Politics: The End of Hope

As if we needed reminding, every day we see new examples of the gap between expectations and actions in the political world. The President's speech justifying a US presence in Afghanistan is just one more lesson that political reality has little, if anything, to do with moral reality. Shame on us for thinking it could ever be otherwise.

 In the political reality that dates to our seizing the mantle of empire following World War II, it is impossible for any president, particularly a Democrat, to appear "soft on defense." This was the political reality that pushed Kennedy into Southeast Asai and then and made it impossible for Johnson to leave Viet Nam without giving up his power, all of it.

 The only politician who could pull it off would be one who would willing to be a sacrifice his entire agenda for this moment of moral clarity. And politics, as we should know post-Rove/Bush/Cheney, has nothing to do with moral clarity (although it may at times have everything to do with moralizing).

There may be many on the left who though a vote for Obama meant a vote for that level of moral clarity, a clear break with the devious and unprincipled political machinations of the Bush administration. Such it is with a new face in the political arena, you can project whatever you want on them (positive or negative).

In Obama's case, he had been around long enough to suggest he was fully integrated into the dominant political reality. If anything, he had scrupulously avoided making grand gestures. He knew where the support was and he wasn't going to be far from it. He showed himself clearly to be a real politician, in terms of working for incremental change, rather than grandstanding for a cause that would lead only to defeat. He might try to get his team ahead, but he wasn't going to try to change the rules of the game.

Too bad, perhaps, but it would be well for us to remember the game isn't over yet.

We are in Afghanistan, and we will be there for a while. In political reality, there were few choices available to him. Especially if we pay attention to the key political reality: All politics is local. The real effect of what he does in Asia will be felt here, with US voters and in the Senate and House. A couple of years in Afghanistan (and $30 billion plus  some hundreds of soldier fatalities) is the price for some kind of health care reform and a chance to climb out of our economic swamp.

Thinking back to LBJ, he was trying to make the same deal in order to pull off the huge Great Society vision, civil rights and an effective social safety net, by talking about a victory in Viet Nam that he already knew was unlikely. As someone who participated in the anti-war protest movement, I can only say that no matter how important our moral anti-war position was, it would have been more meaningful in the longer run to have completed LBJ's social program.

It may very well be that there was no alternative for Johnson. And it may be that there is no alternative for Obama. In fact, it may be exactly the same political battle, now forty years on, between those who want to roll our society back -- before Roe v Wade,  before civil rights, before the New Deal and Social Security, before income tax, hell, before the 14th and 19th amendments -- and those who see this as an interconnected social democracy rather than a robber baron oligarchy.

The iconic image of the last campaign was Shepard Fairey's "Hope" poster, but it's worth remembering that Obama's campaign word was "Change." Hope may have propelled him on his life's journey, but I think that Obama is well aware that "hope" is an attitude, not an action or a promise.  If we project hope on Obama, that is more our problem than his responsibility. As to change, which is inescapable and implacable, we'll have to see how the game plays out and whether Obama will be the changer or the changed.

As to us, it's time for us to move beyond our hopes, whatever they are, and get to work. If you see the folly of trying to "save" Afghanistan, then it will be up to you (us) to reframe the political reality so we can have that conversation. Ultimately it will be that conversation, rather than force of arms or moral aggrandizement, that will bring real, lasting change.