“The Avatar of a New Generation of Progressives"? Not by a Long Shot

If Obama is to be “the avatar of a new generation of progressives,” as Klein styles him, then he must do something like the following: He should return to the Constitution Center in Philadelphia and, essentially, retract his earlier speech on race, a speech that was an illustrative exercise in precisely the sort of liberal self-flagellation that Klein praises Obama for allegedly leaving behind. In his new speech, Obama should apologize for having failed to condemn Wright for sermons that profoundly offended the sensibilities of the overwhelming majority of people whose president Obama aspires to become. He should apologize for being an “anachronism,” in that he did exactly what Klein says “too many [Bill] Moyers-era liberals” would have done twenty years ago: Obama implored us “to try to understand Wright’s anger…rather than condemn it as distorted and dangerous.” In his new speech, Obama should go beyond condemning Wright’s remarks, what Obama at one time referred to as mere “snippets” from decades of sermonizing, and thoroughly condemn the “black liberation theology” to which Wright subscribes and that defines his worldview.

Obama should concede that for all of her faults, there is not now nor has there ever been any country on the face of the planet that has provided more opportunities for self-realization for all of its citizens, especially its racial minorities, than the United States of America. He should renounce not only Wright, but the “liberal self-laceration” that, as Klein rightly observes, has marked the Democratic Party for the last forty years. That is, Obama should acknowledge and atone for the anti-Americanism and white guilt that his party has nurtured and fostered and that has caused immeasurable damage to his country.

And to show that he isn’t just “playing politics,” he should express his commitment to abolishing all race and gender-based preferential treatment policies, all policies that indulge a sense of white guilt and exacerbate inter-racial tensions. Perhaps Obama might even consider getting really radical and call for the repeal of all anti-discrimination laws in the private sector. He could reason that such laws not only undermine property rights and the right to freedom of association, they are condescending in assuming that Americans must be compelled by law not to practice racial or other types of discrimination. Obama should promise to eliminate our current income tax system and remove the oppressive regulations under which American businesses are forced to operate, both of which exhibit a contemptuous attitude toward the free, entrepreneur traditions by which most Americans live their lives and that have characterized this nation since its inception.

There are of course many other things that we could add to this list of steps that Obama could take to transform the political left’s self-image. But he won’t avail himself of any of them, for if he did, he would establish himself as “the avatar,” not “of a new generation of progressives,” but of traditional conservatives.