Obama and the Old Anti-Thesis

When Barack Obama told a conference recently that Democrats are rejecting people of faith he did more than play into Republican hands.

He played into the old Anti-Thesis. He made himself look and sound old.  In the generational path of Thesis, Anti-Thesis, Excess and Crisis, the most tempting and dumbest thing a politician can do is try and address a new Crisis with the old Anti-Thesis.

In this case, it’s the Clinton Anti-Thesis.

Clinton leaned against the Nixon-Reagan Thesis of politics with his “Third Way.”  It was a “yeah-but” philosophy, accepting the premise of the Republican majority and trying to moderate it in some way.

There have been several Anti-Thesis Presidents in American history, and they were successful. Dwight Eisenhower leaned against the Franklin Roosevelt Thesis and prospered. Woodrow Wilson leaned against the Teddy Roosevelt Thesis and prospered. Grover Cleveland leaned against the Civil War Thesis and prospered.

But they only propsered in terms of their times. They were transactional leaders, moving from issue to issue, synthesizing solutions between the Thesis of their time and their own Anti-Thesis.  But when the Thesis reached Excess, when it reached its sell-by date in the form of a crisis it could not address, these leaders and their philosophies were useless.

What was needed was a new Thesis, and a transformative leader who could embody it.

The example of failure given here most recently is that of Chuck Percy, like Obama a Senator from Illinois. (In 1966 he was about the same age Obama is now.) Elected as a follower of the Eisenhower Anti-Thesis in 1966, Percy had nothing to say as the Nixon-Reagan Thesis progressed. He became steadily irrelevant, and was defeated for re-election in the Reagan landslide of 1984.

Is that what Obama wants?

Liberal bloggers, seeking the new Thesis, found themselves almost tongue-tied in trying to explain what was wrong with Obama’s speech. Firedoglake came closest to wisdom, blaming Clinton for getting Democrats to run from their base. MyDD was more snotty, comparing Obama to Joe Lieberman. (Don't recognize the old guy at the right, Obama? It's Chuck Percy, in 2001.)

I think what most upset these liberal bloggers was the assumption, implicit in Obama’s talk, that they are a minority. Many liberals have accepted this, like Nathan Newman.

These people are wrong. The future, in fact, is up for grabs.

The real problem is that the current members of Left Blogistan don’t know where to go for a political Thesis that can speak to our time, without using the language of either the old Thesis or the old Anti-Thesis.

Well, I have one. Open source.

The new Thesis lies within you. It’s in how you’re acting, in what you’re doing.  The new Open Source Thesis is so internalized you can’t identify it. You know when it’s challenged, feel good when it’s validated, but you don’t quite know what to call it.

It’s less important what you call it than that you know it when you see it.

And showing it is what this blog is all about.