Dear people who think that Barack Obama is awesome, and stupidly bewail the fact that “we don’t have an Obama,” remember this:
1. He was voted into office. Which means that, no matter what a hotshot he might have been, he still wouldn’t be who he is now had it not been for the concerted effort of millions of people taking the time to register and vote.
2. The determination to vote for Obama was the only thing some of those millions of voters had in common with each other.In other words, you don’t have to agree with everyone who supports the same candidate as you. What matters is that you both agreed on one man’s vision for his country.
3. Obama represents a particular theory of how government should be run and how people should be governed. This theory (the two dominant ones are the liberal and conservative approaches) underlies the initiatives, thrusts, and priorities of the occupant of the White House, contributing greatly to the predictability of government policies; and predictability of policies is a cornerstone to growth and development. After all, if policies change direction willy-nilly, who’s going to have the confidence to invest in the country? This is an important point that is lost when politics (such as our own) is transformed into personality wars. While some may have voted for Obama on the basis of his personal charisma, remember that he wasn’t a unanimous party choice. Other Democrats wanted Hillary to run, but when the choice was finally made to field Obama, the Clintonites united behind him and the Democratic vision he had come to represent. The same can be said of McCain and Romney vis-a-vis the Republicans.
Now think about those three facts for a moment.
- Are you registered to vote at all? If you could have been but are not, then you’re partly to blame for what you’re whining about.
- Do you vote because of how people around you (include the media in that category) think? If you’re not making up your own mind and seeking out your own bases for the decisions you make, then yeah, you’re partly to blame too.
And
- Do you even bother to figure out what the candidates stand for? More specifically, do you take the trouble to determine what their over-all plan is for the country? It’s fairly easy to point to this project or that, without actually presenting the big picture. Unfortunately, most of us tend to not mind that the over-all plan is vague, so long as there are “concrete” looking plans for the short term. If you’re like that – if you tend to lose sight of the forest for the trees – then you’re likely to vote on the basis of campaign promises, rather than platforms of government. This makes you part of the problem.
Bottom line, we don’t need a superman.
What we need are ordinary folks – like you and me – taking ordinary steps to ensure that we are part of the politics of this country, and that – once empowered to vote – we exercise the right of suffrage intelligently.