Why the Obama school kids song isn't really a big deal

While I was in Chicago for Mike and Erika's wedding over the weekend (great fun!), I had the opportunity to watch the last 15 minutes of Hannity on Fox News. The topic of discussion was a story that I hadn't been exposed to yet, but has apparently blown up on the blogosphere and on Fox News (it was being discussed on Greta Van Susteren immediately after Hannity signed off). In a nutshell, a video was uncovered of some New Jersey public school students in the classroom led by their teacher in the singing of a song praising Barack Obama. The singing apparently took place in February as part of the class's Black History Month celebration. The discussion on Hannity revolved mainly around what a horrifying act of 'indoctrination' this is. Tucker Carlson, whose numerous embarrassing failures as a prime-time cable talk host have apparently led him to abandon his dream of being the next George Will in favor of being the next Michelle Malkin, compared it to something the Khmer Rouge would do, prompting this priceless takedown from Gawker's Foster Kamer (be extra-sure to click through to his piece if you don't know who the Khmer Rouge were). Never one to pass up the opportunity to leap on a passing bandwagon, RNC head Michael Steele has sent out a fundraising email comparing the occasion to both Stalin's Russia and Kim Jong-Il's North Korea.

Three things come to mind here. First, it's important to consider the context. If the initial reports are to be believed, this was an activity meant to celebrate Black History Month, not a daily ritual that had to be completed before the kids could get their afternoon box of chocolate milk. As the first black president, Obama is a not-inconsiderable figure in the annals of black history. Yes, Obama is 'controversial' in the sense that there is political opposition to his legislative agenda. However, during Black History Month, the children doubtlessly learned glowing facts about the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr, who was widely considered in his day to be a Communist subversive bent on destroying American civil society, and engendered more controversy than Barack Obama ever will, the efforts of Hannity, Steele, and Carlson notwithstanding. It's no secret that American primary and secondary education tends to present a watered-down and colorless version of history that actively seeks to avoid any trace of contemporary relevance, lest someone be "offended." The fact that public school history is so boring is a big contributor, I believe, to the fact that even fairly well-educated Americans have a shamefully poor grasp of the subject.

Secondly, the actual content of the offending song bears examination. Here are the lyrics, copied directly from Fox News' addendum to their story on the matter.

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

You'll doubtlessly notice that there's actually very little political content in the song. Nowhere does it mention nationalized healthcare, marginally increasing the income tax on top-bracket earners, cap and trade global warming legislation, or the withdrawal of overseas troops. Instead, it lists off a bunch of vaguely defined grade-school civics pieties that could probably be cut-and-pasted into a song about any politician that's run for any office in the past twenty-five years. Taken on its merits, I can't see what there is to get offended about. Unless, of course, one were to conclude that conservatives are opposed to civic-mindedness, fairness, racial tolerance, and equitable employment policies. Which would be clearly absurd.

Finally, I think that people who are pushing this 'indoctrination' line are confused about the function and purpose of indoctrination. For that argument to be taken even remotely seriously, one would have to demonstrate a widespread and coercive effort to expose a cross-section of American youth to only one particular political viewpoint. 18 kids singing a dopey song about Barack Obama one time doesn't meet the criteria. Even if the dreaded song had a more regular and extensive presence in American schools (which I think would clearly be inappropriate), kids have a remarkable tenacity against official indoctrination. Witness the abject failure of D.A.R.E., which, despite being a near-universal presence in public schools, has been categorized as meeting the criteria for 'Does Not Work' by the U.S. Surgeon General's Office.

Let's go further and ask why, exactly, Barack Obama would want to indoctrinate a bunch of third-graders into a cult of personality. If I may call your attention to the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, you'll soon figure out that none of these kids can vote for Obama in the 2012 election. Nor will they be able to vote for whomever the Democratic nominee for President will be in 2016. Is this song really magical enough to not only instill liberal values in these children, but maintain them single-handedly for the next 11 years? Or give them the ability to hypnotize their parents into participating in a letter-writing campaign in support of Obama's legislative goals?

The kids that sang that song, like kids everywhere, are going to be exposed to a wide variety of political opinions as they grow up. George H.W. Bush was President when I was 8 years old. I remember getting a Presidential Fitness Certificate with his mimeographed signature in gym class, and then later hearing my parents bitch about him around the kitchen table. The kids in this makeshift choir will have similar experiences. In fact, depending on their parent's political inclinations, they might already have been given a T-shirt such as this:

Or this:
In the end, this 'controversy' actually does, in a sense, wind up being about indoctrination. However, it's not about schools brainwashing kids, it's about parents who believe that the principles of democracy are little more than a permission slip allowing them to drill their social and political views to their children unchanged and unchallenged. That's why the school administrators are now reportedly being deluged with death threats. Which do you think is the real threat to freedom?

What the left misses about the new right

One of the more vexing things about watching the current political situation in this country is that I think the organization and momentum behind the anti-Obama Tea Parties and similar political statements on the right is, in some real ways, a genuine shift from what one would expect from that side of the spectrum based on recent history. As an self-identified man of the left, it frustrates me a tad that I've seen very little serious consideration of the shifting nature of the opposition from "my" side of the aisle. Here are three major themes that I see popping up in left-centered analysis of the New Right (as I'll call it for the purposes of this post), and why I believe they're misconceptions.

#1: They're gullible pawns of Republican politicians/Glenn Beck: This is the big one. The idea that voters or activists on the right are brainwashed by charismatic but evil figureheads is probably one of the foundational assumptions of liberal political analysis since at least the 1990s. It's false. The reason why is simply that it's very difficult to convince one person, much less a large group of people, of something that they don't already at least somewhat implicitly believe. Leaders of movements typically don't invent a whole new way of thinking and convince others to follow them; they cannily summarize an already occurring shift in the zeitgeist in a way that resonates with people. The idea that Republican leadership is orchestrating the Tea Party protests is fairly ridiculous. Republicans are attempting to capitalize on them, certainly, with mixed success. But don't believe for a minute that anybody, anywhere would take to the streets on orders from the likes of Michael Steele and John Boehner. Another clue to this is the meteoric rise to prominence of Glenn Beck and the role his radio and television shows have played in the recent right-wing rallies. If the vast right-wing conspiracy wanted to anoint an avatar of right-wing populism, why would they pick the manic and ridiculous Beck rather than Rush Limbaugh, who commands a larger audience and was even specifically targeted by the Obama White House earlier in the year? Which leads me straight into another misconception...

#2: This is just Republican business as usual: It's very, very tempting, given the ridiculousness of tactics such as the constant cries of 'socialism' to say that this is the same ad-hominem song and dance that we've gotten from the American right for the past decade-plus. Look a little closer, though, and you'll notice one big difference: the rallies and street-level rhetoric are all about government spending and taxation. What you're not seeing is a great deal of heated accusations about abortion, gay marriage, and the other religious-right hot buttons. It's hard to underestimate what a sea change this is; since the Clinton years, the most vocal and loyal right-wing Americans were motivated primarily by a desire to promote Christian fundamentalist social views. I'm sure that most of them were also opposed to budget deficits and government regulation of the healthcare market, but economic issues weren't what got them out of bed and to the phone banks on Election Day morning. What happened in the past three months to change their minds?

I'm not entirely sure anything did, by which I mean that I don't think that there's an immense amount of overlap between the vanguards of George W. Bush and those of the Tea Party movement. Rather, I think that what we're seeing now are the fruits of the 07-08 Ron Paul primary campaign. As you may or may not recall, Paul ran for the Republican nomination preaching a sort of crypto-libertarian line against government interventionism, with his signature issue being his opposition to the Iraq War. Being as the Republican primary in its early stages was essentially a three-way argument between McCain, Giuliani, and Romney about who had the most enthusiasm for bombing, torturing, or indefinitely detaining people of Middle Eastern descent, this was, to say the least, an atypical view. However, Paul built a surprisingly vocal grassroots campaign, setting what were at that time (and may still be, although I'm not sure) single-day fundraising records. I think that what we're seeing right now is a devoted core of libertarian-leaning Ron Paul types attracting the 'anybody but Obama crowd' on the more conventional hardcore right behind the artifice of opposing government spending. I doubt this coalition will ever do much besides protest Obama (there are large philosophical differences between libertarianism and modern Republicanism, which are nearly always minimized or ignored by liberal commentators), but the enthusiasm they're showing at present is undeniable.

#3: Attacking their motivations is the best way to discredit them: A large part of the debate over the past week or so has been about whether or not Joe Wilson, the grassroots opposition to Obama, or some combination thereof are motivated by racial animosity. I generally agree with John McWhorter's excellent article on the topic (short summary: probably somewhat, but it's not the key political issue that it's rapidly becoming). Underlying motivations are always complex and ambiguous, and invoking them tends to function better as a litmus test for existing political beliefs than as an argument to the unconvinced. There are very good reasons for the implemented and proposed increases in spending as of late; the stimulus and bailouts were designed to stop the skid of the economy and keep Americans out of soup lines (the jury is still out on how well it's worked, and likely will be for some time now) and healthcare reform is a past-due necessity to curtail the cost of medical care, which has been rising out of all proportion to other expenses for some time now.

Perhaps the best argument of all is simply to state that Obama won the election and is now attempting to do some of those things that he promised to do while he was running. Of course, this is going to engage the ideological opposition and cause some of them to wonder "what happened to my country?" That sentiment was practically running in my head on a tape loop from 2002-2008, and I was hardly alone. If he's successful, his popularity and the popularity of his party will rise or fall based on how well people like the results. And that, rather than the size or fury of protests or accusations of racism, will be the real test.