Monday, August 17, 2009
Great Afterburner by Bill Whittle at Pajamas Media: The Power & Danger of Iconography: The Resistance Steals Obama's Weapons.
It is more than a little bit off-putting the way this administration has so personalized the institution of the Presidency like none we've seen before. In a way this is quite smart. Obama won largely on an electorate voting for him on a personal level without looking or caring too deeply about just what it was he was saying and they seek to carry this forward, knowing full well that to look closely will result in a large number of the American people finally realizing their mistake. So the Obama "O" is used as a shield, to personalize as never before the office, the institutions and the policy proposals of the president in an attempt to carry that success forward.
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, p.39
As Rahm Emanuel summed it up, for a sizeable section of the electorate the "Obama" label is the strongest label around, stronger than the "American" label. Advertising, marketing, PR: "Obama" is the label, Obama is the product manager; the medium is the message and the message is the medium.
This iconography is a two edged sword, as Obama himself will soon realize. At least as many people now strongly disagree with Obama as strongly agree with him. The Democrats were successful for several years at defining the players in the political struggle for hearts and minds because of persistent unpleasantness happening in the world, the blame for which was transferred possibly not logically, but naturally onto leadership. The pendulum is swinging in the other direction now and there is only one group onto whom blame can now come to rest and the unpleasantness continues and is growing. Icons originally meant to symbolize intelligence and competence are being altered to represent foolishness and ineptitude. Symbols for beneficence and goodness are changing to signify corruption and evil. Obama, in his teachable moments, is learning several things now. Among them are that Americans don't want to be recognized as socialists no matter whether that word is defined as liberal or progressive. And if you want to introduce immature little symbols with which you will be represented and that you hope will displace traditional symbols, you had better make certain that you are more successful in your achievements than those who are represented by the symbols you hope to displace.