Only days before the recent midterm elections, former President Barack Obama took the stage at a rally in Pennsylvania and issued a warning, “On Tuesday, let's make sure our country doesn't get set back 50 years."
Obama has used variations of this refrain throughout his career to great effect. The implications of the message ― that “progress” is itself the highest possible good and that the surest way to secure it is by voting for Democrats ― are accessible, succinct, and actionable. To be on the right side of history, all one needs to do is vote “D” every two years and watch “progress” unfold.
Obama’s campaign motto in 2008, “Yes, We Can,” was expertly tailored to a generation of slacktivists (myself included) who earnestly desired a better country but couldn’t be bothered to ask obvious follow-up questions, such as: “Yes, we can ... do what exactly?”
For his reelection , Obama reiterated the theme and adopted the even simpler motto: “Forward.”
Obama wielded the myth of "progress" — the notion that human flourishing is always just down the road a bit ― to masterful effect in both campaigns. But as we lurched toward the end of his presidency, his supporters became more and more like people rowing a boat to shore while the tide pulled them further out to the sea. Our world indeed made “progress” during his presidency in a utilitarian and materialistic sense. Life became more efficient, less wasteful, and dramatically more convenient. By 2016, we could order toilet paper from the couch and binge-watch our favorite shows. Electric vehicles suddenly appeared on the highway.
But people across the West began to report less satisfaction in life. We began to dislike one another more. Our families fractured. We spent more time alone staring at screens.
America might have leapt forward, but the destination left Americans cold. The future as rendered by the technocratic Obama years seemed less the product of a master architect and more like the random wreckage left behind by a tornado. Obama’s tenaciously nondescript platitudes lifted our spirits for a time, but once the high wore off, we no longer recognized our surroundings. We no longer shared a common vision or values.
So it was no surprise that in 2016 voters became enamored of a political message that featured an explicit longing for an idealized past. Having twice bought the promise of “Hope and Change” for a better future, people understandably began to yearn for a bygone era of supposed human flourishing. Like its “Forward” counterpart, former President Donald Trump ’s pledge to “Make America Great Again” played upon America's susceptibility to utopianism within the constructs of human time. But in this version, the ideal society would be restored as opposed to created from a bright new vision out of whole cloth.
Despite the antithetical nature of these campaign messages ― not to mention the antithetical nature of the men themselves ― a surprising number of people switched allegiances between 2012 and 2016, comprising the unicorn-like Obama-Trump voting bloc. Mainstream political analysts did their best to eschew difficult explanations for this complex phenomenon and instead attributed it to simple racism. A 2017 piece from the New York Times makes this argument explicitly, while a 2018 article from Vox attempts to do the same by relying upon a study that uses inane concepts such as “racial conservatives." However, neither article bothers to mention that these supposedly racist voters twice voted for a black man for president. Are we to believe that these verifiably non-racist people —assuming that only a non-racist would elect a black man to lead the free world — suddenly became racists after voting for Obama twice? It’s a non-starter of a proposition, no matter how badly certain elements of the media want it to be true.
A better explanation for the surprisingly sizable Obama-Trump voting bloc involves the only perceptible commonality these two figures shared: campaign messaging that emphasized the promise of human flourishing at a different moment in time. Both messages played upon the distinctly American trait of avoiding present circumstances at all costs in favor of a fanciful feeling that temporarily lifts the spirit and requires nothing in the way of personal involvement.
For better or worse, we are an idealistic people. We believe in the power of movies. We award the political contract to whichever firm delivers the most soul-stirring sales pitch. We are spirited, but we are easily duped.
As the 2024 presidential election season commences, candidates would be wise to take this all into account as they craft their campaign messaging. However, they should avoid mimicking the Obama and Trump campaigns’ utopian emphasis. The failure of both men to fulfill their vision still lingers too strongly in the collective psyche.
Instead, candidates would do well to lead the public neither forward nor backward but upward toward a reconciliation with one another and with the Creator. This vision of progress is rooted in a truth that captures the imagination of the public without selling it a line, and is one that inspires personal involvement as opposed to passive wishful thinking. A campaign that emphasizes the faith-based principle of forgiveness could have the dual effect of inspiring the masses and promoting authentic human flourishing. Unlike President Joe Biden ’s empty promise to “heal the soul of our nation,” a campaign message that emphasizes reconciliation with one another and with God could affect true progress.
Indeed, individual Americans would do well to acknowledge their individual transgressions over these acrimonious years in order to engender true healing. Our national bonds are down to the fingertips, but we must not let one another go. Too much sacrifice would be wasted. Too much greatness would be lost.
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Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner and founder of Crush the College Essay. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, the National Catholic Register, and the American Spectator.
