Obamism: The Politics of Hope in the Year of the Political Independent

Something great is happening in America and for today, after Iowa, we can call it “Obamism,” though it involves movements of history, people and ideas that come in many flavors and are offered by many voices, whose torch may or may not ultimately be carried by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

The real America is back again, rising above the overwhelming negativities of the Bush years and the suffocating banalities of the chattering insider classes who were wrong, yet again, as usual, about Iowa because they are so wrapped up in their insider interests and cocoons that they miss what is happening in the real America.

If there is one proposition I have argued for in my writings over the last two years and my private advice to senior Democrats and the occasional senior Republican, it is this:

Americans will be astonished and amazed at the outpouring of idealism, inspiration, hope and good will that will flow like a mighty river when the Age of Bush is finally ended.

The next great historic political realignment is at hand, comparable to the Democratic realignment brought by Franklin Roosevelt and the Republican realignment brought by Ronald Reagan.

This historic third wave realignment combines:

* the aspirations of progressive Democrats who believe in a party that opposes wrong with courage and principle, and dreams great dreams of what is possible in America,

with

* the huge American center of political independents who want a national unity based on a return to the first principles of Americanism that have been far too often abandoned in the extremism, corruption and radical rightism that will be known by historians as the dark interlude of the Bush Years.

This fundamental and historic realignment includes 98 percent of authentic Democrats, who believe in the traditions of Roosevelt and Kennedy, and more than 70 percent of political independents who will join together in a great movement and new electoral map for renewal and change that is hopefully destined to elect a new president and Congress.

This fundamental realignment will also bring to the new Democratic/independent majority and governing coalition 5 to 10 percent of those who are now Republicans, formerly known by
names such as Bull Moose Republicans under Theodore Roosevelt and Rockefeller Republicans, who no longer have a place in a Republican Party dominated by rightist factions that are outside the tradition of historical and commonly shared American values:

* The use of war for partisanship;

* the contempt for the Constitution;

* the premeditated tearing-apart of national unity and premeditated attacks on domestic enemies;

* the abuse of Sept. 11, 2001, to create fear in the land, which is not only unprecedented from any previous American president but the single most reprehensible, vile and un-American tactic in the history of American commanders in chief from the days that George Washington commanded the Continental Army until the great day when the next American president puts his or her hand on the Bible, takes the oath of office and formally inaugurates the next great era in American history.

* the abuse of fear to justify torture and domestic spying against fellow Americans;

* the disrespect for the separation of church and state;

* the aggressive attacks on checks and balances, judicial review, and constitutional duties of the legislative branch of government.

* the pathological hunger for pre-emptive war, followed by the failure to give adequate support to American troops, followed by the shameless exploitation of under-supported troops as the petty cash of partisan politics.

* the economic policies that do not promote the rising tide that should lift all boats and the harvest of shame from a new tidal wave of “Grapes of Wrath”-type foreclosure;

* the environmental endangerment of the planet by the policies of a president whose representatives are booed and hissed by friends of freedom at a global summit, despite the fact that American leadership to protect the planet is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, a strong majority in Congress and a long and growing list of American business leaders and Fortune 1000 companies.

These things and many others violate cardinal rules of traditional Americanism.

Cardinal rules of Americanism that 98 percent of Democrats and more than 70 percent of political independents want restored to the center of American life.

Cardinal rules of Americanism that, once restored, as they soon will be, will unleash the great hopes and great aspirations of a great people in a great nation in ways that will astonish and amaze those who committed these wrongs, those who tolerated these wrongs and those who
falsely tell us these wrongs must always have to be, which is not the American way, has not been the American past and will not be the American future.

For the last 12 hours and the next 24, the World Service of the British Broadcasting Company is beaming to a world waiting to hear this message:

An African-American whose name, Barack Hussein Obama, has already been demeaned by political opponents, has been lifted to a powerful victory in a nearly all-white state by traditional Democrats who stand in the Roosevelt and Kennedy lineage, by a tidal wave of political independents who stood with a Democratic candidate in a Democratic caucus, and by young people who are the future of America, claiming their right to create their future, like the colonists firing the shot heard around the world at Lexington and Concord.

Where the pundits, the experts and the avatars of the establishment were most wrong, of the
many ways they were wrong, is that they were focused on the falsehood that negative attacks
always work, in a country that hungers for a higher form of hope, and they were obsessed with the falsehood that the victory or defeat of this candidate or that would end this campaign in Iowa, when the great truth of the 2008 campaign is that the great debate about the future of America has only just begun.

Let’s give a standing ovation to Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who conducted themselves with honor and brought enormous experience and wise counsel that should have been given far more attention than they were.

Let’s hope that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) views her defeat not as a reason to escalate the tactics that have so alienated political independents, but as an opportunity to liberate herself from insiderism as she has liberated herself from sexism, and thereby make her a better candidate, more likely to be elected, and a better president if she is.

Let’s cheer for former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who speaks for the voiceless with passion, and for Elizabeth Edwards, a woman of extraordinary courage who stands as the most trusted adviser to the man she loves, in the cause they share.

And whether he ultimately carries the torch, which he may well do, let’s understand that Obamism is bigger than Obama, that he has tapped into powerful currents that embody the best of American politics, that he is speaking for the yearnings of the realigning majority of the American people.

Obamism embodies the politics of hope in the year of the political independent, and as the
morning sun shines in Iowa and the attention of the nation shifts to New Hampshire, the era
of Bush has ended, and the great debate, about the future of the greatest nation that God ever put on this earth, has only just begun.