The rhetoric grips no more

S Gurumurthy
First Published : 09 Sep 2009 12:20:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 09 Sep 2009 01:06:45 AM IST

He said, ‘Yes We can’, ‘Yes We Can’, ‘Yes We Can’, in succession. He ended his speech saying: ‘Yes’, ‘We’, ‘Can’, pausing dramatically in between. These three words set America on fire. That was Barrack Hussein Obama seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency making his first speech on January 8, 2008. The words soon turned into a lyric that instantly became a hit song, for singing and dancing celebrities. It forthwith became Obama’s campaign video, and was on YouTube on February 2, 2008. In the next three weeks, it achieved a combined total viewing of more than 22-million times. Said Time magazine, the three words “turned into a brilliant video featuring an array of young, hip, talented and beautiful celebrities” and posed existential questions to the Democrats like, “How can you not be moved by this? How can you vote against the future?”

Borrowing a slogan

They were moved; they voted for Obama. By this one lyrical slogan that became a song, Obama took over America, overtook Hillary Rodham Clinton and became the Democratic presidential nominee. Surprisingly, the slogan ‘Yes We Can’ wasn’t Obama’s brainchild. He copied it from the slogan, Si, se peude (Spanish for ‘Yes, it can be done’), which a US farm workers union on fast had raised way back in 1972. Obama did not seem to have acknowledged that his star campaign theme was drawn from farm workers. This slogan-song reverberated in the US for months. It travelled beyond to Europe; even to India where many began asking where was the Indian Obama to say ‘Yes We Can’.

By September 2008, when the presidential campaign was peaking, and the slogan sagging, Obama shifted the campaign gear with a new slogan — ‘We are the CHANGE we seek’. The new one instantly became the lead; the first one, the second. “We are the change we need from more of the same”, said Obama. He went on: “We are the ones we have been waiting for”. “This time can be different” because, he said, this campaign “is different.” And added, “It is not different because of me. It is different because of you”, turning many Americans into hysterical supporters.

Commenting on this, Time wrote: “The man’s use of pronouns (never ‘I’), of inspirational language and of poetic meter is unprecedented in recent memory.” The campaign, it said, had no ‘focus or cause’ ‘other than an amorphous desire for change’. Titling the article as ‘Inspiration vs Substance’ the magazine said: ‘In the recent past, Democrats have favoured candidates who offer meaty, detailed policy prescriptions and that is not Obama’s game’. That is, Time left unsaid, the Obama campaign lacked substance.

It concluded, the ‘Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is’, meaning that the beauty of the campaign became the theme of campaign itself. Thus, with the first slogan Obama became the Democratic nominee. And with the next, he became the President of America. Just two slogans did the trick. His election proved that ‘mature’ democracies — read the US — are no different from not so mature democracies — read India — where demagogues with their oration and slogans carry the people lock, stock, and barrel.

Yes, Obama, the presidential candidate, was undoubtedly most popular not only in the US, but elsewhere too. See how popular is Obama, the president, eight months since he was sworn in. According to a Gallup poll, he started with a very high approval rating of 68 per cent in late January this year; and a very low disapproval rating of 12 per cent. His rating remained steady for four months, 67 per cent, till late April. But in the next four months his approval rating has slid from 68 per cent to 52 per cent on August 28/30; and his disapproval rating has dramatically gone up 3 ½ times, from 12 per cent to 42 per cent. Many times in recent weeks his rating went as low as 50 per cent. His support among Democrats itself is down from 92 per cent to 82 per cent; among Republicans, from 31 per cent to 16 per cent; among independents, from 61 per cent to 48 per cent.

His popularity rating of 52 per cent as of September, his ninth month in office, is 24 points lower than that of his predecessor George W Bush, regarded as the most unpopular president after Richard Nixon; Bush Jr had a much higher rating in his ninth month of office — 76 per cent. The ninth month rating of all but one post War US presidents, George H W Bush (76) Jimmy Carter (57) Richard Nixon (59) John F Kennedy (79) and Dwight Eisenhower (61) far exceeded Obama’s 52 per cent. Obama equalled Ronald Reagan’s (52); exceeded only Bill Clinton’s (50).

The average third quarter rating of all (elected) US presidents is 64 per cent; Obama’s is 61 per cent. In specific areas, his rating is even lower. In health care, 46 per cent approved Obama in July; 37 per cent disapproved. It reversed the very next month, with approvals down by six points to 40 per cent, and disapprovals up by 10 points to 47. On Afghanistan his rating dropped from 56 per cent in July to 53 per cent in August. Only on the economy he gained two points from 51 in July to 53 in August.

Less popular now

So, Obama, the candidate, was rising in popularity aided by poetic slogans, and celebrity songs, dance and music that inspired but lacked substance. But Obama, the president, is now becoming less and less popular. Why? Inspiring campaigns create high expectations and generate even higher popularity. But the extraordinary expectations created cannot be met by ordinary performance. That’s his problem now. Also, he sidestepped the truth with his mesmeric words. He trivialised the US economic crisis as the making of George W Bush. But in truth it is the product of the American consumerist lifestyle. Obama wanted change at the top — himself at the top; but America needed change at the bottom, its people to change their habits and lifestyle, to recover. Had Obama spoken of that change he would neither have become popular; nor won the vote.

It is easy to become popular today with technologically structured campaigns orchestrated by money, media, slogans, songs and celebrity support. In contrast, as late as a couple of decades ago, it took a lifetime’s work. But the popularity acquired by fast models wanes even faster, if it were acquired for the sake of becoming popular just and, worse, for votes. The media ladder, by which one goes up, also brings one down. Popularity is a tool, not a solution. It is easy to acquire, but, difficult to retain.

QED: Is that why Mahatma Gandhi said, “popularity comes without invitation, and goes without farewell”?

(The author is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues)