Obama’s Self-Organizing Rhetoric

by James Como (March 2015)

So, in his rhetoric and his policies, the president ranges between puerility and crypto-Fifth Columnism (thus provoking the question of his patriotism, which perfectly qualifies him as the ideal Secretary General of the United Nations.) Yet he is now what he has always been: a Community Organizer – a cooler version of Al Sharpton (a frequent White House visitor) – for whom the opposition is to be coerced and demeaned, not reasoned with, and by whom “the people” are to be kept in a constant state of disaffection. Because the Organizer serves the higher good of social justice, downright lies as well as racialist, classist, self-righteous, and belligerent rhetoric are justified.

Like most people I found his 2004 Democratic convention keynote address thrilling, for its message of one America and for his joyful conviction in its delivery. Was I fooled? Soon enough he seemed to be guided by a thought from Winston Churchill’s “The Scaffolding of Rhetoric.” Written in 1897, it reflects the presumption of a very young person. Of greatest relevance to President Obama is this passage: “To convince them he must himself believe. His opinions may change as their impressions fade, but every orator means what he says at the moment he says it.” (Was it Sam Goldwyn who said “sincerity is everything, if you can fake that you’ve got it made”?)  

So he “pivots” to the not-yet-quite-bungled precincts – climate change, the minimum wage – because they remain much safer than the instigations of the Chinese routinely harassing our aircraft as they build an ever-bigger and more assertive navy, or the violations of a nuclear treaty by the Russians. Eventually, though, the magic is overcome by a cascade of scandal, crisis and incompetence. Now, for example, our leading non-Muslim Islamophiliac must wage a sort-of-war against non-Muslim non-terrorists – just “folks.” That, or fall back on his three defaults: condescension (as when presuming to lesson us all at a prayer breakfast), insulting Republicans, or, best of all, bashing Netanyahu.

He is The One, said the tingle running up Chris Matthews’ leg. And such is their befuddlement that President Obama’s smug True Believers (a version of Lenin’s “useful idiots,” though actually more fundamentalist) continue to exult in their New Normal: a disintegrating Constitutional contract, dysfunctional federal machinery, a divided and diminished sense of national identity, and bumbling American influence abroad. All this, while living “The Life of Julia,” depicted in a Democrat TV ad about a young woman coddled by the federal government from cradle to grave. This constituency certainly has their perfect piper, a Narcissist-in-Chief who (by his own proclamation knowing more than this, that, and the other thing than the very people he put in charge of those things) can organize his own rabbit hole of denial, smugness, not-a-little Schadenfreude, and improvisational – not to say “random” – policy-making.

Alas, it so happens that the neighborhood is not populated by subjects but by citizens who have inflicted an insulting electoral rebuke, who, “clinging to their guns and bibles,” must be unworthy of Barack Obama’s stewardship. Thus is the jejune post-adolescent compelled to pontificate on the one hand and rule with tantrum-by-decree on the other. After all, it’s so much easier than actually governing. You don’t really have to persuade anyone of anything.

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James Como is professor emeritus of rhetoric and public communication at York College (CUNY). For bio. and contact information visit www.jamescomo.com

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