The Winds of Change Do Shift

The Winds of Change Do Shift

On Friday January 4th in the aftermath of Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucuses I noted that victory and also speculated that this event represented, perhaps, the first manifestation of a leftward trend in politics after forty years in the wilderness. (See entry entitled Obama ‘The Charma” and the Baby Boomers, January 4th 2008). In response I received a comment from a reader that implied that apparently in my old age I have grown soft and now, at least tacitly, see a bourgeois politician as the hope of the future. Hell no, a thousand times no. That road is well worn with the political corpses of many of my generation. Enough of that. However, as I will point out below, there is some political significance to the Obama phenomena that actually may help those of us to the left of and opposed to the Democratic Party. Listen up, carefully. But first directly below I have reposted for the record my Friday introductory statement….

“On the day after Obama’a decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses it is only fair to acknowledge that victory even though I am politically far removed from traditional parliamentary politics. I have noted earlier this year in this space and on my American Left History blog site that the winds of change seem to be blowing leftward for the first time in forty years. That was the time of John Kennedy trying to slay the conformist dragons of the 1950’s. It is rather strange to see Hillary as the Eisenhower of this year’s drama. In any case, Obama seems to be the first national manifestation of that change. Below is a commentary made earlier this year as Obama staked his place out in the sun.”….

As any one can see this is hardly a left-handed way to declare for Obama. Look, the last forty years or so have been a disaster for leftist politics. Some of this was, surely, of our own making. Some was obviously due to international politics. But in the final analysis we were defeated because our forces were too small to fundamentally change the way political business was done in this country. In the ensuing forty plus years of cultural wars the yahoos have run rough shot over the country, and us. I would argue, however, that making a political football out of the case of the unfortunate Terri Schiavo was a watershed in the rightward drift and that event signaled its high (or rather low) watermark. The midterm 2006 Congressional elections, whatever else they represented, rather codified my thinking on this question (although the net results caught me a little by surprise).

Do these events mean that we have entered a revolutionary epoch? Hell, no. Not at least from today’s configurations. What it does represent is the fact that we of the left now have more breathing room to fight for and get an audience for our politics. That, dear friends, is where the comparison to the Kennedy days (and in any event probably more the Robert Kennedy days that Jack’s. Some of Obama’s mannerisms and speech patterns rather eerily evoke Bobby) comes in. At that time the cultural wraps of the Eisenhower years were untightened and good political work could be done. The fight for nuclear disarmament opened up, the black civil rights struggle opened up, the fight for a more democratic society opened up. Hell, it was even okay to hobnob with communists in those fights (as long as you didn’t yell it from the rooftops). Is that what the Kennedys wanted? Again, hell no. But that is where the winds of change did shift.


One of the virtues of the extreme concentration on presidential electoral politics by the media is that they poll everything that is not tied down. This time in Iowa they actually have provided some useful information that we can use. The breakdown of the youth vote is illuminating. A major fight today centers around getting the masses of youth of this country back into left wing political struggle. Yes, like in the 1960’s. The hallmark of the 1960’s, whatever else they may have produced, was the wholesale entry of the young into political struggle. Except episodically, the past forty years have not until today witnessed such a phenenomon. Again to look at history the Kennedy victory in 1960 was the catalyst for bringing many, including this writer, onto the political stage although from there we moved in our own direction.

That again is where the comparison with the rise of Obama is apt. I think that one quote from a student in Iowa kind of sums it up nicely. Drake University student Stacey Wilson stated that “No one was expecting the student turnout. Just because we’re not protesting or getting tear-gassed doesn’t mean we don’t care. I’m just glad we shocked everybody”. Yes, I am glad too. Does this mean we must dust off the old Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) buttons? No, but we better keep a rag handy. Enough for now.