By
Richard Gwyn Columnist
Barack Obama has to be one of the smartest, eloquent, calm and cool
and psychologically well-balanced (think of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush
or Richard Nixon) American presidents of modern times.
He’s also one of the toughest,
although he neither sounds it nor looks it. Shrewdly, and surprisingly
candidly, an aide has recently described him as "the most unsentimental
man I’ve ever met.” Ruthlessness comes easily to Obama, that’s to say,
which is what it took for him to beat a presidential nomination rival as
tough as Hillary Clinton.
And yet his popularity is dragging
down toward 40 per cent and by all the omens his Democrats are about to
get trounced in the November congressional elections.
Obama does have some serious problems. He’s black.
Unquestionably, a lot of Americans
hate their national leader being black, and, worse yet, a black who is
the smartest man around. It’s a variant, incomparably uglier, of the
widespread loathing of John F. Kennedy for making people feel bad by
being so handsome and sophisticated, sort of a presidential Clark Gable.
Then there’s the economy. The lack of
jobs is serious and perhaps even more so is the widespread insecurity
among those who do have jobs. A double-dip recession is a real prospect.
Yet the truth — admittedly a
near-irrelevancy in politics — is that Obama headed off a
near-depression caused by Bush and corporate greed and arrogance and
stupidity, and by his stimulus package brought the economy back at least
to consciousness.
Included in this was financial
regulatory reform and reform of the auto companies (it’s working
unexpectedly well). Also health-care reform.
Now he’s attempting a second stimulus
package. It’s been blocked by the Republicans, who are insisting that
planned tax cuts be extended to the wealthy (incomes above $250,000) as
well as to the middle class.
This blockage of a second stimulus is
being cheered on by the populist Tea Party movement. Go figure that,
other than that many Tea Partiers undoubtedly can’t stand the fact that
he’s black.
This is the point. Obama’s problem,
which indeed is sizeable, doesn’t reside in himself, although he needs
to learn the art of faking sincerity that Clinton, with his "I feel your
pain” pitch. was so good at. Obama’s problem resides in America. It’s
become a near-dysfunctional society.
The Tea Party, which is a genuine
grassroots movement, confirms it. It stands for "freedom.” No more big
government. No more meddling in people’s lives. But instead, Sarah
Palin.
That a sizeable number of people
should want Palin for president is irrefutable evidence their society
has gone dysfunctional. She’s a third-rater, except in demagoguery (and
in faking sincerity). Paris Hilton would do the job as well, probably
better.
Why should this be so? My guess is
that Tea Party members and a lot of others, including that Florida
evangelical minister who wanted to burn the Qur’an, even though it would
have put a lot of American soldiers at risk, have actually got onto
something important.
That something is that the U.S. today
is clearly in decline. This shouldn’t be exaggerated. Americans have an
astounding capacity for resilience. Once there was humiliation in
Vietnam. Once all the experts were saying Japan was about to become No.
1. Both are now history.
The U.S. will always be powerful and
wealthy. But it will never again bestride the world like a colossus
towering above all others. It will be, rather, a big guy in a crowd.
America’s conceit of
"exceptionalism,” or of being better than anyone else and fundamentally
different from all other societies and countries, can no longer be
sustained. It’s exhausted its quota, a very large one indeed, of bright,
confident mornings.
Obama’s problem thus is stark and simple: He’s the right guy at the wrong time.