Obama and Declinism

Commentary Magazine ^ | 10/31/08 | Abe Greenwald

[Jbny]

Robert Kagan can’t understand why declinists, such as Fareed Zakaria and Francis Fukuyama, assume Barack Obama shares their pessimism about America. He writes of Obama: “His view of America’s future, at least as expressed in this campaign, has been appropriately optimistic, which is why he is doing well in the polls.”

It’s an interesting point. But Obama’s message is only optimistic in that it takes for granted that the U.S. has already hit rock bottom. You can pick an Obama stump speech at random and find multiple references to America’s broken promises, failed ideals, dejected citizens, and disappointed friends. Obama’s optimism is predicated on this:

". . . for the last eight years, we’ve failed to keep the fundamental promise that if you work hard you can live your own version of the American dream. Instead, folks are working harder for less. The cost of everything from gas, to groceries to tuition is skyrocketing. It’s harder to save, and harder to retire. At kitchen tables like Ryan and Jenny’s, it’s easy to feel like that dream of opportunity that should be the right of all Americans is slipping away.

This troubling story is written into communities across the country. It’s the story of empty factories shut down forever because the jobs were shipped overseas and nothing took their place. It’s the story of a mother who can’t afford health care for her sick child; a father who lost his job and can’t afford a tank of gas to look for another; a child facing a future where they’ll have to pay off hundreds of billions of dollars in debt to pay for George Bush’s tax cuts."

Kagan is right: That’s not declinism. It’s victimhood,

[februus]

This is where to hurt Obama - behind the vacant smile lies the same tired defeatism in his words as in those of countless democrat front men before him. The same facile and revolting rhetoric played over and over again: America is finished, America is tired and downtrodden, America is no longer a Champion of Liberty. A torrent of defeatism. They want men to plod instead of stride and Pegasus to plough and not fly. Yet America is a vast, unfinished Masterpiece in the hands of the greatest Artist of all.

[Hanna548]

Obama is mentioned in that book. This is all I have managed to get of it so far:

…Barak Obama, the only one to answer differently, quickly realized his political vulnerability and dutifully threatened retaliation as well….