The New and Improved "Us vs. Them" Narrative

Yes, this is proving to be quite entertaining. I used to play a lot of chess and this is like watching a Capablanca play. The moves are small, quiet and seemingly innoquous but build into this irresistable momentum. Only after study does the pattern evolve and you find yourself marveling at the mind that saw this all along and planned every move and counter. Obama's opponents seem doomed to being a move behind and always playing catch-up, often without knowing it.

Al

I really appreciate you paying attention and keeping us aware of things you notice. I feel stretched by the challenges of life these days and I found this post a breath of fresh air. I love the thought that Obama not only has a deep natural intelligence long missing from our political leadership, but that the current economic scene has created a real opportunity to make fundamental change for the better. Bush/Cheney etc used 9-11 as their opportunity for draconian change. It seems the pendulum is at last swinging toward a deeper vision and perspective. Thanks again, I don't always agree with you Al, which seems like a good thing, and I love your passion and insight and the invaluable contributions you are making to our understanding .

jim in austin - I'm sure that Ben Masel or Psifighter or one of our other friendly neighborhood chess experts could throw more light on the analogy, but since the Cuban, Capablanca, invented a new chess board with 16 additional squares and two new pieces each with mutant powers, that seems an apt metaphor for the current game afoot. It's as if a new board, too, has been snuck underneath the game while the Washington players slept, one that expands to a vast tract of terrain outside of DC, and with it new players in from the outside (community organizers among them). Anyway, thanks for the chess reference.

@Charles Kingsley:

You are right that after the 9-11 incidents, the Bush administration took the opportunity to make huge changes. Its' too bad that those changes were not positive. Now Obama has the same opportunity with the economic crisis and this time, I'm very hopeful that the changes he and his administration will put in place, will be changes that will advance not jut the nation but the human race.

I am struck by how cluless the pundits seem to be, mindlessly echoing the old, stale arguments, as if we're back in 1980, forced us to relive the "big government" and "tax and spend" framing.  I don't doubt the public has moved on, but you wouldn't know it from listening to cable channels (or reading most of the blogs).

So, I wonder how long it will be before the talking heads catch on.  And I wonder whether Obama is ever concerned (or should be at all concerned) that those who relentlessly spin stories are so out of touch that his message may not get through.

Are we really at the point where Obama can get his message through, no matter how dense the fog of the experts remains?

Obama has been consistent in my view.  Progressive pundits sometimes claimed his approach to bipartisanship was "kumbaya" but Obama knew the difference between political opponents with whom one has to negotiate and the special interests that are the wedge directing policies away from our nation's best interest.  He knew where the real battles were and demonizing Republicans wasn't always going to help us.

And to any of us who watched closely it was clear that treating others with more respect didn't mean that you would not be able to attack them politically.

One can go back to "Audacity" to see some of his thought process.

One of my favorite writeups on this was by Mark Schmitt at the American Prospect

And this is where Obama comes in. He alone seems to have a theory about the next era of politics, not the last. His appeal to unity is not as soft or aloof as it may seem. What's most interesting about it is that he's calling for an engagement with ideological conservatism itself, rather than with powerful interests. There's a real difference between calling for bipartisanship, as Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain do, and calling for a mutual attempt to understand and respect the conservative worldview, as Obama does in The Audacity of Hope. At a time when conservatism is discredited, as a result of its alliance with the least-principled gang ever, Obama is calling it out and attempting to separate it from the narrow economic interests it has served.

of the President's initiatives will require 60 votes in the Senate v. just a simple majority?

Al,

I really liked this radio address today for the same reasons as you so well stated.  I guess it's amazingly difficult to believe that a politician is doing in office what he/she said they promised on the campaign trail.  Even for me who listened to him all during those two years, it's going to take some getting used to as I feel like a battered citizen.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me on how difficult the budget will be to get passed as I thought it was a simple majority and therefore wouldn't be a big story.  Are a meaningful number of Democrats going to oppose it ? 

Also, is there some way that Obama can take the scare out of the whole socialism meme?  I know that several people I have spoken to lately,who are first and second generation from Eastern Europe, are scared to death of that word and thinking that Obama is going to take the country down a dark path with the government controlling every aspect of their lives.  It seems that now would be a good time for Obama to really explain how he views  the concept of "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper" as different than the concept of socialism as portrayed by the PON (Party of No).

Irresistible, indeed.  Thanks Al for calling  attention to this.  I emailed it to all my friends - and I haven't sent one before.

It's so empowering to listen to President Obama ( and I still love writing those words) and maybe the more people actually listen and follow what is happening - there will be less sniping in the "progressive" blogs of what he 'should' be doing.  Every time I read one of those blogs, I'm reminded of a sign at an ashram in India: "Please leave your ego with your shoes." Outside.

There's an interesting Ryan Lizza article in current New Yorker ( I read it in hard copy, so don't have the link) on Rahm Emanuel. Lizza notes criticism of him from Krugman and others,  Emanuel answers:" They have never worked the legislative process,- How many bills has he passed?"

I'm still amazed at how grateful I am we're talking about President Obama - can't imagine anyone else who could be doing this.

Enjoy the popcorn!

There's an excellent link by Badcrumble posted on the Out of Iraq thread regarding CNBC "journalist" Rick Santelli and the supposed spontaneous populist uprising of nationwide "Chicago tea parties" against Obama's economic plans.

http://exiledonline.com/exposing-the-familiar-rightwing-pr-machine-is-cn...

In my opinion the Exile article is an excellent example of what Al calls authentic journalism. The final paragraph shows how the rich plan to fight this new "Us vs Them".

**So today’s protests show that the corporate war is on, and this is how they’ll fight it: hiding behind “objective” journalists and “grassroots” new media movements. Because in these times, if you want to push for policies that help the super-wealthy, you better do everything you can to make it seem like it’s “the people” who are “spontaneously” fighting your fight.**

I was just coming here to post a link to the address. It was irresistible.

Is it crazy that I got chills when he said, "So am I."

He's going out on a limb here. I'm scared for his personal safety. (Not CLing, just saying it's a risk at this level of money and power and change.)

We have to have his back in a visible way. Traditional phone calls and letters will be needed to apply pressure to budget holdouts. We'll see who the holdouts are vs. who's up in 2010. But we're going to need more, maybe. I need to think about organizing. Maybe something more on the lobbyist side than the congressional side. Ideas?

He moved forward knowing he has the support of a lot of ordinary people. He's there for us and we need to be there for him. This is it. The Iraq War announcement and the budget are where the rubber meets the road. Together we'll get it done.

when President Obama hit the road to visit Indiana and Florida, and a few of them even noticed that the President had the audacity to speak about Washington as an "outsider."  Why, he even got laughs with lines about how the DC insiders are out of touch!

And the press corps was shocked - shocked! - that Obama is proposing a budget that does exactly what he said for two years on the campaign trail he would do: allow Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthiest to expire!  Remember how during the ABC debate, at point it seemed likely that Charlie Gibson was going to pull out his 1040 and ask Obama to go through it line-by-line, showing him where his taxes would go up?  They asked Gibbs question after question with their memes of "class warfare" as if we haven't been engaged in one for the last thirty years.

Meanwhile, Obama got the stimulus bill he wanted and his approval rating is up 7 to 8 points since last week by most measures.

I have been counting the minutes since Obama's address and, not if, but when, you would write your post. What I find fascinating is the MSNBC/NBC meme of "class warfare." I actually have heard this phrase several times in 2 days. And, their use of it is actually in a retrograde way.

Nevertheless, PBO has used other terms and ideas to declare war on those who would destroy quality of life for most Americans. And, he is doing this without using their terms and reforming the notions for the American public. It's like it's understandable and doable.

I just returned from a townhall meeting sponsored by my State Senator and State Representative. This was their third in one day. There were nearly 100 people crammed into a small library meeting room and it was SRO. I have attended these in the past and there have never been so many folks. The presidential election, the Blago impeachment, and the Burris mambo has forced Illinoisans out of their slumber and they are full of questions and desire for solutions.

The overarching narrative was how do we, the people, get the following: clean up campaign finance, clean up state government, and get rid of pay-to-play. It was actually refreshing. We are in the midst of a total mess but people are motivated to move and to act together.

If I was operating in another sphere, I would swear it's that line from "Hair" -- this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

Ha!

Al,

You never cease to amaze me. Good on you for this post. Teh "Librul Media" is in a tale spin. Suckered punched by predictability.

Shocking, just shocking that a guy says he will do something and actually does it. My word--I am clutching the pearls and all that.

Remember way back when during the primary flame wars. When then candidate Obama said he would not engage in petty tit for tats--and he basically didn't. And when he did enagage (thinking of the last 3-way debate on CNN) his numbers fell slightly.

Keep up the good stuff Al

Incredible things happening right now, and mucho momentum.  This is all good, but this bit that Al said is extremely important in my opinion, "He is in a position of unprecedented strength, as long as his small donors continue to see his presidency as important to them."

A large percentage of those small donors sadly still get most of their "news" from BigMedia sources, and these sources are setting up narratives right now and just waiting for an opportunity to pounce.  If the economy doesn't show improvement soon, or there's some sort of scandal out of the Obama Admin, the BigMedia mavens will launch assaults that'll make what they did with Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers seem like tiddlywinks.

I wasn't a Chicken Little during the campaign since I understood that Obama, and more importantly his unprecedented (in scale at least) ground-up campaign realized that America was at a tipping point, and they knew how to tap into it and unleash the floodgates, which they obviously did.

But I did notice David Axelrod (or might've been Gibss) recently admit that the Rev. Wright BigMedia created drumbeat was the one time he was really concerned during the campaign.  Obama was able to masterfully defuse the situation with the "Race" speech, but the dynamics are much different now that he's President, and he's "on the hook" for what happens now, whether fairly or not.

This is why we need to be getting his back more than ever, and informing anyone in our immediate circles of what Obama's actually doing right now.  I was happy to hear the story above about the community meeting being SRO, and it'll take that happening all over the country and will need to be sustained.  It's going to take an effort equal to, if not more than what was done during his campaign, and this is also why Al's message of "Organizing" is absolutely essential right now (and always for that matter).

We've had great accomplishments so far, but the battle has just begun.  The BigMoney forces that have ruled America for decades are not going to let go easily.  Fired up?

This is the fun part.  Propose legislation to begin to fix health care in this country.  Go directly to the people and let the representatives and senators answer to their constituents if they  won't vote for  it.  Let's see if Republican governors will refuse to let their states be part of a new federal health care plan that will cover more people and save their states and their businesses more money.  

It is worth noting a few of the words of Harold Washington, who transformed Chicago politics at the time Obama was cutting his teeth in the organizing world:

 Business as usual will not be accepted by any part of this city.

Chicago is one city. We shall work as one people for our common good and our common goals.

I cannot watch the city of Chicago be destroyed by petty politics and bad government.

Let's not be overconfident, we still have to count the votes.

Throughout American history many of our social gains and much of our progress toward democracy were made possible by the active intervention of the federal government.

We fought that good fight with unseasoned weapons and a phalanx of people who mostly had never been involved in a political campaign before.

Sound familiar?

great observations and great comments below the post as well. this youtube address was hot

Someone above mentioned this and it's funny I was thinking something rather similar as I watched him speak on Tuesday. He was basically laying out the most radical shift in the relationship between govt and the people since FDR and he might have been discussing what we're having for lunch. Although discussed very eloquently of course. I've believed for a long time this guy was going to be transformational just as FDR was. The multiple crisis' are assisting that process but he still needs tread softly and make the American people comfortable with what he's doing. Some columnist picked up on this, I can't remember who, but it's one of the keys to Obama's governing style. He like FDR is proving to be the national teacher. Of course, he's getting enormous help from the conservative retreat into buffoonish immaturity....these folks really seem to have a death wish. I often wonder what people like McConnell, who is nobody's fool, thinks about this. He's powerless to do anything about it so the ship just gets blown about by the far right storm.           

... and also agreed that it still hasn't sunk in to most of the pundits.  Excellent post, Al!

I read that New Yorker article, too.  My favorite line- Rizza notices a plaque on Rahm's office wall, given to him by his brothers, that says, "Under-Secretary of Go-F%ck-Yourself"--

Gotta love it!

Now we see what this army was really built for...

Obama is actually engaging a 'minimalist' adgenda to deal with the severe crisis left by disfunctional and anti-worker administrations stretching from Ronald Reagan.

My fear was that Obama would end up aping the inept and corrupt Clinton administration--with their moderate Republican ethos.

Obama is intelligent enough to see the trendlines, and how corrupt government at all levels has become.  Really, the status quo has the US approaching third-world systemic failures.  Obama sees this, and is doing everything in his power to stop that trend.

Surely the economy will get worse as the current model of passive consumerism, apathy, ignorance and endless debt reaches the bottom.

We need engaged, informed, educated citizens that can create a strong social safety net and that are capable of making our nation stronger, more energy effiicent, and productive.

The propaganda and dogma of 'free trade' is collapsing before our eyes.  More, the idea that we should allow the greed of the rich to guide the 'invisible hand' has been shown to be nothing more than a crack-addled pipe dream--a scam and a delusion.

However, the indoctrination and the intellectual laziness that reproduces this diseased system is deep set in the culture of 'capitalism'.

The time is ripe to advance democratic socialist policies and to start organizing at the grass roots level.

There aint nothing wrong with honest sweat and hard work, and the US population will have to loose the obesity that has infected our bodies and minds.  Predictably, the whore-class in the US intelligensia will ally with the greedy, rapacious, lying corporate rightwing.

Let's put the fear of god into these degenerate a-holes.  When heretofore passive people start mobilizing, this will make them shit their pants.

I continue to be impressed by Obama on many fronts.  Al, the respect that I have for your work at Narco News (you may recognize my name for a pair of interchanges in the past) has helped me not react negatively to policy stances of Obama's that I do not agree with.

But again, in the youtube piece, he talks about Clean Coal.  Clean Coal is a LIE.  Clean Coal is a greenwashing term that Obama continues to spout.  At some point those (we) who support Obama are going to have to hold his feet to the fire for Bad Policy stances.

by Orszag this morning on ABC's "This Week."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obama-considers-50-vote-strategy-on-...

"President Obama's budget director said the White House would consider using a Senate procedural tactic so that only 50 votes would be required to pass major healthcare and energy reforms.

Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration would prefer not to use the budget reconciliation process to push through its package.

But he added: 'We have to keep everything on the table. We want to get these.... important things done this year.' Orszag called healthcare in particular 'the key to our fiscal future.'"

Al

this is what brought me to Obama in the first place. it is why I donated. he is our first chance in so long to fight the corporate trusts Wilson let in. Lincoln had one terrible regret from the Civil War was that he let the banking trust into Washington to fund the war. the trusts took the Emanacipation Laws and warped them into corporate rights. it has been down hill since. but now with grass root funding we have a chance. let's not lose it.

To Gary Graham Hughes

If clean coal is a lie than cellulosic ethanol is a lie. While I agree that the hyping of clean coal technology has been unrealistic and a bit annoying, the backlash amoung the blogosphere has been nearly as uninformed. My fellow liberals are going to have to eventually learn that nuclear or a cleaner version of coal is eventually going to need to be part of the program since natural gas isn't going to cut it for the entire baseload electricity (let me qualify this by saying I am talking about the near term). This is even accounting for large efficiency improvements. Let me know if I need to explain why renewables can't function as baseload power in the near term (until we develop really good energy storage).

Here's an actual battle to fight:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/3/1/204024/2334
http://fightingforourhomes.com/

About that clean coal thing, Obama also promised to find the cure for cancer. It won't happen overnight, It will take a lot of research, and if we're lucky several lasting benefits will come from the effort.

I'm not sure ''holding his feet to the fire" is the right response to clean coal not existing or the cure for cancer not being found yet.

He's publicly labeled them as priorities, therefore there will be a lot of research money going into these areas while he is president.

This would still be a good time to make one of those websites like isgeorgebushstillpresident.com

I suggest

HaveWeCuredCancerYet.com or IsCoalCleanYet.com

/offtopic the volcanomonitors.com site is awesome

Well, those goes my place in this new socialist world order! I better get me some callouses on my hands and figure out how to wield a wrench 'cause I sure can't get any respect off my white collar bona fides. What was I thinking? That it was good to get out of the subsistence farming of my forefathers? Gawd - those ijits shoulda been noble and stayed poor.

(I will only admit to a strawman argument if you do)

I'd love to get your input, Al, on what TPM refers to as "Democratic Psyops": the setting up of Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the GOP.

Michael Steele's latest apology to Rush seems to just confirm this new meme.

http://exiledonline.com/cnbc-bitch-slaps-santelli-into-line-freedomworks...

An excellent followup article by the same folks, in case you're interested.