The Joshua Generation

It's a few days old at this point, but Barack Obama's speech in Selma, Alabama is worth a read. He faced a somewhat tricky task. A white politician goes to such an event merely to pay homage to the giants of the past and their struggle, and to pledge fealty to the contemporary leaders of the African-American community. Obama's task is to identify himself as a leader of that community. But worse as the leader -- as the President of the United States. But this is presumptuous. What did Obama do? Are his accomplishments greater than those of the older generation that marched at Selma and elsewhere? No. His accomplishments are lesser. He is in a position to go further than they were not because of his efforts but because of their efforts. How to gain their support?

Obama, in his speech, aims for an analogy with Joshua. Not, compared to Moses, the greater leader of the Jewish people. But, rather, the successor; the one designated to build on Moses' work and lead the people into the promised land. Certainly, I'm not a grizzled veteran of the Civil Rights movement, so I can't say for sure how this will play, but it seems pretty clever to me.

I think it can also work as a larger metaphor. Progressives these days have a sometimes angsty relationship with the social movements of the 1960s and 70s. The sense that, ultimately, these movements failed and the Democratic Party came to disaster through its association with them is inescapable. And yet precisely what we don't want to do is mimick the smarmy neoliberals of the 1980s and 1990s, forever full of scorn, forever eager to blame the left for the right's malgovernment, forever looking to get ahead by knifing an ally in the back.

Arguably, Obama's hit on the right way to think about all this. The movements of yore accomplished a great deal and were absolutely right about the biggest issues of their time. But they made some mistakes. Mistakes that are dwarfed by the scale of their accomplishments; but nonetheless mistakes that carried a high price. Conveniently enough, 2008 could mark the end of 40 desert years launched by Nixon and capped by Bush. Enough time gone by for old wounds to heal, perhaps, and for a new generation of political leadership to redeem the promises of that earlier era.

Comments

Hey Matt - almost sounds like you're ready to get religion here.

Posted by MDtoMN | March 6, 2007 9:20 AM

One should not take the Joshua analogy too far, he was quite the divinely inspired scourge in his time. If you thought Sharon was bad . . .

Posted by Andrew | March 6, 2007 9:20 AM

Attached is a link to a thread in another blog in which one of Mr. Yglesias' fellow Israel bashers has a different take on Obamas' speech.

http://abstractnonsense.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/obama-winks-to-dominionists/#comments

Posted by SLC | March 6, 2007 9:24 AM

"But they made some mistakes. Mistakes that are dwarfed by the scale of their accomplishments; but nonetheless mistakes that carried a high price."

What were those mistakes?

Posted by Man | March 6, 2007 9:43 AM

That was an impressive speech. He talked about the civil rights movement, his own personal history, present day politics, and the Bible, and wove it all together into a cohesive and coherent message. There are very few politicians who can do this sort of thing well.

On the civil rights thing, the truth is that although I revere the movement like everybody else, hearing politicians and preachers talk about it today almost always makes me cringe. It always comes across as stale and tired and out of touch with the complexity of current day realities. But Obama actually made it relevant to today's world.

Obama is still fairly uneven. His announcement speech was actually pretty bland in stretches. But this speech was one of the best I've heard, from anyone. A lot had to do with the audience and the context, of course... there was a palapable sense of the torch being passed. And the subject matter, since he's probably spent his whole life thinking about his relationship to the black community and the civil rights movement. But still, his ability to emotionally connect with the audience while at the same time giving a serious speech that didn't pander to them was very impressive.

Interestingly, it was the Clinton-esque call for personal responsibility that the overwhelmingly black crowd responded to the most. When he got to the 'tell cousin Pookie to get off the couch' part, people in the audience went 'oooo!'. It was like they were thinking, 'wow, he really is one of us'.

Posted by RC | March 6, 2007 9:52 AM

Matt -- This is, I think, is one of your best posts.

Posted by Ben Cronin | March 6, 2007 10:18 AM

I'm going to go with Man and ask "what mistakes"? Obviously there was some pushback, and the eventual rise of the Southern Strategy (which to be honest was entirely inevitable), but I really don't see those leaders having destroyed the Dem Party so much as misdirection by Republicans doing so. And more so, I'm not aware of many progressives who are full of angst about the mistakes of the 60's and 70's.

Posted by Tony V | March 6, 2007 10:33 AM

Well, I think that saying there were mistakes should be obvious. Basically, if there were no mistakes, then why have the last 40 years been a dry spell for liberalism?

Posted by Dan Miller | March 6, 2007 10:44 AM

'm going to go with Man and ask "what mistakes"?

I think Yglesias is talking about the whole of the various sixties movements. There seemed to be an ethic of "revolution" that alienated a lot of potential allies. Claims about both the causes of social problems and our abilities to solve those problems turned out to be simplistic or untrue. And they came down on the wrong side of the whole "shower" debate.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | March 6, 2007 10:53 AM

Progressives these days have a sometimes angsty relationship with the social movements of the 1960s and 70s. The sense that, ultimately, these movements failed and the Democratic Party came to disaster through its association with them is inescapable.

Really? I have neither felt this myself nor encountered it in any way that sticks in my memory -- much moreso, as you say, this is the domain of the Third Way types who are still trying to demonstrate to the establishment that they're not like Those Other Lefties.

I do think there is a perception that a) the Baby Boomer generation has become largely unbearable in their later adulthood, and b) the 60s tactics that are still being espoused by a few remaining old-school radicals (i.e. freaking out squares with puppet-filling marches) are no longer especially useful, whether those radicals are in their 60s or in their 20s.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | March 6, 2007 10:53 AM

Whether "the movements of yore" actually did make mistakes or not, Obama did not make any reference to any such mistakes.

In talking about these mistakes, I think Matt is subsituting his own views for those stated by Obama, and (slightly) misrepresenting him.

Posted by peep | March 6, 2007 11:36 AM

You're definitely on the right track here, Matt.

Liberals of the 1960s and 1970s certainly made their share of mistakes. It's easy to see, in retrospect, how an era of judges dictating school bus routes, and politicians refusing to take responsibility for the serious flaws in welfare and public housing, created a powerful backlash. Reactionary racism and sexism were part of the problem, and white flight took a terrible toll on urban America, but many of the wounds were self-inflicted. The Democratic Party had to shake off this image and reinvent itself to start winning elections again.

But it's long past the point when the public face of liberalism should be self-satisfied apologists for conservatism like Joe Klein. The current generation is not being scarred for life by junkie flower-children, weathermen, race riots, mob-connected union bosses, and misguided wars started by liberal Democrats. They may be exposed to some misguided puppet theatre on the campus quad, but they aren't likely to get the impression that the left-wing poses a serious threat to the American way of life.

Right now, in the year 2007, the conservative backlash has been exposed for what it is... a corrupt, self-serving bunch of blustery ideological extremists who start wars with no idea how to win them, and have absolutely no idea how to run a country. This generation is being scarred by Iraq and Katrina and our broken health care system. There seems to be a general consensus that we're wandering in the desert and being asked to prostrate ourselves before false idols. We are ready for the next generation of progressive leadership. It's time to step up.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | March 6, 2007 11:50 AM

Whether or not it was a "mistake", one of the failings of post-60's liberalism was its inability to inspire. While the sppech paid homage to the Black leaders of the civil rights movement, the speech was as inspiring as the best of John and Bobby Kennedy.

Posted by Noyatin | March 6, 2007 12:15 PM

Okay, so some people are asking for examples of mistakes. Now I wasn't there, so I don't know for sure... but based on what people say there is at least one huge example: the incredibly poor reception Vietnam vets got on their return to the states. Spitting? Baby killers? These were draftees people. Worst. Idea. Ever. And completely morally wrong to boot. Fortunately, the lesson has been learned 100 percent and liberals have even learned to put the shoe on the other foot, showing how the conservatives are the ones who don't give a damn at this point. But don't ask me any disingenuous "what mistakes?" type questions, please.

Posted by mpowell | March 6, 2007 12:31 PM

I believe the "spitting" story has been shown to be an urban legend.

Posted by JP | March 6, 2007 12:42 PM

What led the Democratic Party to disaster was LBJ sending 550,000 U.S. troops off to kill and die in Vietnam. What led the Democratic Party to disaster was Jimmy Carter adopting Republican budget-cutting and union-busting as fiscal policy. You dare blame we who stood against them? Or is getting Democrats elected your only value?

Posted by jeff | March 6, 2007 12:47 PM

Did anybody see the speech or just read the transcript? I saw a good bit of it and found Obama to be offensive. I don’t know how the transcript reads, but it was cringe inducing when he started, very obviously, “blacking it up”(for lack of a better term) with the faux southern drawl and sprinkling “Y’alls” all over the place. I mean, the guy was raised by whites in Hawaii for cryin’ out loud! I hope African-American voters don't fall for that crap.

Posted by knucklehead | March 6, 2007 1:47 PM

"... fellow Israel bashers ..."

Posted by: SLC on March 6, 2007 09:24 AM

Shove it.

Posted by Barry | March 6, 2007 2:37 PM

"The Joshua Generation: The political agenda for young progressives"

Matt just found the title to his second book. But he better write it before he's thirty. Joshua's eager to bring down Jericho's walls.

Posted by Anon | March 6, 2007 3:41 PM

the Baby Boomer generation has become largely unbearable in their later adulthood

I think this gets to the nub here. I don't think it's accurate to say that the Left "failed". Maybe they failed to consolidate the gains of the 60s and 70s as well as we might have hoped, but given the fact that we're now in our 27th year of radical right-wing backlash, I think it's a minor miracle that the major elements of the postwar liberal agenda (including civil rights and the Great Society programs) are still standing strong. We've seen some whittling at the edges of the liberal agenda, from GOP attempts to weaken and/or defund the government (at least, the parts that don't torture and spy on people) to the growth of politically influential hate groups, but the fact is that it is still considered a major piece of the American political landscape.

I think the angst in modern liberal politics has more to do with the fact that so many of the young Boomers who helped enact that liberal agenda later went on to become those smarmy neoliberals.

Posted by Neal | March 6, 2007 4:39 PM

The uniting force of the 60's was the war. The young people of that period effectively convinced the nation, if not a lot of dem pols, that it was immoral and unwinnable. The two leaders who might have taken this country into a truly progressive era, MLK and RFK, were assasinated. the "... weathermen, race riots, mob-connected union bosses..." were never a part of sixties progressive politics, though the reaganites tried to paint it so. As for flower children, they explicitly eschewed politics. And, as a vet of that period, I can tell you that I was never spit on, harrassed, or in any way disrepected. The 'left' didn't fail, America did.

Posted by john in california | March 6, 2007 5:26 PM

Of course the left didn't "fail," but if you don't see the mistakes in old-school welfare and public housing and a bunch of other stuff, you're willfully blind. This is the area where Mickey Kaus actually knows what he's talking about.

Posted by too many steves | March 6, 2007 7:22 PM

Eh, Matt?

Cat got your tongue? What mistakes?

No doubt there were. Uh...they were human.

But what do _you_ mean? Or was it just a good line to show how sophisticated you are?

Posted by Man | March 6, 2007 7:34 PM

Joshua as Obama's role model ... oh, great, a genocidal warlord...

Joshua was definitely my favorite Old Testament figure when I was eight years old, but that was a long time ago ...

Posted by Steve Sailer | March 6, 2007 7:46 PM

Mistakes of 60s liberalism? What could Matt possibly mean?

Oh, how about a doubling of the murder rate for a quarter of a century? That's about a quarter of a million dead bodies...

Posted by Steve Sailer | March 6, 2007 7:48 PM

The mistakes of the past 40 years had more to do with the splintering of individual groups going for the what about me and instead of working as a whole went separate. In the 60s the revolution or movements worked as many different factions came together to work for the common good.
The 70s saw the starting of the me and whining what about mine? Instead of together the various faction broke away and we were small groups working against a cohesive conservative movement.

Now we need the fresh slate and new and bold ideas on the same scale as FDR but, never let it get mixed into the ideas that did not work. Idealism without practicality.
I thought Obama brought the new ideas into focus and did a wonderful speech. I like what he is talking about and wants to do. I thought the Joshua analogy was brilliant. We have become lazy and self involved after splintering into the what about me individuals. It is time to pick up the mantle and work as a movement and as one.

Posted by vwcat | March 6, 2007 10:08 PM

Sailer,
How did sixties liberalism double the murder rate? (Even assuming your assertion is true, which I doubt.)

Do you mean things like the "free sex" which was Democratic basic plank in 1964? Or maybe that Supreme Court case which told cops they had to warn people of their rights?

Please share more of your fantasy world.

Posted by Man | March 6, 2007 10:27 PM

By the way, has anybody actually read Obama's first autobiography? I have, and in this Selma speech, Obama is clearly just plain making up nonsense about his parents, attributing his father coming to America to Selma and the Kennedy's, when anybody who has actually read his elegantly written "Dreams from my Father" knows his father was already in Hawaii and married his mother during the Eisenhower Administration. Does he have that much contempt for his audience in Selma?

Posted by Steve Sailer | March 7, 2007 4:29 AM

Sailer, Fantasist, Friend.

I just read the speech.

Where in it do you hear Obama saying his father came to America because of Selma? (He doesn't, of course, say anything of the kind)

The same place you discovered that murder in America doubled because of the mistakes of the Democrats?

Indeed Obama's paragraph is not artfully worded and is indeed confusing. But if you read it carefully (or at all, friend) you'll see no such claim as you find, unless you are also an expert in invisble ink.

Posted by Man | March 7, 2007 10:48 AM

Obama writes:

" So the Kennedy's decided we're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.

This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. "

Uh, Obama Jr. was born in Hawaii in August 1961, 7 months into the Kennedy Administration, so pregnancy math suggests that his father and mother got together during the Eisenhower Administration, but I guess Ike isn't as sexy as JFK.

Posted by Steve Sailer | March 7, 2007 5:04 PM

Kennedy as a presidential candidate paid for the airlift for the Kenyan students. Sorry Steve. Facts are stubborn thing. Check it out. It's all over the internets.

Posted by come on! | March 7, 2007 8:59 PM

What I find alluring about Obama's speech (and I think it transfers in Yglesias' response), is his ability to sway the audience with tone, metaphor, personal history -all into one pretty image of hope and promise. It's the stuff of ideology, and of propaganda. The Joshua Generation? Aka, Generation Joshua, aka label, aka marketing? Hello?

I guess critical thinking is applied only against one's opponent. Otherwise, you might stab someone's back?

Posted by Rob Price | March 7, 2007 9:06 PM

Perhaps, although the timeline doesn't seem to match. There's no mention of any Kennedy help or of the Tom Mboya Airlift in Obama's extremely detailed 442 page book about his family. His father appears to have arrived in Hawaii in 1959, while most of the news accounts point toward the Kennedy contribution coming in the summer of 1960.

Posted by Steve Sailer | March 7, 2007 9:15 PM