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Everyone is talking about Drew Westen’s mega-article in the New York Times recently, which takes Barack Obama to task for not being a good storyteller. As I’m sure regular readers will expect, I think it’s bunk. I didn’t want to deal with it over the weekend, however, and so others beat me to the main points, and made them better than I would. #1. Westen misunderstands the presidency, and even misunderstands the power of rhetoric within the presidency; John Sides explains. #2. Westen isn’t even right about the basic facts; Andrew Sprung, who follows Obama’s rhetoric more carefully than anyone else I know of, has no difficulty finding several examples of Obama saying exactly what Westen wants Obama to say. And a long time ago, Brendan Nyhan was excellent on Westen in general.
But if that’s not enough, I’ll add a bit. What Sprung doesn’t really knock down is Westen’s claim that Obama, unlike FDR, failed to find a villain in his rhetoric. Westen:
Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
This is a much-beloved quotation for those who place a lot of stock in the idea that presidents must identify villains, but it’s a cheat. I suspect that Obama will let loose plenty of partisan zingers during the campaign next year (indeed, he did as much during the midterm campaign last year). However, Westen’s point is about 1933, not 1936. Is it true that FDR’s inaugural was about “who had caused it”? Not really, I’d say. The famous line is, to be sure, about a villain, but it’s not bankers or Repbulicans — it’s of course about “fear itself.” Now, it’s absolutely true that FDR did spend three paragraphs of his inaugural on what the what happened and who did it questions, and he refers to “the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods” and the “money changers” (twice) during those passages, but it’s “fear itself” that has the starring role. By the way, is Obama all that far of when he talks about the “consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”? Not to mention calling (unspecified, to be sure) others “childish”?
Anyway, I’m really talking about FDR, here. So: the first Fireside Chat is about reopening the banks. It’s wonderful; I like it very much. But it does virtually nothing of what Westen wants. There’s almost nothing about blame. Way down at the bottom, there’s a little bit about some bankers having been “incompetent or dishonest,” but it’s hardly the thrust of the piece; instead, it’s all about how good and safe and normal banks are going to be now. I’m not going to go through all the Chats, but I did read through the second one and: no villains at all.
So, to sum up: presidential rhetoric matters far, far less than Westen wants us to believe, but at any rate Obama did say the things that Westen says Obama didn’t say, but FDR did not say the things that Westen believes FDR said.
A couple more things, perhaps a bit more political sciency. One is that (and I hope John Sides will correct me if I’m wrong) we know virtually nothing about any long-term effects of presidential rhetoric. We know quite a bit about short-term effects, and we know they’re mostly very limited. Long term, though, is a bit harder to tell. My political instinct says it doesn’t make much difference…but I really don’t know that to be true.
The second thing is that I think comparing anything about Obama to FDR, especially in comparing 2009 to 1933, is just a mistake. Richard Neustadt defined the Truman and Ike years as “midcentury,” saying that they featured “emergencies in policy with politics as usual.” It contrasted with FDR’s time, when politics as usual was suspended — at least for the first couple of years, and then again for a while after Pearl Harbor. In my view, by that definition, we’re still in midcentury, and have been except for a very short time immediately after the September 11 attacks. January 2009 was midcentury by this definition, and there’s simply nothing that Barack Obama could have done about it. But March 1933 was not, and it gave FDR plenty of room to maneuver that Obama (and all of the president in between) just didn’t have. That, and not Obama’s rhetoric, is the key thing that separates them.
Anyway…this now concludes my obligation to say something about the Westen article.
UPDATE: See also what the always-excellent Eric Schickler has to say about FDR.
[Cross-posted at A plain blog about politics]
Scott Farris on August 10, 2011 5:01 PM:
One other counter to Westen that I would offer is that even if there was a time when presidential rhetoric could dominate the public debate, the dramatic change in mass communication of the past twenty years has made that moot. Reagan was the last president who enjoyed a relatively consolidated media (three television networks, the major papers and wire services) who felt an obligation to give a president a national prime time audience whenever they asked for it. Now, the networks seldom run any presidential address unless for a truly extraordinary occasion, and leave that to the cable networks whose audiences are comparatively miniscule. Cable television, talk radio and the Internet have made it extremely difficult for a president to get the entire nation's attention. One reason Obama seems overexposed is that he is constantly trying to break through to one audience or another because our new world of communications will almost never allow him to reach everyone at once, and that makes it very difficult to drive the narrative by yourself.
Paula on August 10, 2011 7:10 PM:
To think that Westen is talking about "speeches" is to miss the point of a "narrative". There is a difference between saying something (even multiple times) and connecting that something to an underpinning, to a philosophical position, as it were. My take on a "narrative" is that it is a story that is based on some kind of understood unifying set of principles that DRIVE decision-making. A narrative isn't a message - but messaging should be driven by the narrative. There can be multiple narratives, but they work only if they can be connected to a meta-narrative in a way that makes sense to people.
For the republicans, the "meta-narrative" underpinning their activities is basically biblical. They aren't themselves remotely "Christian" in behavior, but they use "Christianity" to underpin and justify positions that they take. The vast majority of the public is uninformed and actively misinformed about facts these days, and the republicans use that spectacularly well by claiming that, even if you don't know the specifics about, say, the debt ceiling, you can trust them to do what's right because they (claim to) uphold agreed upon Christian beliefs. And while the right-wing hate carriers deliberately and specifically foments fear and hate in their base, they diffuse guilt their followers might feel for harboring "less than Christian" beliefs by continually telling the followers that they are Good People who just want what's best for our great country and who want to protect it from all those evil others (who it's ok to hate because they're EVIL).
The entire Democratic party, with Obama at the helm, lacks a meta-narrative. There's no coherent, agreed-upon set of beliefs woven together, that explain or support the choices that get made. Instead, there's a long list of discrete issues that need addressing, the effects of which get talked about, the CAUSES of which, usually don't. Because issues are separated (and root causes ignored, since dealing with them would require entirely different responses), the public needs to be selectively educated about each issue in order to be able to effectively defend why some choice was made, and that has to be done in the face of unrelenting lies and semi-lies from right-wing media (with no help from the MSM, which traffics in false-equivalencies all the time). Needless to say, the Dems to a piss-poor job of educating the public effectively, notwithstanding the uphill battle it would be.
So we have HCR, for example, presented by the administration as a collection of individual problems: costs of drugs, incentives in the system that keep MD's ordering unnecessary tests; tax issues with Employer Based Insurance; lack of General Practitioners, etc., and we're treated with an exhibition of wrangling and horse trading and lobbying and we can't even have a discussion about single-payer, and never was there any kind of unifying thread that could simplify this for citizenry. How could there be when the entire effort was at cross-purposes with itself? You had a massive effort to provide healthcare to the uninsured and more affordable HC to the insured while at the same time you had a massive effort to avoid discomforting all of the corporate interests that make big dollars in the current system. The public never got behind HCR fully because they never knew what the hell was going on, and there was no narrative to fall back on.
The habit of separating everything into individual issues has created numerous examples of cognitive dissonance. NARAL endorses Joe Lieberman because he is pro-choice, even though in several other key areas, he was a total traitor to the party (empowering Republicans enabled all kinds of hurting of women).
The Dems have been trading on old narratives for a long time, in a "you know I love you - why do I need to say it all the time?" kind of way. Their core "beliefs" are assumed to be obvious but they continually produce or accept legislation that is counter to these supposed beliefs. The Dem party "supports the common man" - except they do trade agreements that hurt the common man. They stand by silently (I'm talking about national Dem leaders) while Unions are assaulted in several states. Dems believe all men are equal before the law, then refuse to hold the Bush Administration accountable for almost any of their lawbreaking and corruption. (This is partly because, I believe, so many national Dems were complicit. Another reason they're so tarnished. But I digress.) Ditto the Financial Industry, the most damaging effects of which have been absorbed by the Democratic party's natural constituencies. The cornerstone, The New Deal, has been put "on the table" over and over during the Obama administration. And "lines in the sand" are deemed to be unstrategic, or unhelpful or un-whatever. Therefore, we have NO idea what our President will or won't do, or what our Legislators will or won't support. Everything is fluid and up for grabs all the time -- everything is case-by-case. But we are expected, if we listen carefully to the complicated explanations and justifications we are given, to celebrate a series of painful compromises.
The ultimate problem, as it stands now, is simply that Dems on the national level have become corporate tools. There's no getting around that. That's where the serious dough comes from. The Dems have been trying to serve two masters since Bill Clinton, and everything about the system as it exists currently (with Citizens United taking things to their logical conclusion) presents barriers to changing this reality. So, whether you believe in the notion of narratives or not, the reality is that neither Obama, nor the party as a whole, will be able to have one/any under current conditions. At least, not ones that will resonate with voters. To give Dems credit, they aren't willing to outright lie like the repubs, otherwise they might be able to make something up and sell it.
But I really think you should revisit your thinking on this. Citing studies that talk about the significance of Presidential rhetoric, once again, misses the point. It ain't just a matter of what the Prez says. It's a matter of what he says, then what he does, then what he says about what he did, how often he says it, where he says it and to whom (and ditto for Congress, Senators, Governors, Mayors, Pac Leaders, etc.). I think it's incredibly important in that, a well constructed narrative is what can actually reach people who don't have all the facts (which is most voters). It is a tool that can be used, and should be used, when it can be. Dammit, when you're in a fight, I think you should use every advantage you can.
Scott Farris on August 10, 2011 7:40 PM:
Rather than a meta-narrative, why don't we call it a coherent governing philosophy? Conservatives have that; I guestion whether liberals do. Democrats seem now a mere collection of special interests, rather than a party with a core worldview. In fact, we can't even agree on what to call ourselves: liberals or progressives? So, there is no chorus speaking as one voice to tell this story that Professor Westen wants told. There is no overarching philosophy to inspire voters. Our basic message is defense, not offense, even though the world is changing and people want direction.
Paula on August 10, 2011 8:41 PM:
Scott:
Ok, "narratives spring from a coherent governing philosophy" - works for me. As to the rest of your comment: yep, yep, yep!