1. So-called serious thinkers *can't* acknowledge that Obama disillusioned large numbers of people because Obama's triumph is such an important part of who they are. He's the North star of Democratic dysfunction.
2. For boomer Dems, Obama isn't just a man, he's a symbol structuring their tastes, prejudices, notions of honor, sense of good and evil, even truth and falsehood. He validates the institutions that validate them. To diminish Obama's is to cut out a part of oneself.
3. As Orwell put it about the British middle class trying to deny their place in the class structure, "I have got to alter myself so completely that at the end I should hardly be recognisable as the same person."
That's what rejecting Obama would mean to liberals.
That's what rejecting Obama would mean to liberals.
4. Much of the historical and intellectual world associated themselves with Obama, hoping he would succeed, needing him to succeed. An entire generation of intellectuals and media figures made their bones describing to Democrats why they couldn't believe their lying eyes.
5. Here's Princeton historian Sean Wilentz in Jan. 2009: "Not since Reagan have we had as capable a persuader as Obama, and not since FDR has a president come in with quite the configuration of foreign and domestic crises that open up such a possibility..."
6. Historian Simon Schama said that when Obama won the Iowa caucuses it was the moment "when American democracy came back from the dead."
Those of us paying attention to policy details, like Obama's lies on retroactive immunity for telecoms or NAFTA, were ignored.
Those of us paying attention to policy details, like Obama's lies on retroactive immunity for telecoms or NAFTA, were ignored.
7. Historian Douglas Brinkley called Obama the first global President. "The great success he has had abroad makes everybody feel good about our country at a time of economic woe, and that is a big thing."
And Europeans went nuts, giving Obama the Nobel Prize. Truly delusional.
And Europeans went nuts, giving Obama the Nobel Prize. Truly delusional.
8. To note Obama disillusioned us is to admit most elite institutions are run by easily duped charlatans, that the history we know is basically false, and the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded based on the moral vanity of supine European fools. It means erasing who we are.
9. It's not fair to put this all on Obama. But in the 1980s, both Dems and GOPers decided that we'd dedicate our political and commercial institutions to cheating people. Our entire social hierarchy is designed around that principle. Obama upheld it when it was vulnerable.
10. Obama offered a void in the soul of different factions. For many aspiring aristocrats, Obama's personal elegance and charm modeled the grace and dignity befitting the symbol of his office. He did not embarrass with any imperfections or the muck and mess of democratic power.
11. For many careerists who refuse to acknowledge the possibility of democracy, his failures revealed not our own feeble allegiance to democracy, but the flattening of history. America has been a failure from the beginning. Obama's failure wasn't a failure but a confirmation.
12. Obama's post-Presidency is perfection. He was always exactly who he now appears to be, a wannabe billionaire collecting mansions and being vaguely annoyed at anyone who might want to tax his wealth. It's embarrassing. And a lot of people should be extremely embarrassed.
