Two million Americans gathered in Washington DC to see the Presidential inauguration and a new era of ‘change’. Obama’s movement needs to keep the pressure on him to deliver argues Andy Yorke
Barack Obama’s presidential victory was sealed on 20 January with his swearing-in before an unprecedented crowd of up to 2 million. The crowds ramming Washington waited in the freezing cold for hours to witness the historic moment when a Black man became the most powerful man in the world. The standard chants of his campaign, ‘O-ba-ma’ and ‘Yes we can’ rippled through the sea of people.
African Americans of all generations in particular thronged the streets, after streaming into the city from around the country. Elderly civil rights campaigners cried alongside enthusiastic youth, many of them active in the 2008 Obama campaign. Obama himself acknowledged the tremendous moment of hope his victory represents for Black Americans near the end of his speech, when he noted that “a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath” as president. Many interviewed in the crowd stressed that the US was more united than ever, with a widespread sense that the country had broken with its racist past and a conservative agenda driven by the religious right, and set out on a new road of patriotic unity and rational, open government.
However the euphoria of the crowds stood in stark contrast to Obama’s stern, deflating speech, which stressed the tremendous crisis in the economy and Middle East. Without naming Bush, Obama laid out an approach breaking from that of the previous administration, stressing government initiative, environmental action and health and education reform as opposed to unfettered free markets, along with a stress on constitutionality at home and diplomacy abroad against Bush’s sole reliance on force and bonfire of civil liberties. He also stressed that his administration could not deal with the crisis alone or immediately, stressing the need for years to turn things round and the sacrifice and ‘responsibility’ of the people in order to ‘remake America’ and its power abroad, the key theme of his speech.
Even Obama?s warnings of pain ahead were met with support, many believing he was simply being honest and telling people the truth after years of lies and media manipulation. However Obama?s non-partisan approach, seeking to paper over the differences between liberals and conservatives on social issues, was not shared by many. Obama was conciliatory with Bush, thanked him for a smooth transition and even hugged him on stage, but his supporters greeted the ?Thief in Chief? with booing and cries to impeach him. Obama deliberately selected for a rightwing pastor Rick Warren who is anti-gay marriage, and once again as Warren took the stage boos could be heard.
The young, radicalised crowds rather than being committed to bipartisanship, which has seen Obama appoint Republicans to key positions in his government, instead have a very divisive agenda of racial justice and economic relief. They look to Obama to embark on a radical course of action to parry the crisis that is destroying jobs and homes and deliver on health and education reform. Many will look for an uncompromising approach to environmental disaster and injustices in the Middle East and third world that US corporations and banks profit from.
Indeed the inauguration, through its scale, through its prestige and through the rhetoric of Obama himself shows that in no way does he wish to demobilise the millions that came out to campaign for him last year. A populist emphasis continued into his inauguration speech throughout. “In the face of our common dangers. Let it be said by our children’s children when we were tested we refused to let this journey end”.
Obama’s speech was a rejection of Bush on every front. He said he would restore science to its rightful place, no doubt aimed at the neoconservatives support for restrictions on stem cell research and pushing creationism in schools. He called for government action “bold and swift” on jobs and infrastructure, healthcare, green energy and education and rejected neoliberals who might “question the scale of our ambitions… who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.”
“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works. Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye the market can spin out of control – and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous.”
Just as he “rebalanced” the market with regulation, state welfare reforms and a stimulus package, against the slash and burn approach to regulations and reform of the neoliberals, so too did he reject the neocons War on Terror rhetoric, with its emphasis on perpetual mobilisation, civil liberties binned and armed might as the first response in every problem with the third world.
“As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.”
Instead he reached out to Muslims, in words at least though there was no condemnation of Israel’s massacre in Gaza, and the poor in the third world. He asserted that America was “ready to lead once more” and to its enemies, “we will defeat you.” but without Bush’s unilateralism and snubs to the UN and EU states, instead doing so “with sturdy alliances.”
However while balancing market and state is superficial: most state programmes will be procurement from private providers. Ideologically Obama prepared his loyal followers for hardship, stating it would take time and sacrifice:
“For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job.”
This shows that while Obama rejects Bush’s rhetoric, ideology and commitment to the naked rule and enrichment of the capitalist class on the backs of the workers, that he will ensure that US workers – already impoverished and unprotected after 25 years of Reagan, Clinton and Bush neoliberalism – will be forced to suffer yet more.
It does not have to be this way. Obama’s hopes that the passion many feel about his presidency and hopes in his bettering their life will keep them clinging to such ?responsibility? and sacrifice, stifling their needs and struggles in the name of ?giving him a chance?, while the state continues to bail out the bankers and big businesses like Detroit Three. But while some will no doubt fall into this trap, many especially the activist and radical youth are unlikely to do so. Some of his supporters will already be watching him closely after the failure to condemn Israel during its rampage of destruction in the Gaza strip.
The unity he has inspired will be used to campaign and build the pressure on him to deliver on his promises and to act against injustices and poverty, as Obama was forced to do when he defended workers who recently occupied their factory Republic Doors and Windows against illegal sackings. His calls to responsibility and sacrifice will be desired by the millions first and foremost to fall on the rich and powerful, and his administration as a green light to struggle to force the capitalists to share the burden of their crisis.
If the Left seizes this opportunity to develop and lead such struggles, these ideas of fairness and illusions in Obama will begin to fade, and the great movement that forced through his election against a white, hostile establishment – both in the Democratic Party and the racist US political system itself – will begin to stand on its own feet, independent of Obama, and find its own new young leaders of struggle.