Moving Beyond the Nineties

Bill Clinton may go down in history as one of the most skilled politicians in US history. In the face of a "historical" movement against progressive ideas he managed to charm his way through. Clinton and it seems those who most intimately surround the current Clinton Campaign have a strong wish to win. They understand winning and they seem ready to go to the ends of the Earth in order to win. This desire to win in politics often means a high capacity to compromise. And the question arises: if one's core principle is to win, then what other principles are they willing to compromise in the process of winning?

It seems to me that "winning" should not be a core principle in any thing. Winning is a tactic in manifesting one's core principles. But winning by itself is a rather shallow principle. It was one that Bill was able to go to in the midst of Newt Gingrich's historic revolution against the Great Society and the New Deal...and survive. But at what cost? He left his presidency with a Party that lost its sense of direction and inspiration and in the end, allowed the Gingrich revolution to become more manifest in the Bush presidency. In the wake of September 11, the Democratic Party did not have Bill Clinton's charm. And it no longer had an intimate understanding of its own principles. Instead, all it had left was a wish to win. A feeble wish to win in comparison to the well greased right wing machine that it was on its march to "greatness."

Now look: I will admit that I am oversimplifying and perhaps even unfairly making a villain out of Bill Clinton. But let's not look back to his days as president as a heyday for progressivism. Instead, they were simply a well choreographed/well improvised game of backing off for survival's sake and eventually losing so much ground that we were unaware of the oncoming cliff.

I don't think I'm saying much new here. But the legacy of the Nineties, the only time that the US has had a notable era of peace since the 1920's was lost to the premise of Jerry Seinfeld's wonderful tv show. It was an era about nothing. In reality though, it was like the 1920's, an era focused on nothing while everything was taking place.

There will always be Bill Clintons who can charm their way to the top and keep things nice "in the mean time." But in the end, their work proves no more useful than the nice little tune that had come out of Nero's fiddle. Entertaining perhaps, but at the cost of something dearly profound.

This is one of the reasons why I feel an aversion to Hillary being president (though I would of course be happy about it in comparison to McCain). And besides that, Obama has shown that he can inspire in a way that Bill Clinton can charm. And this will prove most useful in the years ahead.

But let's also not be naive. What Bill Clinton proved is that politics will always be a safe haven for the Bill Clintons and therefore, is not the prime arena for change to take place. Obama seems to understand this despite his own shortcomings. Change in the US does not take place without the work of people outside the Beltway. Fortunately, unlike the Clinton years and even unlike 2004, there is a burgeoning progressive infrastructure that is ready to support the kind of leader that Bill Clinton could have been had he been elected at a different time or perhaps had he himself been different in character.

In the end, however, it always useful to look upon politicians with some doubt and criticism for they do not deliver us from our shortcomings. On the contrary, the infrastructure that we build helps deliver them from the shortcomings that we all share.