Obama and Beyond

Tuesday 02 December 2008

by: Eric Weltman and Paul Lachelier, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

The sister of Martin Luther King Jr., Christine King Farris, celebrates with others on election night as Barack Obama is announced the winner. (Photo: John Bazemore / AP)

On November 4, Americans made history by sending Barack Obama to the White House. Only decades after blacks were murdered for simply trying to vote, it was a powerful and inspiring moment.

Now, Americans have the chance to make the future. By electing Obama, we've created a window of opportunity to make progress on a range of concerns, from ending the war in Iraq to establishing health care as a universal right to preventing climate change. But Obama can't do it alone. He must collaborate with Congress, of course, but he also needs organized voices outside of Washington, from unions to community groups, to maintain the demand for change that was heard very loud and clear on Election Day.

The greatest of leaders are made so in large part by their circumstances and the external forces around them. As Ella Baker, the civil rights organizer, famously said of Martin Luther King, "Martin didn't make the movement, the movement made Martin." In proposing the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt achieved greatness by responding to both the conditions of the Great Depression and to the demands of advocates outside of his administration, as well as advisers from within.

Likewise, Barack Obama comes to office buffeted by an array of challenges, including the war in Iraq, the economic downturn and the climate-energy crisis. Indeed, it was such circumstances and the resulting demand for change that led to Obama's election.

Having elected Obama, our job is not over. It is now our responsibility as citizens to participate in both defining and advancing his mandate for change. Essential to this mandate should be a revitalization of democracy to help ensure that Obama and other future presidents respond foremost to the needs of all Americans, and not the narrow interests that dangerously dominated the Bush administration.

Of course, leaders have considerable choice over which forces they respond to and how. It's safe to assume that Obama will not be as cozy with Big Oil as Bush, nor will he be as swayed by militaristic neoconservatives. But those forces are likely redoubling efforts to maintain their influence, and so the voices for change must, if anything, grow stronger and louder. As Jim Hightower, the political commentator, says, "Through Obama, we opened the door to the White House, and we've got to go in with him."

We are, indeed, in a "1932 moment." The nation is amidst an economic crisis, with a president-elect who could rise to the occasion. But, as in 1932, we need a powerful movement of progressive social forces that will motivate Obama, as well as continue the struggle for change after his administration ends. No one president, no matter how great, can accomplish great things alone.

We need to think big, defining expectations of a government that serves the interests of all rather than the few. We need to think long-term - not just about what we want to accomplish in four years, but what we want the nation to look like in 40 years. And we need to institutionalize - that is, make more powerful and more permanent - the organized constituency for change that elected Obama president.

To accomplish this, we need to do something very fundamental: vitalize and reimagine what democracy means. The signs of democratic trouble in our country are pervasive. They include the ballooning expense of campaigns, low voter turnout compared with other democracies around the world and monied interests' inordinate influence on government.

There are many other perhaps less obvious signs of trouble though. These include the common equation of citizenship merely with voting every four years (for president, never mind the litany of other important offices); the news media's equation of politics with "spin" and pundit shouting matches; voters' vulnerability to surface symbols and appearances (skin color, gender, personality, soaring but empty rhetoric etc.) and general lack of knowledge as to where candidates stand on the issues that directly affect citizens' lives; and the research indicating that younger generations of Americans are more interested in tutoring and park clean-ups than government and sustained collective political action.

Days before the election, Obama appeared before the nation in a 30-minute "infomercial." He chose to conclude with an appeal for Americans to become involved in their government. This must entail bringing democracy to the people rather than expecting people to come to democracy. The possible ways to do so are many, from ballots mailed to voters' homes to regular televised town hall meetings, from Internet-based tools to bringing civics education back to schools. These and other reforms could go a long way toward reducing the power of wealthy interests, increasing citizen participation, building sustained social movements and ensuring that Obama's legacy is more than inspiring history, but also a road map for a better future.

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Eric Weltman is a Cambridge-based writer and political activist. Paul Lachelier is a political sociologist at Stetson University in Florida.

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