popular front politics and the Democratic party
a direct assault on the corporate core of the national party
is impossible
a stable third party is impossible
so what's possible ?The Age of Obama: What Went Wrong (and How to Fix It)
Van Jones reflects on his time in-and out of-the
White House.
by Van Jones
posted Mar 29, 2012
http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/the-age-of-obama-what-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it
This article is adapted from Rebuild the Dream, Van
Jones' new book.
The 2008 campaign was a campfire around which millions
gathered. But after the election, it was nobody's job or
role to tend that campfire. The White House was focused
on the minutiae of passing legislation, not on the magic
of leading a movement. Obama For America did the best
that it could, but the mass gatherings, the idealism,
the expanded notions of American identity, the growing
sense of a new national community, all of that
disappeared.
It goes without saying that clear thinking and
imaginative problem solving are easier in hindsight,
away from the battlefield. I was in the White House for
six months of 2009, and I was outside of it afterward. I
had some of the above insights at the time, but many did
not come to me in the middle of the drama and action.
Most are the product of deeper reflection, which I was
able to do only from a distance.
Nonetheless, the exercise of trying to sort out what
might have been and trying to understand why nobody was
able to make those things happen in real time has
informed this book and shaped my arguments going
forward.
I say Obama relied on the people too little, and we
tried to rely on him too much.
Let me speak personally: looking back, I do not think
those of us who believed in the agenda of change had to
get beaten as badly as we were, after Obama was sworn
in. We did not have to leave millions of once-inspired
people feeling lost, deceived, and abandoned. We did not
have to let our movement die down to the level that it
did.
The simple truth is this: we overestimated our
achievement in 2008, and we underestimated our opponents
in 2009.
We did not lose because the backlashers got so loud. We
lost because the rest of us got so quiet. Too many of us
treated Obama's inauguration as some kind of finish
line, when we should have seen it as just the starting
line. Too many of us sat down at the very moment when we
should have stood up.
Among those who stayed active, too many of us (myself
included) were in the suites when we should have been in
the streets. Many "repositioned" our grassroots
organizations to be "at the table" in order to "work
with the administration." Some of us (like me) took
roles in the government. For a while at least, many were
so enthralled with the idea of being a part of history
that we forgot the courage, sacrifices, and risks that
are sometimes required to make history.
That is hard, scary, and thankless work. It requires a
willingness to walk with a White House when possible-and
to walk boldly ahead of that same White House, when
necessary. A few leaders were willing to play that role
from the very beginning, but many more were not. Too
many activists reverted to acting like either die-hard
or disappointed fans of the president, not fighters for
the people.
The conventional wisdom is that Obama went too far to
the left to accommodate his liberal base. In my view,
the liberal base went too far to the center to
accommodate Obama. The conventional wisdom says that
Obama relied on Congress too much. I say Obama relied on
the people too little, and we tried to rely on him too
much. Once it became obvious that he was committed to
bipartisanship at all costs, even if it meant chasing an
opposition party that was moving further to the right
every day, progressives needed to reassess our
strategies, defend our own interests, and go our own
way. It took us way too long to internalize this lesson-
and act upon it.
The independent movement for hope and change, which had
been growing since 2003, was a goose that was laying
golden eggs. But the bird could not be bossed. Caging it
killed it. It died around conference tables in
Washington, DC, long before the Tea Party got big enough
to kick its carcass down the street.
The administration was naïve and hubristic enough to try
to absorb and even direct the popular movement that had
helped to elect the president. That was part of the
problem. But the main problem was that the movement
itself was naïve and enamored enough that it wanted to
be absorbed and directed. Instead of marching on
Washington, many of us longed to get marching orders
from Washington. We so much wanted to be a part of
something beautiful that we forgot how ugly and
difficult political change can be. Somewhere along the
line, a bottom-up, largely decentralized phenomenon
found itself trying to function as a subcomponent of a
national party apparatus. Despite the best intentions of
practically everyone involved, the whole process wound
up sucking the soul out of the movement.
As a result, when the backlash came, the hope-and-
changers had no independent ground on which to stand and
fight back. Grassroots activists had little independent
ability to challenge the White House when it was wrong
and, therefore, a dwindling capacity to defend it when
it was right.
The Obama administration had the wrong theory of the
movement, and the movement had the wrong theory of the
presidency. In America, change comes when we have two
kinds of leaders, not just one. We need a president who
is willing to be pushed into doing the right thing, and
we need independent leaders and movements that are
willing to do the pushing. For a few years, Obama's
supporters expected the president to act like a movement
leader, rather than a head of state.
The confusion was understandable: As a candidate, Obama
performed many of the functions of a movement leader. He
gave inspiring speeches, held massive rallies, and
stirred our hearts. But when he became president, he
could no longer play that role.
The expectation that he would or could arose from a
fundamental misreading of U.S. history. After all, as
head of state, President Lyndon Johnson did not lead the
civil rights movement. That was the job of independent
movement leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ella
Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer. There were
moments of conflict and cooperation between Johnson and
leaders in the freedom struggle, but the alchemy of
political power and people power is what resulted in the
Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965.
As head of state, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not lead
the labor movement. That was the job of independent
union leaders. Again, the alchemy of political power and
people power resulted in the New Deal. As head of state,
Woodrow Wilson did not lead the fight to enfranchise
women. That was the role of independent movement
leaders, such as suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Ida
B. Wells. The alchemy of political power and people
power resulted in women's right to vote. As head of
state, Abraham Lincoln did not lead the abolitionists.
That was the job of independent movement leaders
Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. The
alchemy of political power and people power resulted in
the emancipation of enslaved Africans. As head of state,
Richard Nixon did not lead the environmental movement.
That was the job of various environmental organizations,
such as the Sierra Club, and other leaders, like those
whom writer Rachel Carson inspired. Once again it was
the alchemy of political power and people power that
resulted in the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and
the Environmental Protection Agency
The biggest reason for our frustrations and failures is
that we have not yet understood that both of these are
necessary-and they are distinct. We already have our
head of state who arguably is willing to be pushed. We
do not yet have a strong enough independent movement to
do the pushing. The bulk of this book makes the case for
how and why we should build one.
Van Jones adapted this article for YES! Magazine, a
national, nonprofit media organization that fuses
powerful ideas with practical actions, from his new
book, Rebuild the Dream. Van Jones, a former
contributing editor to YES! Magazine and a former
adviser to President Obama, is the co-founder of Rebuild
the Dream, a platform for bottom-up, people-powered
innovations to help fix the U.S. economy. He is also the
co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights,
Color of Change, and Green for All.
