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Notes -
The Obama Factor
Ran across this lengthy piece in Tablet this week. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but the main one is that it is the first piece I've encountered that feels sufficiently removed from the Obama years to count as sufficiently distant to be a really good historical retrospective. Of course, that's not all it is! But it consists substantially of a conversation between two men who have impeccable liberal bona fides. David Garrow is a biographer of some repute, and his wide-ranging commentary here is priceless.
For my part, back in the day, I was bullish on Obama during the Democratic primaries, in part due to a rumor that he intended to tap Lawrence Lessig to do some intellectual property reform. Beneath the soaring oratory and the socialist populism, Obama seemed to me to get technology in a way that I thought it might be good for America's economic future. When he did things like appoint RIAA lawyers to top positions a lot of the old nerd guard felt betrayed, but looking back I think most were also profoundly incurious about that betrayal. Maybe because we're all just accustomed to politicians failing to live up to their promises? Only, I don't know that Obama made any clear promises along these lines, it was more that he spoke in promising ways, if that makes sense. It was a failure, not of promises, but of promise. Obama's failure to appoint the right tech people didn't make a lot of sense to me then, but modeling him as doing things he imagines winners do, rather than modeling him as someone with real ideological commitments, gets me there.
Likewise, the economic plight of black Americans actually worsened under Obama (e.g.), but I don't recall much discussion then about how Obama is not Black, i.e. is not a descendant of American slavery and did not even especially grow up with descendants of American slavery. This piece touches on that a fair bit.
There is also some fascinating stuff here re: MLK, and Clarence Thomas. It opens with a great exploration of Obama's fabulism, and touches on his dalliances with Marxism. It makes explicit the connection between Obama's courting of Iran, and his turning a blind eye to Syria. There are digs on Bibi and Putin, there's a brief discussion of Hitler. It all hangs together as a talk about the relationship between individual personalities and the sweep of political history.
I'd include some choice quotes but I don't want to focus the conversation any more than I already have. Every single word of this piece is worth reading, on my view, and I'd love to hear what others take from it.
That thing is long.
On black Americans your piece seems to be entirely tied to housing losses in 2008. The only solution there would have been some sort of debt jubilee like student debt proposals but orders of magnitudes bigger. Would be interesting to see other areas could have done better but the specific example seems unpractical.
I’m pro-Iran. Probably somewhat because a close friend is second generation Iranian. Honestly seems like a high hbd country and logical local hegemon and internal not as religious. Makes sense to be our ally.
Seems like a meme is developing that Obama isn’t black. And perhaps from the left and right. Joe Biden also isn’t Catholic. And both seem to have a lot of truth.
Supreme Court is smarter today. It does seem like right-coded judges come off more intellectual. It’s probably a bit of iron sharpens iron. Federalist are outcast at their Universities which means their entire career they have had to make better arguments. While left coded can just pick the right cite and then everyone praises you.
A bit between Obama still being secretly in power but also some things about him being lazy. Somewhat alluded to because he’s mostly stayed in DC. Stuff about him being behind Trump Resistance and and now running portions of the Biden White House. I haven’t seen anything on this in the media.
He cites 2014 as the year when BLM came out and race relations went bad. Under Obama not Trump. I think this came from having a sort of black POTUS came a belief that legacy differences would just disappear. Sort of breaking the noble lie or what was described as the Reagan deal on race.
One thing I identify with Obama is not being from somewhere and being part of the credentialed elite. Who ran away from where I came. Everyone who was anything left my hometown. Though I likely do have some deeper roots than Obama. There is something here about “Why does modern art/film etc suck”. My guess is it’s written by people who are from nowhere. Versus it references JFK who had deep ties. Stories are just better when they are about people with a connection to a place, time, and people. And Obama is sort of that stand-in character as POTUS like a Hollywood movie picking the right diversity for their cast but deep down their people without backgrounds or roots.
As far as I know, Obama had essentially no exposure to black culture until he voluntary chose to immerse himself in it. The only difference between him and Rachel Dolezal would seem to be his genetic makeup.
I know that "Democrats are the real racists" tropes are considered tired, but I do think that the left believes in genetic determinism more than the right does.
You may choose your gender, but you racial identity must match your DNA or you are cancelled.
The one interesting thing I see here is most of the big black politicians were not slave descendants or in American culture. Whichever way you want to go with that (American black culture bad or some structural racism) would make some sense. Kamala also wasn’t American black but Jamacain/Indian. I believe her dad said they were significantly slave owning descendants in Jamaica (or could be called rape baby), but regardless her dad cites Scotts-Irish background. GOP actually seems to have more influential slave descendent representation (Clarence Thomas/Tim Scott). Take that as you will but perhaps buying into GOP culture war has positive influence.
Yeah, its similar to Harvard's affirmative action. They need black people so they juice the numbers with people that have little connection to African-American culture.
Actual lived experience as an African American matters very little. Having the right DNA and visual appearance is what is important to the left, at least according to revealed preference.
That’s the issue though. American schools shouldn’t be worse than Nigeria or Jamaica etc. We spend a ton of money on them.
Money is not freely convertible into the things that make schools conducive to learning, nor is there one set of things that works for educating all types of people. Some people will learn if you just let them loose in a room full of books and things to tinker with. Others need to be proverbially chained to the desk and smacked with rulers, Prussian/Irish Nun style.
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