Yes We Can

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote in the New York Times yesterday that “American politics has been dominated by a liberal fantasy and a conservative freakout” in the wake of Obama’s election. As evidenced by the productive lame duck session, Douthat believes (perhaps a bit too optimistically) that a new dawn of bipartisanship may be upon us.

His take on Democrats is, well, interesting:

"The fantasy was the idea that Barack Obama, a one-term senator with an appealing biography and a silver tongue, would turn out to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Robert F. Kennedy and Mahatma Gandhi all rolled into one. This fantasy inspired a wave of 1960s-style enthusiasm, an unsettling personality cult (that “Yes We Can” video full of harmonizing celebrities only gets creepier in hindsight) and a lot of over-the-top promises from Obama himself. It persuaded Democrats that the laws of politics had been suspended, and that every legislative goal they’d ever dreamed about was now within reach. It was even powerful enough to win President Obama a Nobel Peace Prize, just for being his amazing self."

Viewed cynically, that’s not too bad of a critique, as far as it goes. But it also demonstrates the tinted lens through which most conservatives choose to see the political world. (Douthat, for example admonishes Obama for his “over-the-top” promises but fails to mention that he has delivered on most of them.) Change, by definition, scares the conservative mind. Transformative change, the kind that Obama potently represents, scares the bejesus out of it. Hence, the GOP “freakout,” as Douthat puts it.

That Obama is not the Liberal Messiah misses the point. It was his aura (real or imagined) and sincerity that instilled a sense of hope in so many people. Not unlike Reagan and his “Morning in America” trope, Obama let us dream again. He still does. The palpable yearning for change was real. It still is. That is why the “yes we can” clarion resonates so deeply, even beyond liberals.

Whether conservatives like it or not, most of America wants Mr. Obama to succeed. And, according to Gallup, he remains the most admired man in the land. I suspect Douthat hopes bipartisanship will slow the Obama Express. I, too, welcome political comity. But if it comes, I hope it allows Obama to put the pedal to the metal.