The 'we-ness of politics'

Harry Boyte makes the case that President Obama has backed away from his message of 'we are all in this together to make change.' Obama's campaign was always about change that cane be made by all but now he has since been about him making changes through government:

On Wednesday night, at the news conference marking the first 100 days of his administration, Obama was asked what he intends to do as the chief shareholder of some of the largest U.S. companies. "I've got two wars I've got to run already," he laughed. "I've got more than enough to do."

The change has partly reflected the administration's adjustment to the fierce pressures of the Washington press corps. As Peter Levine noted as early as December 2006, reporters and pundits assumed that Obama's words about citizenship and involvement "were just throat-clearing." Journalists and pundits constantly demand that he explain what he is going to do to solve the problems facing the country.

But the general citizenry outside of government is not composed of innocent bystanders. In our consumer-oriented society, we too easily assume that government's role is to deliver the goods. Dominant models of civic action, as important as they are -- deliberation, community service, advocacy -- fit into the customer paradigm, as ways to make society more responsive and humane. The older concepts at the heart of productive citizenship -- that democracy is the work of us all, that government is "us," not "them" -- have sharply eroded.