Rebuild the Dream (24 page)

The narrative of the Obama campaign follows this four-element format perfectly:

• The villain was George W. Bush. (Technically, it was Senator John McCain, but Obama wisely claimed that McCain was running for a “third Bush term”—to keep the most compelling villain in the frame.)

• The threat was that America would be endlessly divided by Bush-style politics (and by cynics of all types).

• The hero was Obama himself, at the head of the movement working to elect him. While key slogans such as “We are the ones we have been waiting for” and “Yes, We Can!” suggest that the hero was bigger than just one person, Obama's unique gifts were the focal point of the narrative.

• The vision was that America would be reunited. (“We don't have red states. We don't have blue states. We are the
United
States of America.”)

This is a perfect narrative; it could almost be a bedtime story. In the last months of 2008, the hero triumphed—and America seemed to have a happy ending.

But one must ask, “What made this narrative so powerful? Why did it work?” It worked because Obama was invoking and defending a patriotic value under threat:
E pluribus unum
. “Out of many, one.” We fought a war over the principle that we are one country, not two. After the Civil War, anyone who threatens the unity of America is, by definition, a villain. And anyone who affirms and defends America's fundamental unity is, by definition, a hero.

Also, throughout the campaign, Obama stretched and refreshed the notion of what patriotism and pride in country is all about. He made those concepts much more inclusive and welcoming than they had seemed in the hands of hard-core right-wingers, who had effectively defined “patriots” to mean only those who agreed with them on every issue. In Obama's telling, “loving America” seemed to mean “loving everyone
in
America.” Respecting the flag seemed to be part and parcel with respecting the many kinds of people who salute it.

By standing up for the American value of “national unity”—and by including everyone in a larger American story—Obama became a hero in the eyes of millions.

Unfortunately, once he became president, Obama's narrative became a confusing muddle. Any effort to plug his message into the framework reveals its many weaknesses.

• There was never a clear villain during the first years of Obama's administration. The White House seemed determined to be bipartisan at all costs, so Obama rarely lashed out at the Republicans. He invited the pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare companies to the table. Tim Geithner seemed to be cuddling up with Wall Street.

• The threat was also fuzzy. The basic case was, “Things would have sucked worse if I hadn't become president, and they might suck worse if we don't continue with my program.” Not particularly inspiring.

• The heroes were a bunch of fine Democratic leaders in Washington: Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Harry Reid, and various subcommittee heads, depending on the issue.

• The vision was never clear. One early 2009 speech tried to sum up the administration's aims as creating a “new foundation,” based on healthcare reform, clean energy, the stimulus package, Wall Street reform, infrastructure, education, and maybe a few other initiatives. Neither the label nor the laundry list stuck in the public mind.

Why does a story like this one fail so miserably? One reason is the threat, as described, does not seem to imperil a sacred national
value. There is no patriotic, American principle that the president is asserting or defending. “Making the economy suck less” is an important goal, but it lacks any emotional punch or deeper resonance.

Secondly, in this kind of story, the president is not taking on any bad guys who are causing the problems. Instead, he is just standing there next to a bunch of problems, trying earnestly to fix them. Thus it did not take much of a leap for
Fox News
and the Tea Party to suggest Obama was
causing
these problems himself, rather than trying to clean up problems that someone else created.

Thirdly, the heroes are certainly good people. Pelosi, in particular, is a true heroine and a historical figure. But all of them are Washington insiders. They are not “regular folks,” with whom ordinary people might identify. It would prove easy to set them up as foils for a grassroots rebellion, depicting them as elitist, Beltway bureaucrats.

Finally, there was nothing uniquely or deeply patriotic in that jumble of a vision—nothing tied to our core values that could stir the nation's soul.

All in all, this lack of a narrative resulted in a massive messaging failure of the Obama administration—a communications train wreck that begged for an opponent to take advantage of the big opportunity it created.

The Tea Partiers were happy to oblige. They leapt into the fray and invented their own, powerful counternarrative. In their telling, the story is as follows:

• The villain is Obama—alleged to be an atheist, a Muslim, a communist/socialist, and a foreign-born pretender.

• The threat is that Obama will steal our liberty.

• The hero is not any individual, but a movement of patriots—the Tea Partiers themselves.

• The vision is that the movement will restore our liberties by taking back our government from a would-be tyrant.

Here we have another nearly perfect storyline. Why is this narrative so effective? It is because the Tea Partiers have positioned themselves as the defenders of an essential American value: liberty. America fought a war against tyranny to honor this value: the Revolutionary War, led by George Washington. And in the twentieth century's Cold War, the United States struggled to defend individual liberty against the threat of totalitarianism. A group of patriots that declares itself on the side of liberty and against tyranny will always rally the American people.

The only problem with the Tea Party story is, of course, it is false. As we have discussed, Obama poses no threat to our economic liberty. In fact, the Tea Partiers' charges against him are so extreme that no human being could simultaneously be guilty of all of them. For instance, by definition, an atheist cannot be a Muslim, who is required to pray five times a day, and most communists reject religion as an “opiate for the masses,” and therefore could not practice Islam. But the narrative works because it pulls on the heartstrings of patriotism. Unfortunately, stories do not have to be true to be powerful.

Having won the battle of the narrative, Tea Partiers have moved the focus from creating jobs to cutting spending, shrinking government, and tightening belts. They argued that the growing deficit
and debt would bankrupt America, opening the door to the enslavement of America and her citizens. Even though poll after poll showed that the number-one concern of Americans was job creation, the Tea Party story was so compelling that it created a deficit obsession in Washington, DC.

But the Tea Party narrative did not appeal to everyone. And those who wanted the financial and political elite to focus more on creating jobs and reducing economic inequality were, at some point, going to have their say.

Enter Occupy Wall Street. Unlike the Obama administration, the Occupiers had no qualms about naming a villain. Even their name points to the miscreants in the financial sector. According to Occupy Wall Street:

• The villains are the Wall Street bankers in particular, and the top 1% in general.

• The threat is that as economic inequality worsens, the majority of Americans—the 99%—will continue to fall behind.

• The hero is “us”—the 99%—and we must stand up for ourselves.

• The vision is still a bit muddled. Different Occupiers express different visions, from a freeze on home foreclosures, to student loan relief, to the overthrow of capitalism, to decentralized, locally based economies, to jobs for all.

Nonetheless, in general, this is a very good narrative. The hero is compelling. The villain may be painted in overly broad brush strokes (which will be discussed in the final section of this book), but at least
it offers a clear storyline. The vision and the threat could be stated in more resonant and patriotic terms (which will be explored in later chapters). But the Occupy Wall Street message works beautifully; its rapid adoption throughout society testifies to its power.

It is ironic that a group of newcomers with no pollsters came up with top-shelf messaging. Meanwhile, the White House, the Democrats, and so many grassroots professionals—with access to vast resources—have continued to struggle.

To recap, Table 6.1 lists the key elements as they have appeared in each movement's narrative:

 

T
HE PROTESTS SPARKED BY
O
CCUPY
W
ALL
S
TREET
effectively occupied the bottom half of the grid: the Heart Space and the Outside Game. The protestors figured out how to break the gag of silence about corruption and injustice. They took to the streets, and in the face of police brutality and harassment, the overwhelming majority stayed nonviolent.

But the pundits at
Fox News
are not wrong when they say Occupy Wall Street is nowhere near as powerful as the Tea Party movement. That is because—unlike Occupy, so far—the Tea Partiers used their Outside Game success to capture part of the Inside Game. Two years after their rallies began, the energy surrounding them has died down considerably. But there are Tea Party caucuses in the U.S. Congress. And there are Tea Party–sponsored presidential debates. The Tea Party movement cultivated a long list of candidates and elected officials who continue to beat the drum, long after the actual “tea parties” stopped being well attended. Even
without a big Outside Game presence, the movement is in a position to continue implementing its draconian agenda.

Obama successfully converted rising frustration and activist energy into an electoral triumph in 2008. But thus far, Occupy Wall Street has not tried to occupy the institutions of established, formal political power (for example, elections and political parties).

Many at the core of Occupy don't want to engage with political institutions in that way. Some fear being co-opted by the Democratic Party, labor unions,
Moveon.org
, or by more established political activists (like me!). Rather than getting caught up in all the electioneering, Occupiers are choosing to focus on the hard, risky, and often-thankless work of direct action protest. They are committed to building their own community, presence, and power through direct, participatory democracy. They fear that too much entanglement with the existing system would kill their independence, idealism, and chutzpah.

For Occupy—as the bright spearhead of a much broader movement—that choice is sensible. But it almost certainly cannot serve all the needs of the broader movement, which potentially includes millions of people. Tens of millions of people are not going to be taking part in consensus-based general assemblies anytime soon, and even if they could, the existing system would still impact every aspect of their lives. Some groups need to step forward to make sure that the interests and ideas of the 99% are represented in political campaigns and in the established halls of power.

The reluctance to re-engage in elections and Inside Game politics is understandable. Many people were deeply disappointed after the 2008 election. The system was exposed as being rigged to block progressive change—by everything from highly paid lobbyists, to a rabid, right-wing media machine, to a filibuster-guaranteed tyranny of the minority.

While reaching for our hopes, we hit our heads on a ceiling that we didn't know was there. The pain was real, but we can't let the backlashers tear the floor out from under us, as well. The Tea Party, the Koch brothers, and others are working nonstop to eliminate the safety net and free big corporations to loot and pollute at will. They are using every tool at their disposal, including elections, to impose their agenda. Some section of the 99% movement must respond in kind and in the same arenas.