A Tiny Ripple of Hope

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
--Robert F. Kennedy (1966)

This week, I've heard a haunting melody, a stirring rhythm, arising from the small towns and cornfields of Iowa; I've felt a trembling in the earth, a promise of change that sends a shiver down my spine. I feel the first tentative hope for the dawning of one more renewal in American political life, hope that arrives just when I feared we no longer were capable, or deserving, of such renewal.

Barack Obama. Age 46. Half Kenyan, half Kansan. A black man who speaks Indonesian, graduated from Hawaii's most exclusive prep school, and served as president of the Harvard Law Review. An Illinois liberal who speaks a new political language, a language that appeals to a broader audience. An African-American civil rights advocate who captures the hearts of white Iowa voters. A U.S. Senator. A successful middle-aged politician who can't help looking like a geeky kid speaking at graduation.

How unlikely a voice seems Mr. Obama's, how unlikely that his should be the voice crying in the wilderness, crying that we should make straight our paths. And yet. And yet, I dare to hope.

He would be but the latest avatar of an historical American type -- the political evangelist, calling the nation to renewal and to new achievement. We recall Teddy Roosevelt, leading the country forth from the corruption and torpor of the late 19th century. FDR, assuring us that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. Bobby Kennedy, quoting George Bernard Shaw: "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not."

But what is Barack Obama's program, skeptics ask? It's important to know, of course, and his Democratic rivals demand to know. If Obama has any hope of succeeding in his campaign, we will know more in coming weeks. But the details of his platform, as opposed to its broad outlines, matter little -- few campaign promises survive the crash and shock of unanticipated crises. They matter little, except insofar as they show the measure of the man.

Teddy Roosevelt's program was an unexceptional populism. FDR's New Deal often bordered on a form of fascism, and much of it was held unconstituional. Robert Kennedy stole Gene McCarthy's program, in many respects, and repackaged it in a form more digestible to more people.

The details of their programs were vague before they were elected (or assassinated), and in some respects were unworkable if and when enacted. The real legislative successes of these leaders were ones hammered out as the need arose, in consultation with leaders in Congress. What these men did give us, however, by force of their personality and their ability to "connect" with the electorate, was hope. Hope for a better America than was offered by the corporate greed of Gilded Age capitalism. Hope in the midst of the Depression for a return to prosperity. Hope for a return to peace in Vietnam, and for an America the young could once more love and respect.

Forty years after RFK electrified the nation, Barack Obama appears on the scene. Obama just may be offering our generation a new hope, hope for an escape from the gravest deadend and paralysis in American politics since the Civil War -- our seemingly irreversible polarization between two mutually hostile and uncomprehending factions.

It's too early to tell whether Obama is capable of carrying our dreams upon his shoulders, and offering back the hope we need. It's also too early to judge whether he has the qualities necessary to govern the nation as President, as opposed to simply inspiring it as orator. But, experience and detailed programs are not always presidential prerequisites. Presidents grow in office. Harry Truman was a political unknown (outside Missouri) when he became President.

Finally, I'm well aware that it is failing and floundering societies that hunger most urgently for inspiring, rather than simply competent, leaders. Such a hunger can be irrational and dangerous. Hitler and Mussolini each assumed such an inspirational role, seizing power when citizens in their own countries became fearful and desperate. Focus on the character of the leader rather than the workability of his proposals is risky.

But historically, we have been more fortunate than have countries like Germany and Italy. Our hunger for change has always been tempered by common sense. Our own political "saviors" -- our Roosevelts (both of them), our Kennedys, our Lincolns -- have been inspiring men, rational men -- not perfect men, but men who each led us out of the wilderness of his time and made the country governable once more by the capable but less charismatic Presidents who followed.

God, they say, has a special place in his heart for children, idiots, and the United States of America. Maybe so.

We live in interesting times. Let's keep our eyes and ears open and our hopes high in the weeks ahead.