Obama and the 1960s

How are we to understand the malaise, the feelings not only of disappointment but also of disinterest, depoliticization and even hopelessness that the Obama Presidency has brought in its wake? The "liberal" supporters of Obama, such as David Remnick, Hendrick Herzberg or Jonathan Alter give us two contradictory explanations. On the one hand, the campaign raised too-high expectations, there was bound to be a let down. On the other hand, they also tell us that Obama has been a spectacularly successful President, "delivering" health care, financial reform, and saving us from a Great Depression. In either case "we"–the disappointed Obama supporters, in a word, the left–are subtly reproached for our immaturity, our lack of realism; theirs is a sort of: "thank-you-very-much-for-your-help-in-the-campaign-but-lets-leave-things-to-the-grown-ups-until-the-next-campaign" approach. There is a deeper way to understand the Obama malaise, however, one that frees us from focusing on the man, and helps us to see our society. That way is to situate the campaign, and the Presidency, historically. In this regard no context is more important than the one that remains the deepest, most important and most unmastered part of our collective history and imagination–the 1960s. For the Obama Presidency was inconceivable without the sixties, and it is precisely the sixties that Obama has repudiated.