Steele notes that challengers do pretty well, and this is obviously true. Jesse Jackson, the prototypical challenger, often travels around by private jet even though the guy hasn’t had a real job in decades! Steele adds, however, that challengers produce resentment in the people whose wallets they pick. People, after all, don’t like to be shaken down, and they become even more indignant when they are being taken by someone who pretends to be a moral exemplar. Consequently, challengers are controversial figures who may be popular in black America, but they rarely win a big following in white America. Jesse Jackson ran for the presidency, but he never had a serious chance.
11
A contrasting approach, and potentially a much more effective one, is that of the bargainer. According to Steele, bargainers make a deal with whites. They make it clear at the outset that they are not going to presume whites are racist. In fact, they are going to presume the opposite. Bargainers begin by giving whites the benefit of the doubt. What they ask in return is that whites appreciate this generosity and show it. Steele remarks that when black bargainers treat whites in this way, whites are inwardly thrilled. The bargainer affirms their desire to have an anti-racist reputation and confirms what they wish to believe about themselves. Consequently, whites are incredibly excited to have their own self-image ratified and confirmed by blacks through the subtle transaction of bargaining. And when blacks behave this way in public, Steele writes, they have a chance to become national heroes not only to blacks but also to whites. They become, in Steele’s term, Iconic Negroes. Steele writes that Iconic Negroes are so popular because they offer “absolution for whites and redemption for blacks.”
12
A perfect example of an Iconic Negro in popular culture is Oprah Winfrey. Steele writes that “she gives Americans their decency.” What does he mean by this? For years, Oprah had millions of fans, most of them white and female. And Oprah in a sense had a tacit bargain with those fans. Her bargain was that she would never point the finger at them and accuse them of being racist. On the contrary, she would take them to be fair and decent human beings with whom she could even share her inner conflicts and struggles. This grant of trust across the racial divide, Steele writes, was a gift that no white talk show host could offer an audience. Consequently, Oprah became the queen of the talk shows, and legions of white women developed a powerful rapport with her, rushing to buy the books she endorsed and recommended. She flattered them with her trust, and they returned it in the form of loyalty and affection. Other examples Steele gives of Iconic Negroes are Tiger Woods, Bill Cosby (as seen in the 1980s on
The Cosby Show
), and even O. J. Simpson in the years before he was accused of murdering his wife.
13
Barack Obama, according to Steele, demonstrated the remarkable power of the bargaining strategy in American politics. Steele calls him “an artist at bargaining.” From a scene that Obama recounts in his autobiography, we see why. While Obama was a senior in high school, a friend of his was arrested for drug possession. Ann Obama confronted her son, demanding to know if he was involved. Obama says he gave her “a reassuring smile and patted her hand and told her not to worry.” Obama knew exactly what he was doing. “It was usually an effective tactic,” he writes, “another one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved—such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.”
14
So now we know that Obama knows. He has from an early age learned the value of forgoing angry black man routines and using the bargainer’s technique to get what he wants.
As Steele points out, Obama is not the first bargainer to prove effective in the political arena. That was Colin Powell. And Powell had a very good chance to become president, but for whatever reason, he chose not to run. Consequently Obama must be ranked as the most successful bargainer in American politics. His success is largely due to the fact that he offers whites a certificate of racial absolution, and in return he gets an avalanche of white loyalty and enthusiasm. Steele’s psychological diagnosis, clinically accurate in my view, helps to explain why Obama retains a following among moderates and independents. It also explains, in quite an amusing way, the phenomenon of the Obama worshipper and sycophant. It suggests that when choirboys like Chris Matthews, Joe Klein, Jonathan Alter, or Andrew Sullivan sing their hymns to Obama, they aren’t in a sense praising or even excited about Obama. They are excited about their discovery about what morally wonderful people they are. They are actually praising themselves for their spectacular virtue. This isn’t Obama worship; it’s self-worship. And so immersed are these fellows in their political glossolalia that they are completely unaware of how absurd they make themselves.
Once we see what motivates the Obama devotees in the media, we can understand their daily devotions as well as their wounded rage against critics of Obama. Recall the fury that attended my last book; we can expect even more blowback against this one. And throughout this year’s election campaign we are going to have to endure shameless hymns to Obama and vile vitriol directed against those who refuse to attend Obama worship services. The Obama cult is largely devoid of substance; its orisons and denunciations both have the same source: these are people who are trying to protect their own self-image as much as Obama’s. They are not real analysts; they are penitents looking for absolution. By diagnosing their malady, we can see through them and safely ignore them.
So that’s Obama’s secret weapon, namely, his continuing ability to offer white America a certificate of racial absolution. As Steele puts it, “His presidency flatters America to a degree that no white Republican can hope to compete with.” Moreover, “He is an opportunity to vote for American redemption.”
15
This weapon isn’t as strong today as it was in 2008, but it still wields power. I believe it accounts for conservative anxieties about Obama’s background and even his ideology: conservatives also bask in the approval that racial bargainers confer on the whole nation, and they have a stake in protecting the racial credibility of the bargaining community. I also believe that Obama’s absolving power is the main reason that so many people say in polls that they “like” Obama even when they disagree strongly with his policies. Actually, Obama isn’t that likeable; even his admiring biographers like David Mendell acknowledge that Obama can be “imperious, mercurial, self-righteous and sometimes prickly,” even toward people who are on his side.
16
So why claim that Obama is so likeable? It’s a way for people to say that even when they don’t approve of what he does, they still appreciate the fact that Obama isn’t Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. White Americans will always take a bargainer over a challenger. Consequently, there is an unspoken force drawing Obama forward, and this makes him much harder to beat at the ballot box than a white Democrat who might be identical to him in all other respects. This is something Obama’s opponents must always keep in mind. They must figure out how to give people permission to vote against Obama; if they cannot do this, they will never beat him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE WEALTH THEY DIDN’T EARN
Theoretically there is nothing that could stop the
government from taxing 100 percent of income so long
as the people get benefits commensurate with their
income which is taxed.
1
—Barack Obama Sr., “Problems Facing Our Socialism,”
East Africa Journal
A
t this point in the book we are familiar with Obama’s anti-colonial ideology, but how do we know that this ideology drives Obama’s actions in the White House? Actually, there is one way to know. We have to match the anti-colonial ideology with Obama’s actions. Or, to put it differently, we have to compare the ideology of the father with the behavior of the son. That is what we are going to do in the next few chapters. In each case we test our theory by laying out what, on that basis, we would expect Obama to do. Then we see if he does it. Of course there could be other explanations for why he is acting in a particular way. So we examine competing theories, liberal and conservative, to see if they give a better account of his motivations. Our goal is to understand Obama more clearly than he has been previously understood.
A president’s actions must be viewed both from the prism of domestic policy and of foreign policy, but sometimes there is a single goal that unifies them both. Reagan, for instance, built his whole career in opposition to the idea of collectivism. For Reagan, collectivism could be seen in the expansion of the welfare state at home, and the expansion of the Soviet empire abroad. Reagan’s presidency was dedicated to stopping collectivism on both fronts. He did so by fostering free market policies like tax cuts, deregulation, and privatization here in America. And he sought to roll back and bring down the Soviets by building up America’s defenses and by supporting anti-Communist resistance movements in countries like Afghanistan and Nicaragua.
Obama, in a way, is the anti-Reagan. Yet he too has the Reaganite goal of reshaping America and at the same time reshaping the world. Only Obama wants to do this in a radically different way. With the perspective of four years, let’s see what he has so far been doing. Domestically, he is increasing the power of the state over the private sector. Internationally, he is reducing America’s power and influence in the world. We will see overwhelming evidence of this in the coming chapters. So Obama’s policies operate seemingly in opposite directions: in one area he seeks to expand state power, and in another area he seeks to diminish the power of the United States.
The interesting question is why he is doing it. We are going to test the anti-colonial theory by asking if it can explain both Obama’s domestic policy and his foreign policy. That would make the theory very powerful. Other theories simply don’t have this kind of reach. Consider the theory that Obama is a socialist. As I suggested in an earlier chapter, even if this is true, it can explain only Obama’s economic policy, but not his foreign policy. Conversely, if Obama is a secret Muslim, this might explain his foreign policy—or his Mideast policy—but it can’t account for his domestic or social policies. Muslims, for instance, aren’t particularly known as advocates of socialized health care or oil drilling moratoriums or gay marriage. The beauty of the anti-colonial theory is that it makes predictions: Obama will view free market capitalism as a selfish and exploitative ideology. He will relentlessly attack its champions—whether they be rich guys or big bad corporations. He will diminish America’s standard of living and burden future generations of Americans, narrowing the gap in living standards between America and the rest of the world. He will view America as the Rogue Nation and global plunderer. He will reduce America’s footprint in the world, in order to prevent America from stepping on the world. He will weaken America and strengthen her enemies, so that Amercia can no longer impose its will as a neocolonial superpower.
Therefore we have to watch carefully to see if Obama is actually doing these things. Of course, those who have no clue about his ideology will always seek to explain his actions another way. Liberals in general view Obama as toeing the liberal line, or compromising away from it, even when many of Obama’s actions fit neither characterization. Conservatives in general view Obama as a bungler: he doesn’t understand that tax hikes don’t promote economic growth; he misses the fact that government control over banking, health care, energy, and other industries makes them less efficient; he is blind to the reality that Syria and Iran are not our friends; he cannot see how his actions are isolating Israel in the world; he is dangerously naive in reducing our nuclear weapons in the expectation that this will inspire Iran and North Korea to reduce theirs; and so on. When I hear such arguments, I find my sympathies moving toward Obama; we should at least credit him with being smarter than this. I think his critics sometimes forget how much of his domestic and foreign agenda he has realized in a single term.
The anti-colonial theory gives Obama the benefit of presuming him to be at least modestly intelligent. Of course Obama understands the consequences of his actions—that’s why he is doing them. He’s doing what he does because he has objectives quite different than fostering economic growth; he intends to use the rod of government control to tame exploitative capitalists and severely regulate the private sector; he wants to strengthen Iran and Syria’s roles in the Middle East while diminishing that of the United States; and he cares more about reducing America’s nuclear arsenal than about preventing Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. I admit it is scary that a president might actually be seeking these objectives. But if my contentions are right, then we should be scared.
Let’s begin the process of comparing anti-colonial ideas and presidential actions by considering domestic policy. Here, as it turns out, we have a valuable document that was produced by Barack Obama Sr. himself. In 1965, Obama Sr. published an article in the
East Africa Journal
which considered what a country should do when a large portion of its wealth is controlled by a small number of people at the top. Obama Sr. states his objective: “We need . . . to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now.” But how to achieve this? Obama Sr. proposes the use of state power to take over large parts of the private, or as he puts it “commercial,” sector. Obama Sr. says there is no reason to worry about economic freedom or individual rights; what matters is the good of society as a whole. “We have to look at priorities in terms of what is good for society and on this basis we may find it necessary to force people to do things they would not do otherwise.” Obama Sr. recommends that the state compel private firms to become what he calls “clan cooperatives.” These are basically government-regulated or government-managed companies that produce goods less with a view to profit than with a view to meeting the government’s own social and political objectives. Obama Sr. also proposes that the rich be dealt with through very high rates of taxation. Again, he’s not worried about how much the government is confiscating. “Certainly there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation.”
2
As cited in the quotation at the beginning of this chapter, Obama Sr. is even willing to consider tax rates up to 100 percent!