As a counter-balance to Fleeced I have moved swiftly on to Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. I've not gotten far but it strikes me that his diagnosis of what is wrong with American politics – of why people are so disillusioned – is very different from the one implied by Morris and McGann.
His hypothesis is that the increasing polarisation between the Republicans and the Democrats is the main problem. This has many manifestations which turn voters off. Venomous, and highly personal, negative campaigns during election seasons. The inability of politicians from different parties to come together and reach compromises. And the sense that, as an ordinary American, the voter is forced to choose between two extreme positions, neither of which fits particularly well with their natural outlook.
Obama describes these people well: “There's the middle aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager's abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse's assistants and Wal-Mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they'll have enough money to support the children that they did bring into the world”.
Not that the two hypotheses are necessarily mutually exclusive. But it strikes me that Obama's is softer, its solutions more inter-personal, while Morris and McGann are (or ought to be!) seeking a real revolution.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment