President Obama’s final flight for legacy: the State of the Union and the Rest of the World
by Rajan Philips-January 17, 2016, 10:54 am
Love them or hate them, Americans have made a fine virtue of the canonical observance of the rituals and trappings of constitutional democracy. Walter Bagehot called them the "dignified" aspects of a constitution, referring of course to the "matchless" but unwritten British constitution. The British introduced the ceremony of the Throne Speech in the mother of parliament and in colonial legislatures. The Americans started the tradition of the Inaugural Address by newly elected presidents and annual State of the Union Addresses by incumbent presidents. In the US, these dates are fixed like Christmas. The State of the Union address is delivered by the sitting President on the second Tuesday of every New Year. President Obama delivered his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 12. Next year there will be a new President, who could be Hillary Clinton, as America’s first female President. God forbid Donald Trump from becoming President. It says some of the State of the Union for a dangerous clown like Donald Trump even to emerge a serious contender for nomination as a presidential candidate.
Without mentioning names, Obama took on the clown and even went off-script to excoriate the politics that "targets people because of race or religion." "This is not a matter of political correctness", the President went on. "It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong." He again reminded the Americans that "We the people", the three opening words of the Constitution, must include all the people regardless of gender, race, religion, or geographical origin. But Trump was not even a footnote in Obama’s speech, although the social angsts that Trump exploits were a major focus. Americans either love Obama or hate him just as the world either loves or hates America. It is a strange comeuppance for a man who came to office on flights of rhetoric promising to bring change by bridging political rivalries that he should find the country so politically divided around his own presidency. But it is a not so strange paradox that the election of an ‘African American’ – while it is officially lauded in the country and genuinely welcome by most Americans, it has also provoked the backlash of American racism that had been forced into dormancy by decades of advances in the civil rights department. The Obama presidency has given a racist twist to the Oedipus complex of the American psyche.
The greatness of Obama is that he himself has not allowed himself to become a sulking victim to the racist backlash against him. In the last year of his presidency, he is finally fighting back, taking the fight to the people over the heads of Washington politicians. And in his final State of the Union address, he laid out the markers for his place in history. His speech centred around four themes, or questions, as he rhetorically raised them: enabling equal opportunity in the economy; making technology works for and against the common good; keeping America safe without policing the world; and changing the character of politics to reflect "what’s best in us and not what’s worst." Commentators are comparing Obama’s swan song to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s State of the Union address 75 years ago, the famous Four Freedoms speech: Freedom of Speech; Freedom of Worship; Freedom from Want; and Freedom from Fear. FDR’s speech, in 1941, became the precursor to the birth of the United Nations and the Declaration of Human Rights at the end of that decade. Three of Obama’s four themes carry resonance for the economic and political challenges facing every political society in today’s world. And the theme about keeping America safe without policing the world is what it is all about today’s international relations.
Striking a note of modesty, Obama confessed that a President like Lincoln or FDR would have brought Americans closer than he has been able to in his eight years as President. But he promised to keep trying for what is left of his presidency, and he even promised to continue speaking out even after his term is over. Already, his second term is being acknowledged as the most productive second term of any president in recent history. His is no lame duck term. And his promise to continue speaking out as a former president is a welcome counterweight to the likes of Donald Trump. Obama could be a far more powerful crowd puller for the cause of reason in political discourse than a dozen of Trumps bandying the message of fear and hatred. Make no mistake, Obama is a more proud American than any Republican can be, and he can be more ruthless than any other President.
The most powerful nation
"The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It is not even close," he almost yelled halfway through his speech, and ended it rousingly that "the State of the Union is strong." His target were the Republicans and their constant carping that he is not being strong enough and strategic enough against the ISIS insurrection in the Middle East and its long arm reaches into Western cities. Obama’s central point is that a state, especially a mature state like the US, should not adopt the methods and tactics of terrorism to defeat terrorism. The state must not deviate from its own laws and commitments to all its citizens regardless of their differences. And the United States of America must not isolate and denigrate its Muslim citizens, as Donald Trump has been doing, as a response to a bunch of political weirdos proclaiming a new Caliphate in the old Levant.
But Obama’s argument, while unexceptionable in America’s domestic context, is not entirely defensible when measured against America’s record overseas. Even before he became President, he famously differentiated himself from his predecessor that he is not against all wars, but that he will not fight dumb wars. True to his word, President Obama has disengaged America from the two dumb wars started by his predecessor. And ISIS is direct fallout from the first of those two wars. Even Tony Blair, George Bush’s co-conspirator, has conceded that. For his part, President Obama has been shying away from sending ground troops while executing aerial bombardment against ISIS resources and drone attacks to kill specific targets in far flung locations. To many of his disillusioned detractors on the Left, Obama has become the ‘drone President.’ At home, as a belated reward for the Left’s early expectations, President Obama is promising to close down by executive order in his final year, the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba set up by Donald Rumsfeld in 2002.
It is fair to say that President Obama has also tried hard to resolve international issues through diplomacy. To his domestic critics, President Obama is not fighting enough wars; while overseas, there is no change in the perception of American meddling in everyone’s business. The nuclear agreement with Iran is a huge diplomatic achievement, but its future benefits will be significantly limited without the US revisiting its relationship with Saudi Arabia and with Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu. Neither is likely to change in the near future. Obama’s successors, Hillary Clinton included, will try to stem if not reverse, but will hardly advance his diplomatic initiatives.
His greatest gratification is on the economy. On Obama’s watch, America has pulled itself up from the Great Recession where it was left by President Bush. The American economy is strong and its unemployment and deficit levels are down, compared to scare stories elsewhere. And the global scene is a different story. Economic historians are comparing the current global commodity price crashes to the Great Depression of the 1930s, with the difference that plummeting oil prices are the cause now, while grains were the main trigger then. The current crisis could be worse than the financial crisis of the last decade, but may not be as bad the Dirty Thirties. Obama had nothing to say about the global crisis, but drew attention to the social stresses and uncertainties arising from the impacts that technology is having on production processes and human roles in them. But he committed America to a "moon shot", to finding a cure for cancer, akin to landing the first man on moon.
His biggest disappointment in the self-assessment of his presidency is the cutthroat bitterness of political rivalries. It is far worse than it was eight years ago when he became President, chastising the fighting habits of the Clintons and promising to recast the country not as a Democratic America, or a Republican America, but as the United States of America. In his final speech, rather than preaching platitudes, he challenged the American voters to elect a Congress that can work cooperatively in spite of political differences. The twin evils of electoral gerrymandering and big money frustrate the democratic processes everywhere, but not as grotesquely as in the United States of America. Obama challenged the American people to put an end to politicians picking their voters by redrawing electoral boundaries, and protect the people’s right to elect their representatives freely and fairly.
