Alan Wolfe: Why It Took A Black Presidential Candidate To End Our Four-Decade Culture War
There can be no beginning without an ending. Everyone seems to agree that Barack Obama's victory marks a new chapter in American political history. What is not so obvious is that it ends not just one era, but two.
First, of course, Obama's victory brings the movement toward racial equality that grew out of the Civil War to its logical political conclusion....
The second era to close with Obama's victory is the one that began with the Newt Gingrich-led attempt to impeach Bill Clinton, one of the most irresponsible acts in U.S. political history. It was Gingrich, and not Karl Rove, who will ultimately be viewed as the man who perfected the kind of polarizing politics that Obama insists he will end. Gingrich and his many followers had persuaded themselves that Clinton's election was illegitimate, and they brought to American politics a level of extremism so far outside the boundaries of consensus politics that it worked for a short period of time. We have been living with the poison they unleashed ever since.
The era launched by Gingrich has ended in part not because Obama beat McCain, but because he first defeated the Clintons. Many of us, myself included, now recognize that Obama's victory was made possible because Hillary roughed him up in the primaries. We owe her that, just as we owe both Hillary and Bill thanks for campaigning on Obama's behalf. But, even if Hillary had won the nomination and the presidency, the ugliness of the impeachment fight would have found a way to return, repressed and covert, perhaps, but no less ugly. It is not just that we needed a new face. We also needed a new name. All this is unfair to Hillary Clinton, but no one ever said that politics was fair.
Even more importantly, Obama defeated the politics of polarization in the general election--and he did so convincingly. By calling Obama every name in the book of dirty politics, McCain and Sarah Palin soiled themselves and left him clean as a whistle. Obama does have a policy mandate: He has promised to tackle health insurance and to bring the troops home, and he must try to deliver. But he has a political mandate because of the way he campaigned: The major theme of his speeches, from the early ones to the victory oration last night, is that we can do better than a negative politics of attack-and-respond. That other senator from Illinois fought the Civil War. This senator from Illinois ended the culture war.
Not completely, of course, for there is still the issue of gay marriage, a cause evidently lost in California last night--in large part because so many African Americans, inspired by the Obama campaign to vote, voted against it. Yet, as a nation, we are at our worst when we fight over culture-war issues; if she did nothing else, Palin proved that. To stop doing so, we need appeals to our better nature. None of the other Democratic candidates could have done a better job of urging us to redeem ourselves than Obama, because none of the other candidates was black.
Race has long been our major division, and all our other divisions play off its script. From the culture war's first manifestation in the guise of a Nixonian emphasis on law and order, through debates about teenage pregnancy and promiscuity, down to affirmative action, the culture war was a replay of earlier conflicts between black and white. Whether tensions were fueled by Southern politicians denouncing welfare or Al Sharpton threatening disruption, those who made race central to their outlook did not mind a little polarization here and there. This is where Obama's coolness became essential. It took someone whose race was once a symbol of being at the bottom to lift us all over the top....
Read entire article at New Republic
First, of course, Obama's victory brings the movement toward racial equality that grew out of the Civil War to its logical political conclusion....
The second era to close with Obama's victory is the one that began with the Newt Gingrich-led attempt to impeach Bill Clinton, one of the most irresponsible acts in U.S. political history. It was Gingrich, and not Karl Rove, who will ultimately be viewed as the man who perfected the kind of polarizing politics that Obama insists he will end. Gingrich and his many followers had persuaded themselves that Clinton's election was illegitimate, and they brought to American politics a level of extremism so far outside the boundaries of consensus politics that it worked for a short period of time. We have been living with the poison they unleashed ever since.
The era launched by Gingrich has ended in part not because Obama beat McCain, but because he first defeated the Clintons. Many of us, myself included, now recognize that Obama's victory was made possible because Hillary roughed him up in the primaries. We owe her that, just as we owe both Hillary and Bill thanks for campaigning on Obama's behalf. But, even if Hillary had won the nomination and the presidency, the ugliness of the impeachment fight would have found a way to return, repressed and covert, perhaps, but no less ugly. It is not just that we needed a new face. We also needed a new name. All this is unfair to Hillary Clinton, but no one ever said that politics was fair.
Even more importantly, Obama defeated the politics of polarization in the general election--and he did so convincingly. By calling Obama every name in the book of dirty politics, McCain and Sarah Palin soiled themselves and left him clean as a whistle. Obama does have a policy mandate: He has promised to tackle health insurance and to bring the troops home, and he must try to deliver. But he has a political mandate because of the way he campaigned: The major theme of his speeches, from the early ones to the victory oration last night, is that we can do better than a negative politics of attack-and-respond. That other senator from Illinois fought the Civil War. This senator from Illinois ended the culture war.
Not completely, of course, for there is still the issue of gay marriage, a cause evidently lost in California last night--in large part because so many African Americans, inspired by the Obama campaign to vote, voted against it. Yet, as a nation, we are at our worst when we fight over culture-war issues; if she did nothing else, Palin proved that. To stop doing so, we need appeals to our better nature. None of the other Democratic candidates could have done a better job of urging us to redeem ourselves than Obama, because none of the other candidates was black.
Race has long been our major division, and all our other divisions play off its script. From the culture war's first manifestation in the guise of a Nixonian emphasis on law and order, through debates about teenage pregnancy and promiscuity, down to affirmative action, the culture war was a replay of earlier conflicts between black and white. Whether tensions were fueled by Southern politicians denouncing welfare or Al Sharpton threatening disruption, those who made race central to their outlook did not mind a little polarization here and there. This is where Obama's coolness became essential. It took someone whose race was once a symbol of being at the bottom to lift us all over the top....