In a recent post Apollo writes the following:
Perhaps the thing I find most bewildering about the Obama fad is the belief of some that “uniting” the country (whatever that means) is more important than good policy and wise leadership. Moreover, how Obama could “unite” the country was never addressed. The only way I can think of this working out is to shame a sufficient number of whites into supporting Obama simply because he’s black. Thankfully, it appears that may not yet happen.
I think this analysis is mistaken.
When people say that Barack Obama is going to unite the country they don’t mean that contrasting ideologies and policy disagreements are going to evaporate, nor that everyone is going to go along with whatever President Obama says out of racial guilt.
Here is what they do mean:
1) The Obama Administration won’t be unnecessarily antagonistic like the Bush Administration is.
2) Among the presidential candidates Obama is the least polarizing among the Democrats, and only John McCain is arguable less polarizing overall.
3) When there is a policy compromise that has aspects that both parties dislike, but that will result in a situation that makes everyone better off overall, President Obama will work with his ideological opponents to make that compromise happen.
It seems easy enough to see why these things are desirable.
I’d add a fourth thing too: sad though it is to say, I think it is going to take a Democratic executive (or at the very least someone like John McCain who really appeals to people on the other side of the aisle) to get the left in this country squarely behind America’s efforts to fight radical Islam, partly due to the Bush Administration’s attitude toward that fight, and partly due to the ideological blinders that sometimes accompany political disagreement.
Posted by conor friedersdorf in Uncategorized