Obama: The New Contours of Power (original) (raw)
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Obama and the Great Progressive disconnect
Barack Obama came to power as the candidate of hope, promising to bring change to America. Many individuals, causes, and groups tethered their political ambitions to the candidacy of the one-term senator from Illinois, now the fortyfourth-and first African American-president of the United States. Yet, as his first full year in office comes to a close, there are more and more signs of discontent on the left. Indeed, in some liberal quarters, there is rising doubt that Obama has proven to be, borrowing a phrase from the campaign, "the change we've been waiting for."
Barack Obama, the New Spirit of Capitalism and the Populist Resistance
International Journal of Zizek Studies, 2012
The election of Barack Obama corresponding with the dramatic implosion of the neo-liberal world order of finance, represents a dramatic return of history as attempts are made to forge the new consensus of global capitalism. The financial crisis has come to represent the culmination of Third Way neo-liberalism with Obama signifying the commodity logic and emancipatory potential of the new spirit of capitalism. Obama’s biography has allowed for a self-confident re-articulation of American imperial power, while fetishizing a civil society notion of transformation that has eclipsed the anti-capitalist left. Resistance to Obama’s vision of a reconciled America, leading the moral correction of capitalism, has come in the form of a right wing populist campaign of delegitimization. The Tea Party populists speak to the return of the political and the ontological necessity of antagonism as they present themselves as the only radical alternative to actually existing neo-liberalism.
Awakening to the Limits of the Obama Presidency
There are folks who seem to keep hoping that Obama has a "progressive" side which we will all soon see emerge -reminiscent of the transformation of Clark Kent to Superman in the phone booth. Yet, I can't help wondering if all that progressivism was merely projected upon the handsome black man with the charming discourse style because folks were all feeling so desperate; we were are still seeking a political savior or messiah in Obama.
Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the Future of the "New American Party System
The Forum, 2009
Ascending to the presidency in the midst of a severe economic crisis and an ongoing war on terrorism, Barack Obama faces numerous political and policy challenges. We examine an oftobscured facet of presidential leadership: the president's relations with his party. We argue that Obama has benefited from and abetted the development of a new relationship between the president and the parties that features presidents as strong party leaders who invest heavily in mobilizing voters, raising campaign funds, and articulating party doctrine. As we show, Obama's party leadership may hold both promise and peril for the practice of American democracy. Just as previous Republican presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush used their powers in ways that bolstered their parties, Obama's exertions have strengthened the Democratic Party's capacity to communicate with constituents, mobilize voters, and raise funds. However, Obama must take care to avoid the pitfalls of presidential party leadership that ultimately undermined Reagan's and Bush's presidencies. In particular, recent history suggests that Obama must avoid forms of administrative aggrandizement that alienate citizens from government; and that he must forego leadership strategies that threaten the independence and integrity of the party apparatus.
Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition (review)
Education and Culture, 2012
James Kloppenberg's Reading Obama is a high-speed and breathless journey through over 200 years of American political history and theory which gives the work of John Dewey a place of central importance. According to its narrative, these two centuries of American thought find their natural fruition in the political career of Barack Obama. The book, through an introduction to some of the most prevalent intellectual currents in American politics (both past and present), philosophical pragmatism as embodied in the work of John Dewey and his expositors (most specifically the work of Richard J. Bernstein) and various conceptions of constitutional democracy, is intended to construct an understanding of Obama as an intellectual president best understood through his theoretical influences. Kloppenberg's ultimate claim is that when viewed through this framework, it becomes clear that Barack Obama offers a new type of civic republican founded upon a backdrop of philosophical pragmatism. Most concretely, it is argued that Obama shows a strong awareness of conditions of uncertainty and provisionality as well as the necessity for an experimental stance in the realm of politics. Out of this complex "matrix," Kloppenberg ultimately portrays Obama as extraordinarily sophisticated and deep in his understanding of the American tradition, ultimately realizing that "democracy in a pluralistic culture means coaxing a common good to emerge from the clash of competing individual interests" (xiv).
Socialism and Democracy, 2009
We must not get trapped in the hype, the historic occasion, the Black face in a high place of the capitalist imperialist systemespecially since this trick of pacifying the masses of the people has been used quite consistently by the Empire and its lackeys across the world in the past to re-legitimize systems of tyranny and oppression and racism, i.e., FDR and his New Deal concessions of the 1930s and Nelson Mandela of South Afrika. Barack Obama emerged as the political leader of the US ruling class at a time when the country and world have become deeply alienated with the Neo-Conservative policies of the Bush Administration. But a change of tactics from Neo-Conservative warmongering to Neo-Liberal warmongering merely means that the people are being asked to pick their own poison. Capitalist imperialism cannot change its nature. It must continue to develop new markets to sell cheap commodities and new land to unearth for raw materials to shape and form these commodities. It must continue to privatize profit but socialize misery and exploitation in order to survive. This is the essence of the beast we confront, and no amount of hope we place in Barack Obama can change this reality. The various conflicts across the world stem directly from the reactionary drive of international monopoly corporativism to impose its domination on oppressed people. Wars of aggression are not wars of self-defense and justice as the Empire has convinced a small section of so-called leftist academics and activists. Either one is for Proletarian Internationalism, socialism and planned economies, or one is for "My
Review Jeffrey C. Alexander and Bernadette N. Jaworsky: Obama Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014).
Societies Without Borders, 2015, 10 (1)
Jeffrey Alexander and Bernadette Jaworsky examine President Barack Obama's reelection campaign against GOP nominee Mitt Romney to illustrate the importance of class and big money in the contest for power in a presidential run-off. On what base is Obama's power founded? How could, after the disastrous loss in the 2010 congressional elections, Obama outplay his rival against all odds and regain the White House in November 2012? Both professors attest Obama following characteristics: “Demonstrating their moral trustworthiness, successful political performers work furiously to push their opponents outside the world of civility into the immoral world outside”