By Ardain Isma
CSMS Magazine Staff Writer
Even as the summer season is in full display and the flowers have yet to bear fruits, the Obama’ spring dilemma is steadfast refusing to fade. He is facing a cacophony of dilemmas, but the biggest of all is “trust”—an avenue that his Republicans rivals are too quick to capitalize on, even as the trademark of America’s biggest economic downturn in decades is now starting to show modest improvement.
There is optimism on Wall Street—so optimistic that the DOW watchers refuse to dread the possibility of going back to the dark days earlier in the decade. The real estate market is slowly creeping its way back to the minds and hearts of bullish investors.
Obama was ushered to the presidential office on the hope he could rescue the Middle Class from a dead end spiral. Meeting this part of the bargain may be coming to light. Still, millions of Americans remain jobless and the gap between rich and poor has yet to show signs of closing up. This summer is without a doubt the worst of the president’s political seasons. It may be the one that Obama will forever remember as the summer that cost him his credibility. Adding to that is the latest revelations of Edward Snowden now trapped in an airport in Moscow, seeking political asylum after he made public the government’s dark secrets of pying on China and on its own citizens, something president Obama—during his olitical campaign—had sworn never to have done.
Obama’aloofness and raw ambiguity have alienated a big chunk of his natural base. Many watched in horror as Obama went one capitulation after another to reactionary Tea Partyers, who believe they are out on a mission to undo historic, social gains long earned by the working class.
Obama didn’t win the next national election with the same political slogan of 2008. Back then, the leitmotiv was hope America could believe in. Now, it is fact that America can accept, not tolerate. As the president, the burden of proof is on Barack Obama and on him only. He must deliver as promised back in 08.
Obama could have gotten away with the credibility issue; but he never portrays himself as a combative politician, and when he blunders on something of strategic importance, he wants to make one believe that was the best he could do.
Some political pundits say that the president is trapped in his own political coat. They say he can’t be perceived as being too combative against his political foes, overwhelmingly white and staunchly reactionary, in order to preserve a colorblind constituency. If this were to be true, Obama would have been shooting himself on the foot.
The same group of people, who went vocal in their blatant disdain for Obama, is the same group who now occupies front and center in the Tea Party movement and in other conservative venues in Congress as well as in the US Senate. They were not on the band wagon in 2008, they were not be part of it in 20011. No matter what Obama does, they will never be part any of his agenda.
Opportunists can win election, but when it is coupled with political ruthlessness, it can bring outright deception. And that’s how millions of voters—blacks and whites—feel today with regards to Obama. They feel the president is ready to veer totally to the right to join conservative blue-dog Democrats and “liberal” Republicans to govern as his predecessors.
Obama is certainly not an opportunist. However, his political showmanship drawn from the premise of consensus building does nothing to assuage the doubt on his credibility now weighing on his persona and, by extension, his own presidency.
Note: Dr. Ardain Isma is editor-in-chief of CSMS Magazine. He teaches Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of North Florida (UNF). He is a scholar as well as a novelist. He may be reached at:publisher@csmsmagazine.org
