BOOKS: Taking Obama’s Measure

By Louis Proyect
Book Review | March 14, 2011

HODGE, Roger D.: The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism, HarperCollins, 2010, 259 pages, ISBN 978-0-06-201126-8
ALI, Tariq: The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, Verso, 2010, 153 pages, ISBN-13 978-1-84467-449-7
STREET, Paul: The Emperor’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World     of  Power Paradigm, 2010, 274 pages, ISBN 978-1-59451-845-4 (paperback)

The Obama Syndrome or Paul Street’s The Empire’s New Clothes, the two other books reviewed here. Ali and Street approach the Obama administration from the standpoint of Marxism, an ideology that will not get you in the front door at HarperCollins. Ali’s book was published by Verso, where he has been an editor for decades. Street comes to us courtesy of Paradigm Publishers, a left-oriented scholarly imprint that will likely never be able to afford a quarter-page ad in The New York Times Book Review or The New York Review of Books. That being said, readers trying to make sense of arguably the most reactionary Democratic president since Grover Cleveland should seek out all three books.

The answer to such Hamiltonian malfeasance is a return to the principles of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, presidents who supposedly challenged the moneyed interests. Hodge regards them as heroes of their day:

They were not proto-socialists, though they did, in keeping with a powerful strain of republican thought, insist that a balance of property must be maintained, that one element of society should not become so wealthy that it could assimilate the state to itself or withdraw behind iron gates and neglect the community at large.
There is something utopian about such hopes. The wealthy are assimilating the state not because they are philosophically attuned to Alexander Hamilton but because we are living in the age of monopoly capital. In the early days of the republic, economic power was much more dispersed. The United States was composed of yeoman farmers and small manufacturers, all of whom would be naturally attracted to Jeffersonian democracy. By the late 1800s, America had become transformed. John D. Rockefeller and the rest of the robber barons had figured out that the state must serve their economic needs, which largely involved curtailing democratic rights at home and building an empire abroad. They backed Republican politicians like Teddy Roosevelt or William Howard Taft who understood the needs of monopoly capital. But Democrats were just as eager to cater to the Rockefellers. Grover Cleveland went on the warpath against trade unions and colonized Hawaii. Like Barack Obama, his true successor, Cleveland was a Democrat.

The book is relatively brief (156 pages, including a 30-page appendix) but covers the broken promises and corporate/militarist agenda of the Obama administration more than adequately.

Historically, the model for the current variant of imperial presidency is Woodrow Wilson, no less pious a Christian, whose every second word was peace, democracy or self-determination, while his armies invaded Mexico, occupied Haiti and attacked Russia, and his treaties handed one colony after another to his partners in war. Obama is a hand-me-down version of the same, without even Fourteen Points to betray.

The Audacity of Hope:

The Nation Magazine where he is hailed as a midwife to the Egyptian revolution. Street points out that Obama refused to call Mubarak an “authoritarian” when pressed for his take on the dictator, and dubbed Saudi Arabia’s king Abdullah a paragon of “wisdom” and “graciousness.”

We have an obligation in the United States to mount an assault on the capitalist system no matter who is in power, whether it is an obvious reactionary like George W. Bush or a decent liberal from the Democratic Party (of course, this will never happen so it is a moot point.) Drawing clear class distinctions between our own class and that of the ruling class is difficult in a country like the United States where some form of the two-party system has reigned for centuries. Taking a stand against capitalist parties does seem like a quixotic venture. But in an epoch of never-ending war and economic collapse, it would be a good time for a fresh start.

The eminently clear-eyed LOUIS PROYECT dispenses political wisdom from his regular blog, The Unrepentant Marxist.