Life in the Post-Political Age
by Joe Bageant

Much has been written by political pundits in their attempt to explain
the unexpected victory of Senator Barack Obama over Senator Hillary
Clinton in this year's Democratic Presidential Primary. When looking
at the results of this race, none of the conventional political math
that would help one handicap the outcome would make one conclude that
Senator Obama would win this contest.

Inside a Democratic Party primary there is no demographic or political
reason that a male first term African American senator from Illinois
with an unorthodox name should come any where close to beating a white
female senator, who happens to be the wife of the last Democratic
President whose approval ratings are still above 70% with Democratic
voters and who also happened to earn the endorsements of the
substantial parts of the Democratic Party establishment.

The conventional analysis focused on the poor quality of the campaign
run by Senator Clinton, her vote in support of the Iraq war and her
advocacy of the cynical center-right triangulation policies of her
husband, which soured her campaign to many primary voters and
especially to Democratic Party activists. Senator Obama's on the other
hand was credited with running an innovative and inspiring campaign
that excited primary voters and brought many new and especially
younger voters into the electoral process.

There is some truth to this analysis, but as a whole it misses the
underlying social change in society that had already laid the
groundwork for a possible Obama victory. To get a clearer
understanding of the results, we must better understand what this
social change is and how its impact is far more significant than the
dynamics of the two respective campaigns.

The underlying social change that led to the Obama victory is the
unprecedented extent to which the narrative of popular consumer
culture, and the media that drives it, has become the dominant
influence on how Americans think, formulate their ideas and understand
the world around them.

The most important result of this process has been the steady and
consistent depoliticization of American society, to an extent that we
can make the case that we are living at the dawn of the post political
age.

The two primary features of the post political age are a politics
completely drained of all its contents and ability or willingness to
be used as an agent of change in social or economic policy, and its
full integrations into the world of American popular, consumer and
entertainment culture. To such an extent that there exists today a
seamless web between our political, economic, media and consumer
cultures wherein the modes and values of one are completely integrated
and compatible with the others.

It should not come as a surprise that the dominant ideas and mores of
popular culture have become the dominant ideas of our society. Popular
culture is the breaker of customs, prejudice, tradition and relevant
historical knowledge.

It is a result of this dynamic that the two consistent winners in
American politics over the last 30 years have been the cultural left
and the economic right. Despite the massive organizing drive of the
religious right over the past three decades, they are further away
from reversing the cultural liberalization of American society than
when they started. On others side of the ledger, organized labor
outside of a few urban pockets and industries is no longer a relevant
force in American life. The ever greater electoral activism of both of
these groups is generally misunderstood as a show of strength; in
fact, it is the exact opposite. It is the desperate fight of the
losing side of the American economic, cultural and political scene.

In essence the same forces that make it possible for the rapid
acceptance of ideas such as gay marriage are the same force which can
create a society that will accept massive social inequalities.

In the post political world and the candidates who can best thrive in
it have tremendous appeal to the economic elites, a system that does
not dwell on issues and will never ask the question, "who has power
and why", but simultaneously creates a social and media environment of
stupefying distractions while destroying traditional social mores
(under-credited as a source of much social solidarity). This can only
benefit their continued rule of that society.

In such a setting our political choices like our consumer choices,
regardless of the product, are primarily about what makes us more
fulfilled and feel better about ourselves.

Senator Obama's campaign understood much better the impact of these
changes on our electoral system than any of his opponents' campaigns.
In the post political world, the campaign that is less political and
less issue-based but is savvier in using new modes of communication
technology will be the campaign to win the greatest market share of
the electorate. The candidate in this case, Obama, was not a political
entity but, in essence a product, an ornament that made his supporters
feel better about themselves.

One of the most telling facts about the Obama's constituency outside
of African Americans (whose support needs no explanation) is that it
is a coalition of people who need or demand the least amount of social
benefit from our government. They are the under politicized younger
voters and upper middle class whites. The two groups, coincidently,
are the ones most influenced by trends in consumer popular culture and
have the greatest of ease using the latest technologies.

In commercial advertising it is the poor commercial that lists the
seventeen functions of the product being marketed. The best
commercials are based on image associations entirely unrelated to the
functions of the actual product. In the post political world, when the
same principle is applied to the political realm, it makes complete
sense how Barack Obama no longer is a black man with a strange name
but the iPod to Hillary Clinton's cell phone. In the world of toys it
is the one that stands out the most is the most marketable.

The reality of the post political period is best highlighted in the
failed themes and ideas of Barack Obama's two primary opponents. The
Clinton campaign was based on pushing two concurrent ideas: the
inevitability factor of her candidacy and the other was her supposed
experience. The only thing inevitable in the post political period is
ceaseless change, which she could hardly offer while running against
the candidate of "Change". How valuable of an asset can experience be
in a culture where knowledge, wisdom and history are frowned upon?

John Edwards campaign on the other hand was dead on arrival. His theme
and emphasis was America's ever widening class differences, a platform
as truthful as it was irrelevant. The use of the word "class" will end
any political career in America. That truth violates the primary
narrative that our elite use to justify their legitimacy, which is the
supposed meritocratic nature of America society. While the post
political constituencies have absolutely no interest in class, whose
very acknowledgment are the bases of all real politics and whose
acknowledgement would only lead to an existential crisis in its ranks.
In the post political period the only differences allowed can be in
style and modes of consumption.

Given all this as the background, what are we to make of the campaign
of the candidate of hope, audacity and change? The answer lies in
understanding Senator Obama's appeal to the brighter sections of the
economic and political elite, and more importantly in the lack of any
organized opposition against him, of the kind that within a matter of
days destroyed Howard Dean's campaign in 2004.

At the precise moment that the intellectual underpinnings of
conservative free market ideas that have dominated politics for the
past 30 years are crumbling across the globe. Obama calls for a post
ideological and partisan world.

At the time when the American military industrial complex is despised
around the world, he is a front man out of central casting which will
buy it more goodwill and new room to maneuver in the first 15 minutes
after being sworn in that John McCain could in the next 100 years.

His very presence, the color of his skin, the very strangeness of his
name is the best guarantee of his betrayal of the expectations of the
constituencies that will vote to elect him. Barack Obama is in short
order a far more reassuring prospect for the continued dominance of
the financial elite than another four years of neo-conservative rule
which in an almost historically unique combination of greed, ill will,
incompetence and stupidity have brought the country to the edge of
disaster.

Audacity yes, change hardly.

On Jul 24, 12:03 pm, mozark <swoon...@gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting analysis.  There is some truth to this.  Presidential
candidates have to have answer to everything, but the brutal truth is
that Obama might manage five notable accomplishments in office (even
with a democratic congress). The packaging has become more important
than the substance.  So, a wise politician will concern himself
greatly with his image because that is his power.

 Hillary did not do well in this.  She relied on being the choice of
the democratic establishment when 80% of the country disagreed with
the direction of the nation (the Democratic congress has horrible
ratings as well).  This was obviously a change cycle (in retrospect)
and the Clinton positioned themselves in such a way they COULDN'T take
advantage of it.  On top of this, she mismanaged her resources by
spending too much before Super ...

read more »

Three would be excellent, especially if there is no regression in
other areas.

My three would be:

1.) Putting the brakes on and even beginning a reversal of so-called
"privatization". This is a society, after all. A communal thing. Yet
now every goddamn process is viewed as an object of potential profit,
something better left to the subservience of the immediate payoff, the
bottom line. Frankly, I have little hope Obama will do this, based on
his economic advisers.

1A.) Reverse the Blackwatering of the country, where again security
and war is somehow not "good enough" for the public sphere, but should
rather be left in the hands of Deep State fascists such as Eric
Prince. (I suppose this should be labeled 1A.) I do have hopes that
Obama may make some headway with this. Of course, the best course to
reverse and kill this anti-democratic trend would be the reinstatement
of the draft or some sort of public service requirement. This country
was once great because of that Social Contract, a contract destroyed
since Reagan. And now this dark, fearful society, which doesn't seem
to be able to accomplish anything nation-wide, is firmly in the claws
of that purest form of unaccountable totalitarianism -- the
corporation. The ultimate private tyranny. The honor of public service
must be revived.

2.) Break-up Big Media. Reinstate anti-trust laws. Reinstate the
Fairness Doctrine. Establish a genuine, independent FCC. Let's not
hold our breath.

3.) Speak softly and carry a little stick. Based on today's Berlin
speech, something "worthy" of Ronald Reagan and Peggy Noonan, this
will not happen. Let the US take care of its own problems and let the
damn world alone.