The Far, Far Right Battles Reason with Fear-Mongering

While the Tea Party and other political-right opposition attacks President Obama’s policies with outlandish arguments, Obama is forced to contend with both emotional arguments without factual basis and defending his administration’s positions persuasively. He has been criticized by party leaders and citizens alike for his mediated approach to attacks from the political right: will his calm censure be enough to have his argument heard? Only voters from the right and left will decide. My fear: The opposition’s tactics and arguments, while ridiculous, may be effective in swaying the voting public.

It has always been the case that the politics of America is a blend of cynicism and real democratic deliberation. I wrote about this extensively in my book, The Cynical Society.  There are the sound bytes and the serious modes of deliberation.  There are the media circuses and the deliberative chambers. And, there are slogans and extended reasonable arguments. But the proportions of the blend changes.  During the election, Obama used serious persuasion more effectively than his opponents and his predecessors as a political tool.  He consistently did this, most strikingly in his famous race speech in Philadelphia.   A provocative compilation of the words of his minister Reverend Jeremiah Wright was used to insinuate that Obama was an angry Black man, a reverse racist.  He responded with a carefully reasoned speech, addressing the problems and promise for racial understanding.

He has tried during his Presidency to do the same.  This has led to aggressive attacks by his opponents.  They attack not only in substance, but also in form, as he insists upon reasoned deliberate debate, his opponents flee from reason.  Many have wondered whether his cool reasoned response to this has been wise.  His critics within his Party, his fellow progressives, are most interesting in this regard.

There has been a concern that Obama has not been tough enough.  That he has been too open to an opposition that has been unbending.  He has offered respect and cooperation, while they have vilified and demonized him.  And when his opposition does not demonize, it refuses to condemn or distance itself from those who do.  The response to Obama is strongly ideological, irrational and demagogic, even though there are no substantive reasons why it must be this way.  It is not the case that the liberal position is necessarily principled, rational and deliberative, while the conservative one is not, but this is the shape of the political culture at this time.  The contest between Obama and the Democrats and the opposition is not only a matter of competing substantive policy positions, it is also a competition between the force of arguments and the force of manipulations.

I have to be careful here.  I am not just a disinterested observer, I realize.  I strongly support Obama on matters of race and American identity, on reform of the economy and the health care system, on the environment and mostly on foreign policy.  But I recognize that his position is a partisan one and it should be opposed by alternative partisan positions in a democratic polity.  My concern is that the opposition is not serious, but it may be effective.

On the other hand, although Obama’s partisan position is serious, but it may not be effective.  My concern has less to do with the politics of the moment, more to do with the culture of the Republic.  I think that the crucial issue here is not Obama’s success or failure or the opposition’s success or failure.  Rather, the primary democratic challenge is whether it is possible to go beyond cynical politics.  Obama’s electoral campaign was quite successful in this regard.  The nature of the partisan conflict during his Presidency has not clearly followed the same pattern.

I think he continues to pursue his political ends in a reasonable and open way, as both his opponents and his critics on the left are willing to flee reason and responsibility for the problems of our times.