In terms of the long-running meta argument about whether there is too much or too little criticism of Barack Obama in the netroots, two quotes from the Obama transition today are relevant. First, incoming Press Secretary David Gibbs when asked about disagreement:
But isn't it inherent in what President-elect Obama has done with his Cabinet - selecting so many strong personalities in his "Team of Rivals," including four former primary opponents - that one will maybe occasionally wander off the reservation?
"I think the far greater risk is assembling a group of people that whenever the president opens their mouth they all nod their heads in agreement," Gibbs said. The president-elect "wants and expects there to be disagreement within that room."
Second, Internet director Macon Phillips:
Twenty thousand people participated in the first user-generated press conference, which allowed the public to write and rank questions. The bailout, civil liberties and marijuana legalization were popular topics. The transition team's Internet director, Macon Phillips, said the queries "weren't only ones you'd expect from supporters, which is a good thing." Phillips did Internet outreach for the campaign, but he stressed that the objectives have shifted. "In the campaign we were organizing people. Now it's more conversational, trying to listen and engage people that weren't engaged in the campaign."
Over the past few months, Obama staff and supporters have sometimes taken on a totalitarian tone in response to Democratic and progressive criticism of Obama. You are probably familiar with the tunes in this pitch:
- Those who criticize Obama will be responsible for his defeat, and thus need to be silenced / separated from his true supporters. (This is actually my favorite example of Obama supporters adopting totalitarian language.)
- Shut up, because Obama is smarter than you (a very common meme)
- Shut up and clap louder. (This one seemed to grow in popularity during December)
- Or, just shut up to anyone who criticizes us at all, mostly famously from Obama advisors Hildebrand and Plouffe.
This tone is impossible to miss if you have lived online over the past year. However, through it all, the Obama campaign has both maintained a clear, public stance in favor of intra-party disagreement and, even more importantly, continued to create spaces (MyBO, Change.gov) that allowed for such disagreement (although the circumvention of Joe Anthony is a real exception). This has long been one of the fundamental tensions within the broader Obama movement, as an often top-down campaign met up with the largest grassroots activist outpouring in this country for about three decades. This tension is never going to disappear, as there will always be internal progressive and Democratic criticism of Obama, just as there will always be those Obama supporters who lash out against any such criticism for it's very existence. The important thing is that the spaces that allow for communication of disagreement remain intact. So far, that is something the Obama transition has definitely accomplished and, as the above quotes show, even openly sought out and encouraged. That is something they need to be congratulated and thanked for, and a reason to be positive heading into next year.
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