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.

If you haven't volunteered for Obama yet, it's not too late: this is the most crucial time to get involved. Click here to find out how.

Comments

[JohnnyBoyyy]

Mr. Hari, I believe that the Lady's torch will never be so bright and seen by so many Tuesday night.

She may actually be able to "let out a slow sigh of relief" after we prove by our votes Tuesday that we as a nation finally understand her words after 122 years.

Tuesday night Lady Liberty, our goddess of freedom from slavery, oppression and tyranny, will look over her shoulder back at our nation and bless all of us. Then she will turn back to the east to reassure the world that all is going well in America.

This Is OUR Time - This Is OUR Moment.

Obama/Biden '08/12!!!

[Querent]

Well organized and forcefully stated. I, the most critical of all commenters, have no criticism to make of it.

It is excellent that you have cataloged the probably numberless violations of the laws, and changing of the rules, of the Bush administration. We are going to need to remember them in detail for awhile, because each disaster of the Bush presidency is an exemplar of a major thesis of conservative "philosophy". For instance, I think the argument that we should elect businessmen who would run the government more like a business, who in fact would run the government FOR business, has now been conclusively refuted. The MBA president turned out not to be much of a manager.

It is ironic that, in the end, the second Bush Presidency will turn out to be the more famous and the more cited one. It will be the Failed Presidency.

Which Bush do you mean?

The Worst one.

[RacoonMama]

History tends to be cyclical - full of highs and lows. Most major populist revolts have, and continue to occur at the bottom of the curve when awareness of the fact that not acting will make things deteriorate beyond the point of no return.
This election is seen by many the world over as a chance to prevent us from reaching the bottom of that curve. So many major global difficulties and rapid world wide demographic changes occurring in conjunction are creating , if you will, a catalyst, which in turn is creating an outward rippling synergy.
Whether that synergy is positive or negative is up to us as individuals and the first positive step is a
vote for the Democratic ticket.

[Tim303]

Yeah. Great writing from Mr. Hari, as ever.

[trees1]

As ever, yes. If I haven't time to read/view any other columns, I will make time for his.

[demfriend]

Johann: It is a sad statement for our country to have such a fear of hope that we all wait with breath held until we know that our votes did count this time and Obama is our new President Barack Obama. We have watched the last two elections while the votes we made were either stolen or fear won based on the lies and fears whipped up by the GOP and Bush. I still cannot blieve people still believe the lies and the fears based on racism and downright hate whipped up like a sick receipe and wonder why those who have made the choice to believe such hatred walk next to me daily. What is wrong that a clear vision of the truth isn't what those who support the degree of hatred see? What continues to be wrong with those who just see a different color and decide to hate? I agree with your post and I am saddened that more are not making the choice to the future and hope for the children. Bush has broken us and we must fix it.

[NebulaNoxx]

"What continues to be wrong with those who just see a different color and decide to hate?" Psychologists would tell you that what is wrong is fear. Fear of the Other, to be precise (the field even has a phobia name for it). They fear what they don't understand - they fear what is different. And they hate the thing that causes them to experience fear. It's so basic that it is nearly genetic.
But what the Obama family has done so marvelously in this campaign is to SHOW that people of color are NOT any different, except in their melanin level. We have families, we worry about our kids, their potential and opportunities, we go to church, we work, we get sick, we have the same needs, wants, desires. We put our pants on one leg at a time and we bleed the same color. And we have hopes and dreams and live in a country that used to encourage those dreams. The dream of a better future, individually and collectively, as people, as families, as a nation. The road to that future starts at the voting booth tomorrow. Obama/Biden '08 is the only rational step on that road to the realization of all American dreams.

[llisa]

Love this piece, down to the last words. I feel like I have been holding my breath for months.

[sappho99336]

Awesome piece. I think it sums things up very well. I loved the line about Lady Liberty breathing a sigh of relief. I know I will, but I'm like you--I won't assume anything until I hear his acceptance speech.

[Unsui]

Dude, you are so right with your read of this. I still find it hard to believe the political class hasn't, really, figured this out yet. Howard Dean was the first and I really believe that without his particular genius Barack wouldn't have happened for another decade. But it has happened, even if it takes the press and the pols a year or two to figure it out, and ain't no going back. Thanks to goodness.

[Querent]

I strongly agree, Unsui. Howard Dean played an indispensible part in this, and today he will campaign in Tucson. He will have a good time there. The climate there this time of the year is perfect. Unlike the high summer, it's not necessary to drink liquids non-stop.

Howard Dean has done all of us an inestimable service by conceiving of, and putting into effect, his 50 state strategy. That may have been the most important thing leading to this election.

I hope to see Howard Dean in the cabinet. On the other hand, can we spare him from the party at this point? Does anybody know what his plans are? I seem to remember that he was planning to retire as party chairman after the election. How can we do without the indispensible man?

[DaizeRK14]

Great article Hari. Great words to describe the national pulse. Keep up the great work!

[Lee323]

Inspirational post! Idealistic and inspirational rhetoric does not replace the hard work that must still be done in this country but it sure points the way and raises the heart/soul in the process!

[Decipherer]

One thing you can say about Barack Obama's decision to run for president in 2008, he was incredibly prescient to realize as I believe he did (as did the people with whom he consulted, certainly) that the factors in play at this time favored his candidacy. I think he realized that such an opportunity would not occur again for a generation.

In addition, I believe he does not have the temperament to serve in the club that is the U.S. Senate. This is the same club that John McCain claims to not be a part of, but he's in it up to his eyeballs and revels in it. Obama? Not so much. That, in fact, makes Obama more of a "maverick" than McCain, but that's another story.

Anyway, while this is an excellent comment, I must say that one very important factor has been overlooked, and that has to do with practical, hard-nosed political organization which Obama certainly understands, and that is the role of DNC Chairman Howard Dean and his highly organized 50-state strategy for victory.

Many scoffed at Dean, and made fun of him after "the scream" in 2004, but he's gone on to make the Democratic Party a powerful force capable of assisting its nominee.

Without Dean and the great work he's done over the last four years, Obama's task would have been far more daunting.

Thanks, Howard!

[harveyr2]

If a candidate is voted for or against because of his/her race it is racism.

[renatam]

Thank you. I can see Lady Liberty from my window...a­nd I will let you know when she does!

[AbstractImp]

Thank you for these wonderful words at a moment of intense crisis.

[caterpol]

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.
----------­----------­-

Tectonic, not so much. It's been long in the making, and long overdue for sure. IMHO, if GWB had been a good President, this wouldn't be happening. There IS such a thing as being in the right place at the right time, and I'm grateful that we have Obama at such a juncture. (You could also make the case that for many, Obama isn't black, at least not someone identified by a black stereotype. When you achieve a certain celebrity, it seems you're able to transcend skin color).

And maybe you said this and maybe you didn't, but it seems to me that the ever increasing ethnicity of America is where the real change began toward color-blindness. It could also be argued that this is where the real vitriol or backlash began. This us vs. them mentality. Those that insist that America owes its strength and "true" identity to Eur-o-pean-whites, and those that insist that America owes the same to diversity.

Happily, the former is getting old, and the latter is young and optimistic.