The Four Great Transformations Driving Obama's Victory

Can it happen? Are the Bush years going to end with the election of a cerebral, liberal black man born to a Muslim goat-herd from Kenya and an atheist farm-girl from Kansas? Will we witness it in less than 48 hours? Whisper it: yes we can. At the midnight hour tomorrow night - unless opinion polls are wrong; more wrong than they have ever been - the era of President Barack Obama will begin.

It's hard to see what this will mean for the world yet. Obama himself has written: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." But we can already map out the four tectonic shifts rumbling beneath this election. They all began before Obama - but his cool stride has brought them into history sooner than many of us thought possible.

Transformation One: The Transcending of Race. Just forty years after Martin Luther King had a dream of a post-racial America, a coalition of white workers in Pennsylvania, retired Jews in Florida, and bilingual Hispanics in New Mexico is poised to put a black man in the White House. If the polls are right, Obama will be the first Democrat to win a majority of white votes since 1964.

This hints at one of the reasons why so many of us love the US, even as we hate some of its actions. The country is capable of many crimes - but it is also open and free enough to produce the antibodies that begin to put them right. It gives us Dick Cheney, but also Noam Chomsky. It gives us Jim Crow, but also Barack Obama. Is there any better symbol of how the American Revolution can correct itself than the realisation that the first 26 Presidents of the US could have owned the 44th President as a piece of property?

This shift will only accelerate. By 2040, white people will be a minority in America, part of a patchwork of ethnic minorities. The US will look more and more like a universal nation of peoples from everywhere, united behind the constitution. Young Americans are strikingly relaxed about this: for under-30s, Obama has a 47 percent lead. Not a 47 percent vote - a 47 percent lead.

Yet the US state is still riddled with racist outcomes. To give just one example: the American Civil Liberties Union found in 2006 that although the races use drugs at the same rate, black Americans - who comprise 12 percent of the population - make up 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Obama could very easily have slipped into this vortex when, as a young man, he occasionally snorted coke. If he had been arrested and jailed for it like one in five black men, he wouldn't be President; he wouldn't even be able to vote. This election shows a desire by American people to move beyond the sterile stupidities of racism, but it is the middle of the story, not the end.

Transformation Two: The Death of Reaganism. For a generation, American Presidents have pledged to roll back the state and let the market rip. Even Democrats bowed to this orthodoxy: it was Bill Clinton was said "the era of big government is over" and began deregulating the banks. The result was the financial collapse and the worst inequality since the 1920s. Today, the top one percent of Americans own 21 percent of all income - while the bottom 50 percent own just 13 percent. Obama, by contrast, ran mocking "the idea we can give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down," and argued for the state to "spread the wealth around". The era of limp, passive government is over - at precisely the moment when we need athletic government to prevent a depression and stop global warming.

Transformation Three: The Palin' of the Culture War. For decades now, the American right has successfully disguised its help-the-rich, slap-the-rest ideology by presenting Democrats as out-of-touch elitists on the social issues: God, guns and gays. This election, the trick stopped working. Sarah Palin made the base gurgle, but her cultural wedgies repelled everyone else. The real elite have been laid bare on Wall Street; shrieks of "elitism!" from their deregulators and defenders now sound absurd. We have been here before: the 1920s was a culture war decade, with bitter moral crusades for Prohibition and against Catholics. In the 1930s, it all died off in the dust bowl.

Transformation Four: The End of the Unipolar Fantasy. The Bush administration believed that, as the last remaining super-power, it could impose its will on the world with force. It made little effort to compromise with - or even listen to - a world it wanted to bring to heel. It boasted of the need to maintain "full spectrum dominance" over the planet, and to have more firepower than all their potential rivals combined. It trashed treaties, scorned the UN, and refused to talk to anybody they disagreed with. It was always doomed to failure, because very few international problems can be handled with force. You can't fire cruise missiles at an unravelling climate or a tricky peace process or bird flu.

But what now? A man with a background among the colonized has never before become the head of the world's largest empire. Obama's grandfather was detained in a British Guantanomo for six months during the bloody occupation of Kenya. As a child, Obama watched helpless as the CIA armed and funded the crazed dictator Suharto to commit mass murder of civilians. Yet how much has this informed Obama's policies, as a pragmatic politician working within a system riddled with undemocratic pressures?

He certainly disagrees with many of the vicious extremes of Bush, from Iraq to torture. His plans for a massive investment in renewable energy to wean the US slowly off its addiction to oil will have transform the country's foreign policy, ending its need for the Saudi tyranny and bursts of war in Mesopotamia.

But in the medium-term, it seems Obama will be a conventional Democratic multilateralist leaving in place many of the ugly aspects of US foreign policy - from the crowbar-policies of the International Monetary Fund to unwavering support for the thuggish governments of Egypt, Colombia and Israel. The democratic antibodies of opposition aren't strong enough to overturn the Big Money or hard geopolitics that demand these policies. So there will still be plenty to oppose in Obama's foreign policy - but when a giant shuffles just a few steps to the left, the ants below feel a great pressure lifting from them.

But then the fear comes: what if the American people are too addled by the race-fear, and turn to McCain at the last moment? At the Democratic convention, Obama said to his fellow Americans: "We are better people than the last eight years." The ghosts of the drowned children of New Orleans and the burned children of Baghdad may have stared down sceptically - but I believe he was right. The tidal force of these four transformations is too great. And yet, and yet... I won't be sure until I watch Obama's acceptance speech through salty tears - and I hear the Statue of Liberty let out a slow sigh of relief.

Johann Hari writes for the Independent newspaper. To read more of his articles, click here.

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Comments

[osteoclast]

While I"d like to believe all your points, it feels much too early to speak of transformations. Obama and his people are extremely smart to have outflanked the enemy to the extent that victory may be at hand. It cannot be overstated what an accomplishment this while have been.
But, assuming he pulls it off, there"s the small issue of governing.
I remember, early in Clinton"s first term hearing some GOP politician talk of "tearing him apart". They were out to get him from the word "go" and, while Clinton certainly cooperated with his ridiculous promiscuity, the Repubs managed to lay the groundwork for the last eight years by finding a way to condemn, not only the morals but the successes of his administration.
So, even with solid majorities in both houses of Congress, has the conservative movement so damaged itself that it can no longer undermine an Obama presidency? Will the Dem"s find the stones and the vision to prevent this from happening, by leading so effectively, so prosperously and so morally that there is no real opening for a 4/8 year smear and fear campaign to take hold?
This campaign starkly displayed the corruption of slash and burn politics and trickle down policies. Will an Obama administration be competent, daring and progressive enough to nullify the predictable backlash that is sure to come?

[jackmayoff]

Interesting historical tidbit.

On January 20th, 2009 when Barack Obama is sworn in as our 44th president only 3 weeks later on February 12th, we will celebrate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. In those 3 weeks we as a nation have an opportunity to prepare for a new journey together.

[Joel Horn]

This raises great questions, well presented.

I think that your ending about race fears may be counter balanced by those who see Barack as the next step in the American dream. Tomorrow we have the chance to step forward again. People of every political stripe share an almost palpable national excitement, even angst, as the nation undergoes something akin to birthing pains. Regardless of political party, we should be proud and mark the moment when we elect our first black President. It is milestone in our journey to be the country we aspire to and a reminder to our friends " and our enemies " abroad why we are such a great country.

Joel Horn

[jdwoman]

The world is watching and holding its breath too. Will America come through or will our election be hijacked again by the far right?

[BabsfromKansas]

Excellent article - I , too, am holding my breath waiting to let out a sigh of relief.

[TheMediaRanger]

Amen, Mr. Hari. From a purely selfish perspective, the full force of Barack Obama's candidacy hit me the night of his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Good or bad, I'm old enough to remember the struggles leading up to the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, the sadness of Dr. King's murder, the fear of riots that followed a mile south of my house in Chicago, the landmark court cases that forced integration 100 years after a vicious Civil War. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the prospect of an African-American candidate became not only possible but likely.

Now, a day before the election, Obama supporters can taste victory. The fact that I've been able to witness it all is incredible to me. There are a lot of things I don't feel good about passing on to the next generation, but this isn't one of them.

[JMBrodie]

I wonder how many of us would try to do what Obama is trying to do -- faced with raw hate from some in our nation who cling to a shameful past. He truly is putting his life on the line.

This is why so many of my older relatives feared his campaign. They didn't want to see him get hurt and leave his family alone. But to my surprise, they have come around. They were the ones who marched and withstood the hoses. They see a finish line that they could only dream of. They essentially are telling Barack, "we got your back. If you really want to do this, we are with you."

I know a few of our white brothers and sisters have a hard time understanding this. For for a lot of us this is a moment to pass on to a younger generation. That we have to endure the Palin/McCain taunts and threats is really not so big a deal after dealing with Bull Connor, George Wallace and the boys (and girls) in the white hoods.

As a nation, we will get through this and be stronger, and more united, than we ever have been. This is the year America starts to grow up.

This is an election that is 400 years in the making.

O/B 08

[experio27]

one of the best articles written here - exactly lays out the thought process of millions of us"elitists" :)

[PatricefromNH]

Beautifully written! I loved this line, " ..but when a giant shuffles just a few steps to the left, the ants below feel a great pressure lifting from them."

[vegas9999]

As H.L. Mencken observed, "Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right

[Mixpixlix]

Like many who grew up in the sixties and marched for civil and other rights, I wonder how it all went so wrong?

For me and many others Barack Obama's success means that our efforts were not in vain, if a little late to fruition.

As a middle age, middle class caucasian of European descent, I look to Obama as the realization that maybe, finally, we'll start seeing each other as people and not members of a particular race, religion or ethnic background.

I also hope we'll begin to work and vote for our best interests. I was very disappointed with Bill Clinton. Not for his zipper issues (as unpresidential as his behavior was) but for his position shifts that made him a moderate republican. Compromise is a good thing, but comprise that undercuts your core principles is something all together different.

After 8 years of Bush/Cheny ,I hope America sees itself different ly and President-Elect Barack Obama will be living proof that change (for the better) is on the way.

Obama's time has come.

Both sides of my family were persecuted in Hitler's mad plan to conquer Europe.

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

Per order of The Constitution of the United States of America, Article 6:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

'and all Treaties made'... shall be the supreme Law of the Land

... this is where Bush shall be tried and found guilty.

[LoyalJane]

1. Hillary Clinton machine and defectors, persecution of Jeremiah Wright, persecution of Michelle Obama & racism and bigotry of the GOP, American people wanting to have someone who actually sees them and relates beyond the rhetoric. I think that should be the sub 4.

1 of them if not all would have brought down any other candidate. Palin and culture apostolic righteous war of words was the nail in the coffin.

[Jeep]

Beautifully said, Mr. Hari. I bought my champagne at Trader Joe's yesterday, and intend to drink it while watching the election results on MSNBC (Chuck Todd has been right about virtually everything during the campaign). I've been waiting for this election since I made a write-in vote for Shirley Chishom back in the day. I started my crying early -- on and off for the the past week -- even the Starbucks ad makes me cry. It will happen!

[RonCanada]

I think the Bradley Effect has just been relegated to the history books, What we are seeing in this new America is the People Effect (voting for commonsense over ideology, voting for hope over fear).

[demandfortruth]

i think it only existed in 2008 when the pundits needed to create drama.