by John McGuinness - April 15, 2008
I just returned from a trade conference in Las Vegas. What struck me was how, even in today's troubled economy, new and grander hotels continue to spring up. Each one is bigger and grander and more ambitious than the last. Each one seeks to set a new standard for luxury and beauty. Nobody is striving to fill a mid-level niches -- that's the job for yesterday's top-flight casinos.
Despite an upper middle-class income, I know I could not possibly afford to stay in these hotels, or eat at the restaurants in them, or gamble at the stakes at their tables without seriously jeopardizing my family's financial position.
I had eagerly anticipated my trip -- a relief from the pressures of daily professional and family life, but found myself eager to return. There's something ultimately empty about the place. It's Disney World for grown-ups, or at least those who think they're grown up.
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Last week Barack Obama expressed his notion about what people are looking for, or at least rural Pennsylvanians:
You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
So what will Barack Obama do to change that?
What they wanna hear is so we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — to close tax loopholes, uh you know uh roll back the tax cuts for the top 1%, Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to uh middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide healthcare for every American.
Let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he doesn't think that what these folks are missing is material wealth but meaningful work. Does he really think that rolling back the Bush tax cuts is going to fill this hole? Yes, some people are anxious about health care, but does he really believe that if people had guaranteed health care they wouldn't still want to go to church?
There are the obvious knee-jerk emotional responses from the passage -- the condescension, the accusation of racism, the parallelism between racism and religion (even though listing different things in a parallel structure does not imply moral equivalence, it is difficult to escape the implication that he considers "clinging" to it a bad thing).
But once you get past those, what you're left with is the notion that the answer to people's deepest desires is... the government and Barack Obama! That if we just elect Barack Obama president, he can fill in the space currently occupied by religion and deer hunting and ethnic solidarity.
I had tended to think that those saying, "Obama isn't the Messiah" were just beating down a strawman. It's trivially obvious that Obama is a politician, not the Messiah, and that his supporters see him as a good guy who might improve things in Washington, but not the Second Coming. But rhetoric like this makes me wonder.
The problems and anxieties that afflict Americans run deep. Guaranteed health care, a lessened tax burden, or even a meaningful job may alleviate those anxieties, but they will not ultimately resolve them.
There are things that no amount of money or government aid can change. Part of being a leader is recognizing the limitations of the tools at your disposal, and having some humility about what you can accomplish.
Government can do wonderful things. It can defend us from external threats. It can smooth out the pain of the business cycle. It can catch people when they're falling, and give them an opportunity to get back on their feet. An inspirational leader can give people a sense of purpose.
But it can't do everything. Maybe previous leaders could have done more to soften the blow for industrial towns, but they couldn't have changed the basic facts that they were producing a good that can be produced less expensively elsewhere. And neither can Obama.
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As I was walking on the Strip, I cued up U2's "City of Blinding Lights" on my MP3 player. It seemed appropriate while walking among the glitter. It's an uplifting song that Obama uses at the beginning of his campaign rallies.
But as the week went on, another U2 song came to mind, one whose video was filmed in Las Vegas -- "But I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." This one isn't so uplifting -- it's about desperately searching for happiness from a variety of sources, only to be disappointed.
I wonder if those thinking that Obama can cure all will be voicing a similar lament.
John McGuinness is a father and software engineer living in St. Louis, MO. He blogs at Man Bites Blog.