Obama the Populist

by: Mike Lux

Fri Sep 10, 2010 at 15:00


Barack Obama has never been easy to characterize or categorize: the nation's first African-American President raised in Hawaii by his white mother and white grandparents from Kansas; the community organizer who headed the Harvard Law Review; the Chicago pol who may be our most intellectual President ever; the President who finally passed a bill to provide health coverage for nearly all our citizens and yet managed to tick off progressives while he did it.

Add in the whole populist thing to this list of contradictory things. Obama has not been a populist President in either style or policy substance. But now at his moment of greatest political peril (so far, at least- we'll see where things are in the fall of 2012), he turns to a populist tone and rhetoric that is heartening for an old Midwestern populist like me to see. Starting with the little-noticed radio address in August taking on big corporate special interests and the Citizens United decision, then continuing this week with the Milwaukee Labor Day speech, the Cleveland economic speech on Wednesday, and the press conference this morning, Obama is aggressively taking on the bad actor big business special interests, taking on tax cuts for millionaires, taking on trickle-down economics.

Welcome to the barricades, Mr. President. I know that you and us old school populists still don't agree on some specific economic policies or appointees, but it is good to see that you get what the polls have been showing for a long time now: voters are frustrated with corporate s special interests running things, and are tired of the wealthy and powerful getting inside deals even while the economy is hurting.

This is the only path for Democrats to have a chance at surviving the fall elections. Take on the Wall Street marauders who took down our economy, and who are giving themselves bonuses while refusing to help homeowners save their homes or small businesses invest in new jobs. Take on the health insurers who are still jacking up rates and trying to deny people coverage. Take on the big oil companies who are working to stop any efforts to create more green jobs. These are the guys who have been running Washington for too long, and who, truth be told, are still way too powerful.

It is ironic that groups like Third Way and pundits like Matt Bai still deride populism when every Democratic pollster and committee staffer and campaign manager I talk to agree that economic populism like the President has been displaying this week are the only hope us Democrats desperately trying to win races in the real America have left. I loved Third Way leader Jim Kessler's quote in the Sunday WaPo: "[Democrats] must resist the temptation to succumb to a populism that portrays members of the middle class as weak, powerless victims." Hard to disagree with that- I have never found that whole weak, powerless victim thing very helpful in my political messaging. Fortunately, the kind of populism the President and other Democrats are finally rallying around has nothing to do with weak, powerful victimhood. Quite the opposite, in fact: what we are arguing for is the other 98% of us taking on the powerful so that we can restore our democracy and rebuild our economy from the bottom-up.

This message strategy can work if we stick to it and make it believable by proposing policies that really do help the middle class.

Mike Lux :: Obama the Populist

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Obama the Populist | 33 comments
It is too late... (4.00 / 8)
...and his populism does not seem genuine.

Regards,

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me-and I welcome their hatred. - FDR

genuine? (4.00 / 6)
What Obama is saying doesn't seem genuine to me, either.  How many times in the past 2 years has he stalled on or watered down a policy initiative because he craved Republican agreement?  Yet, here he is telling us we can't let the Republican party run things again.  He must think we're stupid.  
[ Parent ]
Actually it's even worse than that (4.00 / 6)
He's watered down initiatives -- financial reform, most notably -- not because he craved GOP agreement but because he wanted watered down reform.  
[ Parent ]
Here's another hoot... (4.00 / 4)
...the President who finally passed a bill to provide health coverage for nearly all our citizens ....
 On what planet.  He extended Medicaid, gave the insurance companies a cash cow, and sent the bill for both to us.   I am waiting for his encore, cutting Social Security and extending the Bush tax cuts.  
[ Parent ]
I'm actually offended by that line (4.00 / 2)
it clearly comes from the perspective of someone who assumes everyone has hundreds of dollars lying around at the end of each month looking for something to spend it on

a lot of us are going to be forced to pay (or try to dodge) the penalties, and people like Lux who presume that the comical Federal Poverty Line is realistic (because it's been decades- if ever- since they've been near it) constantly rub salt in the wound whenever they assert that we now somehow have "universal coverage"

once again we have an instance where someone completely removed from the reality on the ground is willing to tell the lower/lower-middle class what's best for them because they don't have to put up with the consequences

but, on the plus side, the President is SAYING PROGRESSIVE THINGS

god damn

[ Parent ]
the President is SAYING PROGRESSIVE THINGS (4.00 / 5)
only because he is campaigning.  His slogan is "change you can believe in and this time I really mean it".  Obama has proven how cheap talk is to him.

[ Parent ]
I was being facetious with the all-caps (4.00 / 2)
messaging means dick when everyone's drowning
[ Parent ]
Because it isn't genuine (4.00 / 8)
And as Lux should know, it's not strange -- no contradiction -- for a neoliberal to pose as a populist when in political danger. Indeed, it's par for the course. Remember Candidate Obama pretending to be opposed to NAFTA before the Ohio primary?

If Obama were honest about his actions during the last two years, Dems would lose both houses of Congress.

It's funny (funny as in sad): there's an unspoken alliance between Obama, his ardent supporters, and the right-wing. They all pretend he's tough on Big Business,

And so it goes.  

[ Parent ]
When if is this iffy.... (4.00 / 7)
This message strategy can work if we stick to it and make it believable by proposing policies that really do help the middle class.

And the chances of what comes after your and actually happening? As long as it's President Obama we're talking about, Zilch.

Some... (0.00 / 0)
I share your feelings in many ways, but some of his policies help middle class folks, like the infrastructure bank and paying for more teachers, cops, etc. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that he is not on the ballot- the candidates who are ought to be proposing job creating pro-middle class policies. Obama can help by providing messaging air cover.  
[ Parent ]
paying for teachers (4.00 / 5)
is especially progressive when the money comes out of the food stamp budget.
[ Parent ]
the poor and working class aren't people, per se (4.00 / 3)
hence all those yuppies and professional students looking back fondly on the halcyon days of the 1990s when they made a buttload of spending cash on the .com bubble while people who work for a living got to enjoy the continued fruits of the Reagonomic vine

also, NAFTA

[ Parent ]
Forgive my bitterness (4.00 / 8)
but I've always found him easy to characterize. He's a yuppy.

Democrats got all high and mighty over Republicans voting for "a man you could have beer with," but then we went and elected "a man you could have a soy latte with."

Montani semper liberi

Yeah, but now we can't even afford the venti soy latte. (4.00 / 2)
We only get to watch them through the window while security threatens to tase us for blocking their view of K Street!

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." -Woody Allen, My Speech to the Graduates
[ Parent ]
Rhetoric, without concomitant ACTION, is meaningless. (4.00 / 11)
For example:

the President who finally passed a bill to provide health coverage for nearly all our citizens and yet managed to tick off progressives while he did it.

Um, no. It doesn't "provide coverage," it mandates that people buy crap "insurance" from corporations at exhorbitant rates and will criminalize anyone who deigns to refuse. That's not PROVIDING anything.

But this again only serves to show just how disconnected from reality all this rhetoric really is. To paraphrase the HUAC line, Obama is not now and never has been a populist. Nor will he ever be. Because if he was even remotely inspired along those lines, he would have told Snuffalupogous the other day he would veto BushCO's taxpayer subsidies for rich people. But he couldn't even manage that, even though it's HUGELY POPULAR.

Obama's messaging will ultimately fail. Not because he isn't good at it when he gets off his lazy ass and does it, but because his good moments at the podium are more than made up for his nasty policy proclivities. Please tell me how torture is somehow a populist tradition, for starters, and I'm not talking about RW populism. Please tell me how their little sweetheart deal with BP is somehow populist. Please tell me how looting Social Security is somehow populist. In the end, it's things like these that actually matter, bullshit rhetoric aside.

So, Mike, I would respectfully submit that the problem isn't messaging, it's BEHAVIORS. If the Dems are not willing to be seen dealing with this nation's biggest problems, then they can only be seen as the craven liars they are.

No amount of messaging can make up for that. No amount of messaging can make up for the fact that in less than two years, the Dem leadership have shown themselves to be craven little creeps whose only concern is for their own enrichment at the expense of everyone else.

The only thing saving the Dems from utter destruction at this point is the Republicans themselves. We can only hope the GOP continues on it's current path to mass insanity.

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." -Woody Allen, My Speech to the Graduates

No, it really is worse. (4.00 / 8)
"Rhetoric, without concomitant ACTION, is meaningless."
It breeds cynicism, anger, and anti-social action. It is always better to have your enemy in front of you, rather than making deals that sell out your interests. Obama can blather all he will, but only insiders like Lux will debate the meaning of the blather. The rest of us have learned after the eleventy-th lesson.  
[ Parent ]
This is spot on. (4.00 / 4)
It is always better to have your enemy in front of you, rather than making deals that sell out your interests.

Indeed. Blather is just blather, after all. I also can't argue with your use of the term "anti-social action." I typically prefer to merely hint at it, but I'm increasingly of the opinion this is absolutely true and it only takes a few people to make that happen, as we see on the right pretty much every day.

The old saw goes: Generals are always fighting the last war. It's practically a truism, much of the time. It's also true this crew of political "leaders" are still stuck in the 90s. I don't think they'll ever really understand just how painfully foolish they are as "public servants." They think the right blather will always do the trick.

Well, things weren't all that bad in the 90s and most Americans were fast asleep on their MEW purchased barcaloungers. Well, the barcaloungers are gone, right along with their jobs and homes, so sleeping isn't as easy as it used to be.

You'd think they'd get that by now.

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." -Woody Allen, My Speech to the Graduates

[ Parent ]
I don't even understand… (4.00 / 7)
...how you can write such a column, Mike. "Welcome to the barricades, Mr. President"?

...but it is good to see that you get what the polls have been showing for a long time now: voters are frustrated with corporate special interests running things, and are tired of the wealthy and powerful getting inside deals even while the economy is hurting.

Geez, when Tim Geithner was bailing out the banks, we were all wondering where Obama the Populist was. Same on healthcare and, more recently, Wall Street reform. How could this recent whatever-the-hell-it-is not look like flailing-only-an-idiot-would-believe-in?

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams

Mike, you seem hopelessly naive... (4.00 / 7)
Usually, I read your commentary and diaries with interest.  

Today, I am just irritated at how gullible you seem.  Obama is like Lucy and the football.  He puts it in place for Charlie Brown to kick and promises to keep it there just like Lucy.  That is what he did with populist rhetoric during 2008.  He even promised to close Guantanamo in a year in his Inauguration speech.  

Nearly everything he has done since has been first and foremost to protect the corporations.

Now, another campaign and out comes the populist rhetoric again.  Like others before me, I do not believe a word of it.
 

My point (4.00 / 2)
My point in this post was not to suggest that Obama was suddenly on our side on all these issues, which I alluded to multiple times in the piece. My point was to say that him starting to speak this kind of language was our best shot electorally. Since I prefer Democrats winning I think that is a good thing. It doesn't mean I forgive him for appointing Geithner, bailing out the banks or any of the other things I dislike that he has done.
One other thought here: my experience with politicians is that if you don't reward them for doing good things, they will learn the lesson that there is no point in doing them. The rhetoric isn't enough, far from it, but rhetoric and symbolism in politics matters, as it moves the debate and the politicians in the right direction.  
[ Parent ]
rewards, punishments?? (4.00 / 4)
"my experience with politicians is that if you don't reward them for doing good things, they will learn the lesson that there is no point in doing them."

Is there a similar extrapolation that if you do not punish politicians for the terrible things (Afghanistan, call for off-shore drilling, HAMP, Guantanamo, repressing civil liberties, Shirley Sherrod, Social Security Commission...) they learn the lesson that they may continue to do such with impunity?

You know even Bush DID, yes DID, some things deserving some praise: he did not (under pressure to do so) bomb Iran; he did not expand (and I think with Bush in power he COULD not) escalate Afghanistan to the same extent that Obama has, even though Cheney and the neo-cons and neo-libs wanted him to. I wonder how you would have liked to reward Bush for these?

[ Parent ]
Ptui! (4.00 / 4)
The evidence that the President's forays into populist rhetoric in the past have moved anyone to do anything other than vote for him is pretty thin. The evidence that his actions behind the scenes have been a cynical betrayal of that rhetoric are massive. When everyone but the rubes understands that such rhetoric is empty posturing, who needs it?

People in the Soviet Union also applauded wildly when the General Secretary announced the overfulfillment of the latest five-year plan quotas. I ask you, did they get any more bread in exchange for their obligatory enthusiasm? Did they expect any? I suspect that the average citizen of the USSR was a lot more realistic about such things than the average Democrat is today.

[ Parent ]
"reward them for doing good things" (4.00 / 4)
Or, I suppose, simply saying them is sufficient.

The rhetoric is hilariously meaningless.  Were you swayed when G.W. Bush declared himself a compassionate conservative?  Did you well up when he marked himself as a "uniter, not a divider"?  Did you buy into Clinton when he stated "I feel your pa-" oh- wait- you did.

Nothing to see here folks.

[ Parent ]
I agree with you that we need to reward politicians who deserve it (4.00 / 4)
But I don't think President Obama is one of them.  And one of the reasons for that is precisely the one you allude to: that his "populist" rhetoric is purely for the purposes of winning elections, rather than heartfelt expressions.  If he's just going to go back to his old corporatist ways after the election's over, why should we take what he's saying now as being sincere?

Moreover, while I heartily agree with you that rhetoric and symbolism matter (and are often too quickly dismissed), it's not enough to just blast corporations.  What the President (any liberal President) needs to do is make the case for active government, that sets us apart from conservatives and provides the ideological underpinnings for all the progressive things we want to do.  I've been saying this over and over again: we're never going to bring about long-lasting change as long as the country is biased against government activism.  President Obama, to his credit, has talked about this on occasion but it's not enough, particularly in the face of the potent anti-government rhetoric the Tea Party Movement has filled our political dialogue with.

[ Parent ]
I usually find Mike's stuff really powerful. But... (4.00 / 4)
"Starting with... ...then continuing this week with... ...and the press conference this morning, Obama is aggressively taking on the bad-actor, big-business special interests, taking on tax cuts for millionaires, taking on trickle-down economics."

...Huh? I watched part of the press conference this morning. I thought at the time that Obama was abandoning the Populist frame to return to a wonk frame. I thought at the time that he must have thought that he'd wow everybody with his comprehension of minute policy details delivered in an impassionate, monotone that had no concerns about morals, values or big ideas. I thought that he must think that it's important to get across how smart he is instead of how much he cares.

To be honest, I have no idea what he was trying to do because he was so BORING in this lecturing manner I couldn't summon up the energy to make sense of all the endless facts and figures he kept saying in a emotionless monotone.

If this did that to me, how in the world is it going to excite people who usually don't follow politics like we political junkies do?

I would not call this being a populist.

Educate, Agitate, Organize, Mobilize, Act!

I need to post this as it is what I feel towards all Obamabots who have cost us all so much (4.00 / 3)
Please bear with me as I've tried to post this at HuffPo, but am sure they'll censor it. This was in response to an Obamabot trying to "school" me on how much Obama has accomplished. However I think this is what we all feel right about now:

I'm absolutely uninterested in things "in the works." Since people like you and Obama completely threw away the opportunity we had to effect real change in this country, "in the works" means 20 years from now. I'm tired of your euphemistic eleventy-dimensional chess that means nothing but caving, compromising against our ideals, and achieving next to nothing at high cost. I'm tired of you patting yourselves on the back for the quantity of crap you've passed rather than you being focused on the very fact that it IS crap. Your cowardly and weasel-like actions have not only screwed us all, you've sullied the very ideal of liberalism in the process. And all just to say you got a "win". "Wins" that are so absolutely hollow you might as well have done nothing at all. We've won nothing but a lost opportunity. It's time for all of you acolytes to hit the road. None of you even deserves my disgust.  

most intellectual-not (4.00 / 6)
the Chicago pol who may be our most intellectual President ever

Take a step back, Mike.  How is this even reasonable.

Obama, like a lot of Presidents, has a law degree.  He worked as a part time lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and wrote a couple of well received books about himself.

Compare.  Woodrow Wilson had both a law degree and a PhD.  He was a professor at Wesleyan, Bryn Mawr and Princeton.  He wrote many books, the most influential being Congressional Government, an analysis of the separation of power in the federal government.  He was President of Princeton.  He also won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Compare.  Theodore Roosevelt dropped out of Columbia Law because it was too boring.  At the time he was writing the Naval History of the War of 1812, a book which introduced geopolitical theory well before Alfred Mahan.  That was one of 26 books written by TR.  He also wrote over 1,000 magazine articles (like Winston Churchill he supported himself by writing).  Roosevelt also won a Nobel Peace Prize.  He was a leading naturalist and played a major role in expanding the National Park System.  In the recent documentary series on the Parks, TR is honored as the most eloquent spokesman for the Parks ahead of John Muir.  It was TR who introduced the use of the Hague to solve international disputes.  

Compare.  Thomas Jefferson.  Are you kidding?  Are you kidding?  Jefferson schooled Lewis and Clark about what they were likely to find and was organizing the expedition before he even completed the Louisiana Purchase.  He was a major inventor (the mouldboard plow), scientific theorist, student of political philosophy and the founder of the first political party in the world, the Democratic Party.  He founded a major university and was the principal theoretician for public schools in the US.  And I could go on for at least a page with no look ups.  John Kennedy held a dinner for prominent intellectuals of the day and proudly proclaimed that it was the greatest intellectual assemblage at the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone.  Game. Set. Match.

And I can go on to Lincoln. Lincoln's legal analysis of the constitutional position of slavery presented in a multi-part series at Cooper Union actually played a major role in getting him the Presidential nomination.  He spent months personally researching the case.  He was also one of the top trial lawyers in the entire country.  His inaugural addresses, the Gettysburg address and other items show a brilliant mind, highly intellectual.  Lincoln was the major strategist of Union victory (his tactics were not as good).  He also had a patent.

James Madison?  He wrote the Constitution.

FDR?  He routinely hired experts in multiple fields and had long conversations showing that he, FDR, was thoroughly versed in the subject and in fact knew more than the expert.  FDR's plans were cutting edge coming from models and experience around the world.  

Bill Clinton's Rhodes Scholar stacks up against Obama's Harvard Law Review quite nicely thank you.

Truman, who did not go to college was the best read member of the Senate and he had proof from the Library of Congress records.

Eisenhower introduced the military industrial complex, student loans, the interstate highway system.  No slouch.

Nixon was the greatest political theorist since Jefferson.  He may have been off his rocker but he has dominated the last 50 years with every major item of Republican thought except Reagan's mentally unhinged tax cuts (see Bush II, see Obama).  And yes, he wrote books.

Just because Obama is more intellectual than George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan doesn't place him at the top of the pyramid.


I too flagged that somewhat (0.00 / 0)
jarring line from Mike, but since he didn't flesh it out I let it go (does he mean "intelligent" or "often engages in rhetoric of an intellectual/professorial nature").

I'd agree with DK on TJ, AL, TR and Wilson.  But imo JFK also belongs in that group -- like TR, life of not only action but of the mind, and surrounded himself with people steeped in the world of ideas.  A Schlesinger and JK Galbraith being the two most obvious examples.

Disagree about FDR, and this

He routinely hired experts in multiple fields and had long conversations showing that he, FDR, was thoroughly versed in the subject and in fact knew more than the expert.

actually is a far more accurate description of Kennedy and not Roosevelt.  FDR -- a brilliant pol but not much of a serious reader or thinker.  As Ollie Holmes once said of FDR, he possessed a second-class intellect but first-class temperament.

Truman:  sorry, but just having read a lot of books does not an intellectual make.  Again, to compare with the very well-read JFK, who read quickly, widely and deeply, retaining much of what he'd absorbed even yrs later and using some of it as learning tools in his trade of politics and statecraft, Truman was more in the category of those insecure auto-didacts who read more for the sake of checking off major books read on a long list of those works Every Educated Person Must Read.

Ike -- not dumb but not an intellectual, but might have wanted to strike an intellectual pose in his Farewell Address, supposedly written in part (espec the MIC section?) after getting a sense of what JFK's Inaugural would sound like in substance and high-minded tone.

Nixon -- more a political tactician than theorist, and a nasty immoral one at that.  Someone who wanted to be considered along with Kennedy and Wilson and TR as an intellectual and statesman, but whose personal demons and lust for and abuse of power kept him rightly out of contention.

Clinton:  intellectually very able, well-read and curious, like Carter only more so, but his common-man-oriented practical presidential rhetoric rarely said "intellectual".  Unlike JFK, who in his public utterances assumed quite a high level of education among his listening audience, Clinton assumed he was talking to an average American whose education ended after the 8th grade.

[ Parent ]
I have to disagree on Truman... (0.00 / 0)
...though probably not considered an "intellectual", I think you too easily write off the depth and breadth of his reading.  Perhaps he didn't have the prestigious education that many Presidents had, but he also had an intellectual curiousity that no modern President matches.

Regards,

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me-and I welcome their hatred. - FDR

[ Parent ]
didn't someone here predict obama will start the populist rhetoric in september? (0.00 / 0)
who's the winner?
didn't someone here predict obama will start the populist rhetoric in september? (0.00 / 0)
who's the winner?
Why, we all are!!! (0.00 / 0)
Yippee!
/s
[ Parent ]
Storyboard: Obama the Populist (4.00 / 1)
To tell you the truth, Mr. Lux, I'm losing interest in Barack Obama.  He's not a progressive, he's not a super-competent operator and even if Theda Skocpol hectors every Nation subscriber and TPM reader into phone banking for Democrats in the next two elections, people who feel that he hasn't created jobs and made their lives better are not going to vote for Democrats this November or in 2012.  It seems to me that progressives should stop looking for the latent Mr. Wonderful and find an alternative Democratic candidate because the other alternative - a crazy Republican backed by not-so-crazy rich predators- is too awful to think about.
Obama the Populist | 33 comments
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