WORSE THAN USELESS

I remember as a child once hearing my father say that something was worse than useless. I remember thinking ‘how could something be worse than useless, surely if it was useless that was the end of the story? As they say we live and we learn.

I was never fully swept up by the Obama mania that preceded his first election victory and inauguration in 2009. I have heard too much overblown sonorous rhetoric in my time to be captured by all that “yes we can” stuff. Still I was impressed, here was an articulate, well read and able man, certainly a liberal possibly even a radical entering the White House. The fact that he was a black man felt truly significant, here was evidence that the United States was finally moving on from the dreadful days of segregation, discrimination and overt racism. I remember though cautioning some more enthusiastic individuals that far too much was expected of him, people would be disappointed.Talk about an understatement.

When you look back over the period of Obama’s presidency thus far you are immediately struck by absence, there is nothing there, an empty space, a vacant lot with a sign reading, ‘PROGRESSIVE PROJECT – PLANNING PERMISSION DECLINED.’ These have been wasted years.

True at every stage Obama has been blocked by a Republican Party finally gone insane, a party no longer representing anyone but those who want to stop the world and get off. But Obama had immense political capital, he could have taken on the Republican right and other entrenched interests with the backing of the people, as Franklyn Roosevelt had done. Whilst Lyndon Johnson had faced greater odds, in the form of a dramatically split Democratic Party, but LBJ had faced down redneck Southern Democrats to introduce civil rights legislation. In comparison Obama has been impotent; he has not even managed to keep his election promise to close down the Guantanamo prison camp. He also seems unable to prevent the Republicans from hacking away at his modest health care reforms. All this at a time when he was operating with a general leftward tug in popular culture. It is difficult not to conclude that the Obama presidency has been useless.

It is though, I think, worse than that and it goes back to the manner in which he was first elected. Obama was swept to power on a wave of idealism and optimism, he was selling change. He was also selling hope and people were buying. It was the first time that many were drawn into politics, particularly from the African American and Hispanic communities. When Obama called out “Yes we can,” people believed him.
However  of all election slogans ‘Yes We Can,’ provides the greatest hostage to fortune. Thus, as in policy area after policy area as it became increasingly clear that in fact no he could not, disillusionment rapidly grew. More damaging was the reality that Obama’s former radical stance, from, Guantanamo Bay to The Patriot Act, was being dropped, like an embarrassing family relative.

Machine politicians have less responsibility; they deal in pragmatism, cynicism, ‘the politics of the possible.’ Progressives and idealists carry the heavier responsibility of dealing in hope, and  when they ‘betray’ the hopes of those who elected them they do something extremely damaging, they turn their former supporters into disillusioned cynics, and by doing so they corrode the fabric of belief in elected politics. This is what Obama has ‘achieved.’  He has turned out to be worse than useless.    

Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.