The election of Obama as the end of an era (draft of January 5, 2009)

The election of Barack Obama is viewed by most as beginning a new era in American politics and society. Under this view the new era will see the consolidation of ostensible gains in the status of women and minorities, the end of US unilateralism in foreign affairs, a narrowing of the financial and social distances between rich and poor and the use of government to provide increased health and educational benefits to those who cannot now afford them.

A more likely interpretation of the election of Obama is that it was another facet of the unbridled, irrational exuberance and dislocation from the real world that also led, among other things, to Wall Street excesses, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the abandonment of religion particularly among the well-to-do, the anti-war movement, the devaluation of the stable nuclear family and the extreme elements of the environmental movement. The past twenty five years have seen the passage of millions of individuals from thinking of themselves as a people bound to a sovereign order that was viewed as protection but as a multitude. The multitude no longer thinks of itself as bound to a sovereign, now viewed as a threat not a protector - thus opposition to the Patriot Act, but as free-floating and capable of creating values as it goes along through social interaction among equals without recourse to revelation or history, two categories now untenable and unneeded. The confidence of the multitude that these changes, which they view as gains and improvements over the preceding decades, are irreversible and that prosperity would continue unabated led to a euphoria that would permit and demand a new leader who, no matter how inexperienced, and indeed because he had no history, would validate the all-on-one level, non-invidious, free-floating multitude.

All of these phenomena are effects of unprecedented wealth that was distributed far wider than any society known to history has ever known. These phenomena are already and inevitably being reversed. As the economy deleverages and scarcities in money and employment increase and economic and military security decrease, the euphoria will come undone. What happens?

Scenario 1: Most likely a tighter family structure will emerge to secure basic needs, men will crowd out women and whites will crowd out coloreds in the workforce, diversity will morph into more uniform values needed to feed, clothe and shelter the people. The sovereign will be seen as a necessary protector, and the military well be re-valued. Other countries and religions that are minor in the U.S. will again be seen as the "other," and whites will diverge from people of color. So-called free speech will be captured and channeled by newly formed, governing elites who will control monopolized media.

Scenario 2: The opposite is possible. Since all economies are games of musical chairs, as an economy contracts, chairs disappear. [In the past thirty years chairs have been added to accommodate same-sex marriages, easy marital dissolution, oversized houses, SUV's, tree huggers, dissemination of ugly rap, Jeremiah Wright and fundamentalist preachers, etc.] The dwindling number of remaining chairs could, for example, be taken by people of color, whereupon Christian whites in nuclear families could find themselves dispossessed.

Either way, the process will be brutal, and a political elite recently elected for their compassion and liberality will not be smiling through the changes.

Someone will rewrite Frederick Lewis Allen's account of the roaring Twenties to describe the changes after Clinton was elected through the end of 2008, and that book, too, will be called "Only Yesterday." The euphoria that will characterize the inauguration of President Obama will be recalled with fond nostalgia as the last great party, a party that marked the end an era.