Concept Garage

President elect Barak Obama unequivocally said in his interview with Rachel Madaow few days before the election, “our politics is really not about ideology but about forming of a working majority”. Indeed democratic elections should not be about selling political ideologies but about forming a working majority of people from all walks of life, skin color, intellect, religious persuasion and income. The art lies in selling an ‘idea’, not a leftist idea which may be logically consistent but incomplete or right wing idea which proclaims to be complete however logically inconsistent; but a workable idea, that can stitch together a “working majority” out of a domesticated audience. President Obama did just that!

The question remains whether the working majority model is an efficient mode of social organization for a hard-pressed leader like Obama, who is entrusted to deliver concrete economic results. Indeed a working majority awards Obama the mandate to take huge political steps and his message of hope may also greatly contribute to ward off the cloud that has started to reign over free enterprise in this country. However the mechanics of desirable change in the US still requires strong determination and effort on behalf of government, because the fact remains that most of the systemic deadlock in America is self imposed, by self imposed I mean, imposed by the aggregated interests of TOP1% who own 50 % of the nation. If the American people, 99% of them, are to benefit from the healing power of the democratic process, as they did in this election, they need to keep the spirit of pragmatism burning and avoid ideological traps continually thrown around by the corporate media.

I however find it very difficult to imagine how president Obama can address the nation’s problems with out breaking his fragile coalition. Few months ago, we all know how people reacted to his statements about “guns and religion”. Although this might have earned him a front row seat in New York or California; People really do cling to their guns and religion here in the Midwest. Political leadership is indeed like tightrope-walking and president Obama has indeed shown super human discipline during his campaign. I guess we should continue count on his superhuman qualities to bring back hope to this nation and democracy to Ethiopia and the rest of the world as well!