 |
|
John Judis: "American Adam: Obama and the Cult of the New"
Here's the whole piece.... While I worry about Obama's inexperience, I haven't been immune to his charms. When I have gone to see him speak or watched him on television, he has invariably given more or less the same speech about "fundamental change" and "choos[ing] the future over the past." Yet, each time, I find myself listening raptly, even after the sixth or seventh reiteration of the same slogans and catchwords. It is partly his voice and his cadences, but there has to be more to it than that. And there is.
Obama is the candidate of the new--a "new generation," a "new leadership," a "new kind of politics," to borrow phrases he has used. But, in emphasizing newness, Obama is actually voicing a very old theme. When he speaks of change, hope, and choosing the future over the past, when he pledges to end racial divisions or attacks special interests, Obama is striking chords that resonate deeply in the American psyche. He is making a promise to voters that is as old as the country itself: to wipe clean the slate of history and begin again from scratch. [...]