UMA
Posted on 11/06/2008 3:49:32 AM PST by Kaslin
The Great Election of 2008 is over. Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States.
Now is the time to ask what this election was about.
Here’s what this election was (set ital) not (end ital) about: Barack Obama. It was not about his record: He didn’t have one. It was not about his views, which are radical in the extreme. It was not about his associations: Americans didn’t care about Wright, Ayers, or Khalidi. The media didn’t want Americans to know about Obama. Obama didn’t want Americans to know about Obama. And Americans didn’t want to know about Obama.
This election was not about John McCain. No one cared about McCain, except the liberal media that nominated him president after one win in New Hampshire.
This election was not about President George W. Bush. Bush was used as a punching bag by both sides -- and by election time, he was completely irrelevant.
And this election was certainly not about the issues. In the general election, Barack Obama campaigned as a centrist, titularly abandoning his more extreme positions to do so. He lied about his policies. And no one cared.
This election was about one thing and one thing only: Americans’ puerile need for unity through self-congratulatory, cathartic membership in a broad, transformative political movement.
For eight years, Americans have been engaged in hostile politics. And after eight years, Americans were sick of it.
That isn’t to America’s credit. Hostile politics -- hard-fought political conflict over the issues that matter -- is not a bad thing. It is precisely the sort of messy republicanism the founders embraced. Early elections were replete with mudslinging, character assassination, brawls and scandals. They were also replete with some of the most substantive debate on policy ever put before mankind.
Apparently, we’re no longer interested in the dirty business of politics. We’d rather feel ourselves part of a high-minded movement. Not the sort of movement that espouses particular policies -- not the antiwar movement, or the pro-life movement -- those movements are too divisive. We want to be part of a movement that is solely about us.
Barack Obama was the vessel for that movement. He was an utter cipher. But he embodied the need of the American public for unity by hearkening back to the ultimate unifying feature of American life: third-grade slogans. He spouted Hope and Change. He told us, “We’re All Americans.” He told us, “Yes, We Can.”
From any other politician, it would be ridiculous drivel. From a black candidate, it was inspiring. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson didn’t talk like that -- they spoke the language of division. Because Obama spoke the language of unity, he had to be a moderate. So went our logic.
Barack Obama had us from the moment he said, “Hope.” In that moment, Obama accomplished two simultaneous transformations. First, he transformed himself into a moderate. Second, he transformed himself into a messianic figure, the object of our longing: the physical embodiment of America’s progression beyond racial conflict. If America wanted to move beyond conflict, what better way than to embrace a candidate who could end all racial conflict?
And the Obama campaign subtly played on this theme. They implied that if we voted against him, we were engaging in racial hatred; some supporters even implied America would undergo a race war if he lost. That’s the last thing we wanted.
We wanted to feel good again. That is what the Great Election of 2008 was about. It was about Americans’ desire to feel a part of Something Larger. To do something together, as Americans. In today’s day and age, that Something Larger cannot be the America Ronald Reagan preached about -- the left has attacked that America as racist, sexist, and selfish. That Something Larger had to be an individual who could provide us with the feeling of unity.
Barack Obama told us that we could do Something Larger simply by voting for him. When he said, “Yes We Can,” and we followed by screaming it, chanting it, shouting his name in unison, we were Doing Something Larger. We were uniting.
America has always recognized that unity for its own sake is useless at best and dangerous at worst. Unifying behind a mysterious charismatic figure promising transformational change may make us feel good, but it is a betrayal of the open and honest governmental debate our Founding Fathers sought and so many Americans have fought and died to preserve.
Americans think they grew up during Election 2008. They think they moved beyond the past. In one way they did. In another, more important way, they regressed dramatically -- to a time before politics mattered. In the next four years, there will be plenty of growing up to do.
N.U.M.A.: National Unity My Ass
“Generation Lazy”
gimmer free stuff.
Sometimes one forgets how very young Ben Shapiro is ... and then he writes something like this. I’m sure it makes the dear feel very superior to pass this sweeping judgment on his fellow citizens. However, just to make one point, a person who lives part-time in Israel ought to be aware of the powerful attraction of socialism for an awful lot of people, including many who could be expected to know better.
Oprahism!
N.U.M.A.? Dirk Pitt bump!
Bump for later.
At least the trains will run on time.
To the poor house.
This election was about the groups of people in this country are either too lazy, too stupid or too vapid to see beyond the 30 minutes a sitcom requires and engage a brain cell. We have an election by the immature banding together.
nope. The turnout was not of a proportion to suggest anything really transformative . Republican turnout suppressed. Democrat turnout probably Kerryesque, except obviously high black turnout, which is understandable. BO spent $600 m + billions worth of MSM bias, and there was little there to convince anyone he had answers, not enough to turn out a new slice of the electorate (except blacks, I guess, particularly in the south), like Bush- Kerry did in ‘04, I guess anti-war vs, evangelical then; or Perot did in 1992. In both those elections the number of voters increased dramatically.
The election was about turning the United States into a third world socialistic country.
What better chance to do this than 2008?
After eight years of "compassionate conservatism".
The exposure of an obviously suicidal Republican Party.
And the "give away the treasury" attitude of all.
FWIW ... America wouldn't have faired any better with McCain, than we would have with any Democrat Party operative.
Go away McCain, and take the rest of your RINO buds with you.
or PUMA: Political Unity My A$$
One unifying bumper sticker: Obama says “Pull up your pants!”
LLS
I totally disagree. Those revelers shouting, “No More Bush” were not an apparition.
As far as Barry's concerned, unfamiliarity breeds fear.
Wait till they return to the real world and starting seeing how MUCH money is taken OUT of their paychecks! You will hear one big OUCH!
Actually, I thought it was a very insightful article. You’re right about the attraction of socialism as well, but I do think Shapiro is onto something here about the motivation of a lot of voters.
Spot on!
I want to find out who inside the McCain camp is now trashing Palin and what other canadate they represent so I can be sure not to support them.
My guess it is the whores within the Romney camp.
BORG - Barack Obama Resistance Group
Yep. Anyone thinking that PUMA voters would have an impact were foolish, especially at this time when dens were united on their hatred of President Bush.
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