Does Obama’s nomination mean anything?

Ben W. writes:

Is there any doubt that the Obama camp considers his candidacy to be historic along regal and prophetic lines? Check out the picture of the stage set for his acceptance.

Almost every black person interviewed on camera at the Democratic convention considers this to be a culmination of sorts.

LA replies:

It’s funny, but I seem to have lost sight of the putatively world-changing, racial/symbolic aspect of Obama’s ascendancy, which previously has been discussed at VFR a great deal. I think it may be because I am so struck by the emptiness and vacuity of everything I hear the Democrats say, that I’ve insensibly concluded that Obama’s nomination doesn’t mean much of anything. At the moment, the Obama phenomenon seems to me just another transparently false leftist fantasy that collapses as soon as it’s constructed. But that obviously is not the whole truth.

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Rohan Swee writes:

Upon reading that post title it struck me that this allegedly “world-changing,” “symbolic” candidacy occurs at a time when the prestige of the American presidency has been woefully degraded, the American empire is in a state of decay, and even the continuance of “the American experiment” has become an open question. So I reflect upon the common phenomenon of offices and professions losing their prestige when, as a concomitant of decline, they are abandoned by the caste that originally established them, and “outsiders” make inroads into the ranks (though not necessarily in that causal order). McCain or Obama could fill the role of Romulus Augustulus as creditably as the next mediocrity (though in the former case in would be a senile, rather than a juvenile, Augustulus). So the nomination could indeed “mean” something, indeed, be richly symbolic, but not in the way his adulators think.

LA replies:

Romulus Augustulus was the last Roman emperor in the West, who lost his power to a Germanic king in 476.

Gintas writes:

“Does Obama’s nomination mean anything?”

Yes, it does: The Democratic Party isn’t just a political party that is anti-Christian, anti-male, and anti-white; it’s a pagan mystery religion that is anti-Christian, anti-male, and anti-white .

Dimitri K., an emigre from the former Soviet Union who has lived in the U.S. for ten years, writes:

I am learning to understand American press now, by reading realclearpolitics.com. Before, many opinions seemed to me random, and I could not always find the reason why one or another paper published this or that article. Now it seems to me that I am starting to understand. None of those articles is random, every one has some goal, often hidden.

For example, now I see many left-wing papers have started to sing “We are all Americans” song. Why is that? Probably, because Obama’s nomination is so radical that many Americans cannot take it. And left-wing press has started to play down his “change” and repeat “He’s a simple politician” tale. That’s how I understand it. Maybe, I am wrong.

LA replies:

I agree that Real Clear Politics is useful, because each day it offers such a concentrated collection of political columns, from both the left and the “right,” that you can see what the prevailing message is on each side at any given time, and how the columnists on both sides are completely driven by partisan considerations and other forms of group think.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 27, 2008 11:30 AM | Send