The speeches of politicians in a modern liberal democracy are always interesting for reasons beyond their immediate content. The last thing one expects to hear is the clear enunciation of policy, or for that matter, a coherent defense of the philosophical premises that underlie the candidates’ beliefs. Rather, one is treated to the spectacle of men and women of means and attainments trying to pass themselves off as what they take to be the average person, and in the process, trying to connect with voters in whose orbit they may never have moved in their lives.
None of the three viable presidential candidates have lives anything like those of the vast majority of their constituents. In another age this fact would have been, on the whole, a positive. Men like Washington, Adams, and Jefferson were elected in large part because they were possessed of qualities that their fellow Americans recognized as surpassing the norm. Theodore Roosevelt was the author of nearly thirty books, an accomplished naturalist, historian, explorer, athlete, soldier, and statesman. Even those like Jackson and Lincoln, who rose from genuine poverty, had arrived at the heights of power by means of ambition, energy, and will beyond that of most of their peers. Even when they affected an average man's persona (one thinks especially of Jefferson), they made certain to demonstrate that they were worthy of the esteem of the thinking public.
The quality these men all shared was fame, which is to say, they were known and respected for their qualities of character by other men of character. This is not to say that they were uncontroversial; each was hated by others of equal repute. Nor was every president a genius, a polymath, and a hero. But they all made their way in a moral universe that presupposed a hierarchy of value, one that all but demanded that its public men be a cut above those they would lead.
This idea, however, coexisted with another particular to republican forms of government, the fear of the Great Man seducing the masses, a conspiracy of Highest and Lowest against the Middle. The dynamic between populism and aristocracy was and remains a running theme in American life. In recent times is has accreted with issues of race, class, and sex. And in our present age, wherein celebrity has eclipsed fame, this trope has taken on new meaning entirely
A celebrity is a person who is wealthy and well known, but whose tastes and behavior are those of his admirers as a whole. He is who his fans would be if they had money, loved precisely because, unlike the genuinely famous, he is immediately comprehensible. But at the same time he is admired, he is often despised. The celebrity can get away with things his worshipers cannot, and this irks them. If he goes too far, those who lifted him up will cast him down with alacrity. Thus one of his most important functions is to be humiliated, to be photographed by police, to have public troubles with sex and drugs, and to otherwise be cut down to size by the same forces that constrain the appetites of the fan. I read once that the Aztecs had a ritual whereby they would select a slave, dress and treat him as a living god for a year, and then sacrifice him, perhaps a pre-Columbian adumbration of Telemundo. In a celebrity culture, such as ours, the hero is the victim.
No one running for president understands this better than Barack Obama, a man of fame who nonetheless chooses to run as a celebrity. It was nearly a year ago that he delivered his speech to the congregation of the Brown Chapel A.M.E Church in Selma, Alabama, a speech that was significant in that it centered on Senator Obama doing his best to appropriate the legacy of American Black victimhood to legitimize his political aspirations. That this is necessary says something profound about what Obama believes about his constituents; that his liberal policies, which they favor, are not enough. He must be one of them.
This is of course a problem, in that Obama’s life experience is only tangential to that of the vast majority of American blacks. Raised mainly by a white mother and her parents, educated in a series of expensive private schools in Indonesia and Hawaii, and moving thusly to the Ivy League and corporate America, he has little in common with the congregation of Brown Chapel. For a lesser politician, this would have proven problematic, but Obama is a master of rhetoric and has a clearer insight than any other candidate regarding his audience
"I mentioned at the Unity Breakfast that a lot of people been asking, well, you know, your father was from Africa, your mother, she's a white woman from Kansas. I’m not sure that you have the same experience.
"And I tried to explain, you don't understand. You see, my Grandfather was a cook to the British in Kenya. Grew up in a small village and all his life, that's all he was -- a cook and a house boy. And that's what they called him, even when he was 60 years old. They called him a house boy. They wouldn't call him by his last name.
"Sound familiar?"
It bears emphasizing that Obama never knew this man, or his own father for that matter, was raised in circumstances many of his white contemporaries could only envy, and has apparently never suffered a serious setback in his life. The mere fact that he shares the genes of someone who underwent oppression is meant to be the pretext for his connection to his audience, who by way of fulsome praise he credits for every opportunity he has ever had.
"It is because they marched that I got the kind of education I got, a law degree, a seat in the Illinois senate and ultimately in the United States senate.
"It is because they marched that I stand before you here today. I was mentioning at the Unity Breakfast this morning, my -- at the Unity Breakfast this morning that my debt is even greater than that because not only is my career the result of the work of the men and women who we honor here today. My very existence might not have been possible had I not been for some of the folks here today."
Obama in effect offers fealty to the civil rights establishment, the “Moses Generation,” in exchange for their endorsing him as an authentic victim. Victimhood is theirs to bestow, or take away, as can be done by affixing the label ‘conservative’ to anyone who strays too far from orthodoxy. But the issue here is that rather than standing on his own achievements, and running for office on his merits, which are truly formidable, he sees it as essential to prove to one of his major constituencies that he is not the Harvard Law candidate, but the one who has been the most put upon.
If his attainments are the work of the civil rights establishment, then so too must be everyone else’s. To have succeeded outside of their auspices is to invite accusations of untoward individualism. If one can succeed in America purely on one’s own merit, then America has moved past institutional racism, which of course would obviate the need for the race-based political apparatus the Moses Generation represents. But it is also to fall into the trap of the celebrity, which is to draw upon oneself the ire of the fan by overly conspicuous success. Achievement must be attributed to as many nebulous but similar others as possible, all of whom are in a position to reciprocate on some level.
One of the most telling passages in the speech deals with affirmative action, which is the practical application of the principle of group effort, group reward.
"I had a school in southern Illinois that set up a program for PhD’s in math and science for African Americans. And the reason they had set it up is because we only had less than 1% of the PhD’s in science and math go to African Americans. At a time when we are competing in a global economy, when we're not competing just against folks in North Carolina or Florida or California, we're competing against folks in China and India and we need math and science majors, this university thought this might be a nice thing to do. And the justice department wrote them a letter saying we are going to threaten to sue you for reverse discrimination unless you cease this program."
The logical problems are what first jump out at the reader. Exactly how does the fact that America is competing in a global economy and needs math and science majors lead to a need for racial set-asides? One might think that a nation with this problem might be more inclined to lure the over the best and brightest from China and India rather than create a program limited to those who would not otherwise be inclined to pursue the relevant disciplines. It is hard to see how a nation’s science programs could be taken seriously abroad if their success is measured by how many racial minorities can be induced to participate in them.
But to ask these questions is to miss the point. The object of this program and its ideological clones is not to find scientists, but victims. Victims are at the heart of the movement Obama represents. They need him, and as long as they do, he needs them. All of the rhetoric about ‘hope’ and ‘change’ presupposes a large body of voters who are both utterly despondent and wholly lacking in personal agency. And he, by way of his grandfather at least, is one of them. He is a celebrity politician, seeking to become a celebrity president, a victim drawn from a mass of victims. This wealthy, well-educated man, who has benefited from everything America has to offer, must become a casualty of oppression, and must hire this identity from those who he would represent.
Obama seeks to master the paradox of celebrity by divesting himself of the traits that would those who love him seek to destroy him, by diffusing his accomplishments among his fans and proclaiming that all his achievements are due to the work of the Moses Generation. Whether this will work remains to be seen. It may be that he understands his role better than anyone knows. But if he does lose, it will be interesting to see to whom, a ‘great man,’ or a ‘commoner,’ which means of course that his opponent will have to decide who he will be, and what mask he will wear.