This image was one of the more ridiculous examples of corporate media’s role in placing Obama’s presidency within right-wing and neoliberal narrative frames. The illustration accompanied Jon Meacham’s much contested Newsweek cover article which asserted the difficulty of governing as a liberal in a (supposedly) predominantly conservative America. Here, the myth of the silent majority continues to be wielded as an ideological weapon against liberalism. Published several weeks before the November 4 general election, Newsweek had already anointed Obama president elect and began visually framing his coming presidency as “ideologically centrist.” “Pragmatic” has sense replaced centrism as the narrative du jour among the elite Washington press corps.
Thomas Frank’s WSJ column (h/t David Sirota) lays bare the underlying motivation behind non-ideological centrism and pragmatism in its contemporary context:
“The real-world function of Beltway centrism has not been to wage high-minded war against “both extremes” but to fight specifically against the economic and foreign policies of liberalism…And centrism’s achievements? Well, there’s Nafta, which proved Democrats could stand up to labor. There’s the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. There’s the Iraq war resolution, approved by numerous Democrats in brave defiance of their party’s left.”
The image is even more problematic as Obama, with his back to the viewer, is presented as an unknown quality who must triangulate between Nixon and Reagan. That’s quite some center.
Take these two covers of Time as exhibits b and c. In 2006 (shown left), after very significant Democratic Congressional victories, “the center is the place to be.” On the right is a not-so-subtle representation of the 1994 Gingrich lead “Republican revolution.” Here, no caption was needed.
Today, as the world eagerly awaits the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United State, these images reminded me of the deeply contested power plays which are embedded throughout visual political culture.
Of course, mainstream media are not the only actors vested in framing Obama’s presidency. Although publications like Time and Newsweek contribute significantly to political visual discourses in both physical and virtual public spaces, other social and political actors contest these narratives and offer their own counter-frames. Obama himself has played a large role in presenting himself as a pragmatic post-partisan centrist. But it is difficult to read Obama’s own visual communication as he is often simultaneously framed within various, often competing narrative traditions.
Robert Hariman, co-author of one of the seminal books on the role of Iconic photography in democratic culture, has an interesting related post from yesterday (cp’d at BNN) titled, Visual Histories: Framing the Obama Presidency. He begins by examining “the insertion of Obama into one of the stock scenes of the visual history of the Kennedy presidency.”
The presidential inauguration is a time of new beginnings, but it cannot avoid comparisons with the past. Indeed, a time of transition places a special premium on the past. Speech writers, pundits, retailers, and ordinary citizens have been trying out various comparisons and narratives to place the historic event in its proper perspective. This attempt to make sense of collective life includes notable images as well.
This practice can be seen through the numerous placements of Obama in the context of previous presidents also including Reagan, like the image above, Clinton, FDR and most often Lincoln. But it was the final image that Hariman discusses which provides many timeless metaphors about American political and cultural renewal, appropriate to the historic moment of today. Whatever ideology ultimately guides Obama’s presidency, there is also one undeniable and very significant difference between this image and its historical counterparts:
“Renewing America’s Promise at the back of a railroad car is nothing less than a commitment to using whatever works to sustain American democracy. All this is possible, of course, because the black man at the back of the train will be the president, not the porter. Now that the oppression that also was part of that old order can be discarded, renewal through restoration can begin.”
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