Above all, Barack Obama’s landslide victory last Tuesday was a victory of reason over ignorance. His opponents tried to tarnish him with every kind of mindless smear, but they all backfired; the American electorate by large margins is not only comfortable with Obama, they say that he shares their values. With Obama’s poise and intellect, plus a little luck, America may finally have turned its back on the anti-intellectual fear tactics of the modern Republican Party.
What is so striking about Obama’s victory is the way he managed to defeat the agents of intolerance and anti-intellectualism: he either ignored or belittled them. Instead of fighting fire with fire and responding with anger and indignation, Obama mocked his attackers and made them look petty. In many of his speeches he would mention a recent smear and essentially say to the crowd, “can you believe these people?” In these moments he always maintained a sense of humor that put him above the fray.
When McCain made fun of his comment that Americans should inflate their tires (which would save more oil than any amount of offshore oil drilling), Obama said that the right seems “proud of its ignorance.”
When the right began calling him a radical and a socialist, Obama asked whether sharing his toys in kindergarten was part of the evidence against him.
And in his acceptance speech Tuesday night, Obama injected a word that he hadn’t used before on the campaign trail to characterize the divisive politics of the last couple of decades: immature.
Obama clearly represents a return of seriousness to politics, a recognition that we simply cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from the major issues that we face.
It will be fascinating to watch the team Obama assembles: he has the best and the brightest lining up to offer themselves, from Nobel Laureates to leaders of business and finance to the world’s top statesmen (and women). In just his first few days as president-elect, he has set a tone indicating that he means to put competence above loyalty, pragmatism above ideology (including making clear that he intends to fill some senior positions with Republicans). The main message from the Obama camp is that the adults are back in charge.
For the most part, the Republican Party seems to have taken exactly the wrong lessons from their defeat. Listening to leading Republicans this past week, I couldn’t help but wonder whether they live in the same country. There were claims that Obama doesn’t have a mandate, claims that the country remains “center-right,” suggestions that the GOP needs to focus on culture war issues and limiting government spending; there was almost nothing to indicate that the party has any sense of the political realignment that’s taking place.
Obama and the Democrats won in all of the demographic groups that are growing in America, while the GOP won in only the groups that are shrinking. If this isn’t a recipe for permanent political irrelevance for the GOP, I don’t know what is.
While political fortunes can change very quickly, my hunch is that Obama and his administration will not make the same mistakes as Karl Rove and George Bush and blow the political capital they have. Unlike Rove and Bush, who lied about their agenda in order to get elected (promoting a non-existent “compassionate conservatism”), Obama earned his mandate by telling the voters precisely what he intends to carry out. This is a huge advantage that should not be underestimated.
There is a case to be made that it’s a good thing the Republicans are clueless and in disarray, perhaps even enough to nominate Palin in 2012, because this would only extend their minority status.
But one-party rule is ultimately not good for a democracy, and a robust and inclusive Republican Party is something we should all wish for. Let us hope that thoughtful and reasonable Republicans will be able to recapture their party, sooner rather than later.
Jason Scorse