, we start setting our priorities incorrectly: our priority is not to punish the financial industry, or to find blame. Our priority is to straighten out the markets.

We can start creating accountability, rewriting the legislations, straightening things out after we've guaranteed that our inaction hasn't caused a 700 point in the DOW Jones. Just to reiterate: the stock market is not just for rich speculators: people have their savings there. Banks are not just for rich speculators: people have their savings in there.

Notice: when Americans are asked how they feel about the bailout, they react strongly against it. When they are asked how they feel about a rescue package that has exactly the same terms as the bailout but isn't called a bailout, they react strongly in favor.

And what this really boils down to is: why are we using any of the language of politics right now? Why are we debating "Wall Street" and "Main Street"? In fact, why are our Congresspeople publicly debating the Bailout package? They should be in meetings, privately debating the bailout package. This is the moment for Congress to quickly and quietly get to its work.

I don't mean that it should be secret--Congresspeople should keep the American public informed as to how the package is going, and once an agreement has been reached, it should be presented to the public. All I'm saying is that trying to play the political game at the same time as the statesman game is going to hold us back.

All I can do is remind you: we have no red states, or blue states: only these United States. There isn't a Rich Person's Economy and a Poor Person's Economy: there's the World Economy. When you find it more important to debate whether the free market solves everything, or to vilify the very House Republicans whose support you need to pass this bill, not only are you watching the US market decline, but the Eastern market, the European markets. Everyone hurts.

Conversationalism + Identity

The thesis of this blog, as it were, is that culture is a conversation, and every mode of public expression helps shape that culture. One of the ways in which public expression shapes culture is through public understanding. When a journalist writes an important news story, or an internet meme travels through the public consciousness, or a theater piece reaches the height of its success, it's partly because it causes a new understanding of the current shared state of the members of its culture (or causes a new awareness of understanding).

So, a cultural dialogue is a mode of cultural self-expression, but also a cultural dialogue is a mode of cultural self-examination. America is constantly probing the question, "What is America?" and "Who are Americans?" When you hear this refrain of "Small town values," for instance, what you're hearing is one interpretation of what America "really" is; and such an interpretation is deliberately constructed so as to remove those who disagree with it from America. In other words, by defining America as conservative America, "liberal" America becomes un-American, and thus America has no responsibility to "liberal" America. That, I think, is the power of the common refrain in the Obama campaign: "That's not who we are as a people. That's not who we are as Americans."

By extension, I think, part of joining the cultural dialogue is also examining your own internal dialogue, and coming to understand yourself better. The wisest people in public life, for instance, have often had the most healthy internal understanding. Think of Abraham Lincoln's brooding self-examination, or George Washington's humility in the face of success. Their self-awareness is what made them more aware of how to serve their country.

Our blind-spots in ourselves are our blind-spots looking at culture, and those things we see constantly in ourselves are what we see in culture. This, perhaps, explains the fascination that biographical interpretations of art/history have for us. After all, if we understand what Kafka thought of fathers, we should be able to understand what Kafka wrote about fathers.

This also is where we get into the trouble spots in culture. Because too often, we use culture and cultural identity as a protection from self-examination. That not only shows an unhealthy attitude toward the self, but an unhealthy attitude towards culture.