Barack Obama, the Tragic President

Everything Obama does will be construed to his disadvantage, by his opponents as well as by his supporters. His luster seems to have faded, his hair has grayed — and the election is getting closer.

When the U.S. elected its first black president, African Americans praised the Almighty, and white liberals dared to believe that their country had broken into a post-racial, post-ideological, and post-hegemonic future. Barack Obama’s rhetoric sounded educated; his scholarliness was hip. His oratory seduced half the nation, whole peoples, and the Nobel Prize Committee. The former social worker, professor of constitutional law, and Illinois senator truly had the confidence of the world.

At that time, the other half of America was drowned out by the cheers. Those voters who did not believe a word out of Obama’s mouth damned the president as a Kenyan-born Muslim, an illegitimate non-believer, and a socialist traitor. Now five months before the election, which will give Obama either a second term or his walking papers, the hostility is louder and stronger than ever, while the cheers and adulation can hardly be heard.

This is not only because of the intrusion of the real world and Obama’s own controversial decisions, but also because his followers do not know what he stands for, what they can or should see in their president. What was once identified as bi-partisan common sense is today seen as weak-willed compromise. What was seen as high-flying and inspirational is now seen as cold and calculated. And the politician Obama is strangely disenchanted with politics.

The American Presidency’s Loss of Power

It is not his fault alone. America’s presidency, designed at the end of the 18th century, once possessed the “power to persuade” (as political scientist Richard Neustadt put it), but this is no longer the case in the world of Facebook and the 24-hour news cycle. The role of “bully pulpit” and the right to address Congress and the people at any time ensure that the president gets a hearing, but he is promised nothing more. Just as the once all-powerful networks now can only broadcast alongside the buzz of the blogosphere and cable channels, Obama, without peace and quiet, can only try to persuade.

His words, whether they are delivered in a belligerent manner while he wears short sleeves or in a statesman-like manner while he wears a dark suit, fade away without consequence. Congress is locked in a war of attrition just as European parliaments are, but the president is not given the power of a prime minister or a chancellor. Since 2008, compromise has become a dirty word for American conservatives. Through their obstruction and paralysis they have made the president a preacher who has neither a church nor a flock. “Checks and balances,” the idea that there must be mutual control of America’s constitutional institutions, means that governance in the U.S. is dependent on consensus.

With big tent parties that lack strict rules enforcing party discipline, there are defectors and constantly changing majorities. The idea is brilliant, and it is dead. At least it is within the current reality of Congress, where the only thing to do is damage the other party in the eyes of the electorate. It is Obama’s misfortune to govern when no political rules apply and to appeal when no one listens.

Obama Was Always Pragmatic and Moderate

The impotence that politicians and voters in all democracies feel when they fail to dominate the political landscape is not the sole explanation for Obama’s plight. Neither does the mischaracterization of him as a left-wing reformer to love or hate. The man was always pragmatic and moderate. He believed in the kind of rational, interest-balancing “civic republicanism” that James Madison advocated.

He wanted to prescribe such civil virtues to the ailing culture of Washington, bringing about the “change you can believe in” that he spoke of. He thought that both the cadence and the substance of his rhetoric would unite, rather than separate, America, mired as it was in crisis. This was his mistake. This was his naïveté. Or, if one wants to put it more negatively, this was his hubris.

There are people who believe that Obama the man is just too good to excel in the dirty trade of politics. There are others who call him a failure, or more politely, a “chess player in a city of checkers players.” The man would give up everything; he would despise everything that would distinguish a successful politician: deals handled through flattery, threats, or quid pro quo arrangements, and signed off over a game of golf (the signature tactics of that political virtuoso, Lyndon B. Johnson).

Everyone in Congress knows to quickly familiarize oneself with new arrivals, to learn everyone’s weaknesses to exploit. They learn to court donors like Bill Clinton did, who impressed listeners with his knowledge of every important person’s name, his flaws, and his wife’s hobbies on top of it all.

Weary of the Perpetual Mudslinging

Obama is weary of the perpetual mudslinging, bored by the ignorance in a seminar of the less gifted. One understands and empathizes with him: a smart and reasonable man. But can he be a good president when the office requires so much that is against his nature? It is said that Obama shows up for receptions in a “cuckoo clock” style, quickly in and quickly out. He never stays for more than a quarter of an hour after a speech to shake the hands of his supporters. Only reluctantly does he grant access to donors and his party’s elected officials, and he treats his small circle coldly.

In the drone- and cyberwar Obama is showing a stoic composure that American peace activists resent, although Republicans grant him an allowance on this issue. Obama has kept his distance from black organizations to avoid the appearance of pandering. The effect has been to alienate his followers without appeasing his enemies.

Dinner with Michelle and his daughters was so sacred to the president that after one appearance he left on Air Force One sooner rather than staying longer to pat the locals on their backs and listen to their concerns. His circle of friends was small before, but now it is getting even smaller. Bill Clinton loved and excelled at all the things Obama avoids and hates.

Even after all his affairs, when Clinton left office he enjoyed an unbelievable 65 percent approval rating; the best Obama can hope for is respect. One can call it tragic: those that cannot stand him are sure they know him. Those who believe in him feel that they do not know him and that he does not want to know them. “Four more years?”