GOVERNANCE IN A TIME OF FEAR

In the days that followed the Obama election there was much talk of how Barack Obama was studying Abraham Lincoln to the degree that Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals was revised. Yet the president and the times that face President Obama truly reflect both President Lincoln and also President Roosevelt. Both presidents were elected in critical times in this countries history. Yet today, as I assess the current state of the Obama Presidency, there is a growing and disconcerting trend. There remains a deep and profound mistrust, and fear of an Obama presidency, and to be clearer about a black man in the white house. In the latter days of the presidential race, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan often reminded viewers that until the September 17th meltdown, the race was a virtual dead heat. Senator McCain’s “fundamental” remarks and Barack Obama’s calm demeanor allowed many voters to basically “hold their nose” and give Obama then nod, believing that they could trust him to manage the economy. It is clear that many voted with their fingers crossed. Yes President Obama is very popular as a president, but it is clear now that the strategy of the Republican Party is to tap in to the visceral and latent fear that many in Americans have. It is almost as if they played back the Palin rallies of last fall, and made a strategic decision that to fear as an organizing principle is the hand that needs to be played.

This is Barack Obama’s three am moment. How to govern, and introduce change in the face of fear. The Republican Party has been very effective in parlaying fear both real and imagined into policy. Often that policy when the cloak of fear has been removed is exposed for fraudulent, anti democratic, and possibly illegal. The democrats to their discredit have never learned the art of the down and dirty welfare. It was many democrats who a year ago feared that the Obama candidacy would crumble under attack in the manner that the Gore and Kerry efforts did, but Denver in a speech labeled “manly” ironically by Pat Buchanan, Barack Obama assuaged such fears. Barack Obama if given truth serum would acknowledge that he underestimated the voracity of the pent up anger that was glossed over in the after math of his election. He hoped that his audacity for hope would be a precursor for the audacity of change. I believe that Barack Obama saw an America weary of divisiveness and fear and would support his agenda. Perhaps he was wrong. Those who support the status quo have never had such illusions of a kinder gentler America, those who support the status quo, bided their time, licked their wounds and now are revitalized.

The pattern is familiar and scary, and it there is nothing to suggest that it will get any better, at the Palin rallies last fall there were cries of “off with his head”, during the health care debate President Obama is seen has been compared to Adolph Hitler, called a socialist, and now the overseer of a “death panel” that will be the final arbiter of life and death for the elderly. Yet in my opinion this is just a test. If we think the passion is turned up on health care, just wait until 2010 when immigration is on the table. For those who have irrational fears, then “noxious” mix of a black president developing policy for Mexicans may be too much to bear. This it the America of 2010. Changer is coming, and the fear is rising. How President Obama governs in this atmosphere will be very interesting. My thoughts are that competence, and commitment, to change is the only course. With very few exceptions Barack Hussein Obama has been steady at the wheel, understanding the nuances, of governance, pushing the right buttons, and doing what is needed rather than what is popular.

October 2009