Counterfeit Messiah

“Is there anyone out there who still questions that America is the land where all things are possible, that the dream of our founders is alive in our time?”
--Barack Obama

Watching the respective speeches of Barack Obama and John McCain on election night, one thing was unmistakably clear: the best man won. Obama is not the corrupt, America-hating “subhuman” demon that certain Objectivist spokesmen claimed him to be; he is, if nothing else, an extraordinary human being, a born leader with a singularly powerful and eloquent voice. His speech told of the glorious vision of America’s founders and how this day gave further demonstration of their revolutionary grasp of human potential, of how there are few limits to what free individuals can achieve, regardless of barriers and limitations. He spoke of individual liberty and of his love for the hope America presents to the world. He was strong, bold, and confident, painting a Reagan-esque portrait of the contrast between where we are now and what America can be and ought to be.

McCain’s concession speech was a typically vacuous, boring, rambling epitaph for his erratic, losing campaign, a last plea for sympathy from a clueless, self-important windbag who felt the need to assure America that they should be thankful he will not be delivering further such tortuous diatribes over the next four years. “I don’t know what we could have done different to win this campaign,” he said. Try offering America something other than traditionalist bromides, socialistic bail-outs and Bible-thumping Republican Barbie dolls.

In terms of basic ideas, there is almost no meaningful difference between Obama and McCain. It is Obama’s charisma, presence and personality that set him apart. His vapid, worn-out ideas are hopelessly impractical and destructive—but so were McCain’s. Obama is nothing more than a symbol—a beacon of hope and promise for an obscure, undefined future. His campaign theme of “fundamental change” is essentially meaningless, but it can serve as a point of departure, as a rallying cry for those who recognize that it is truly time to rethink the ideas and values—the disastrous contradictions-- that led us to our present state of chaos, and to adopt a radically new philosophical framework, one that is truly consistent with the Enlightenment vision of America’s founders. That is, a philosophy of reason, individual rights and free market capitalism.

Obama is not the leader we need for the future. But his anti-Republican campaign was the clarion call of the demand for such a leader, and underscored the crucial importance of making a clean break with our nation’s recent cultural-political trends. Religion and religious morality have been profoundly repudiated, leaving a philosophical void we must try our best to fill. Obama is a counterfeit Messiah, a brilliant voice who must devote his youthful energies to camouflaging the embarrassing truth that he offers nothing new, that all the ‘solutions’ he proposes have been tried and failed, over and over again.

That void will soon become apparent. It is the task of Objectivists to expose that void, as clearly as possible, and to spell out a truly rational alternative.