January 17 promises to be a landmark occasion in the long, proud history of German cabaret musicals examining the role of African-American politicians and their wives in U.S. presidential elections, so you can imagine our frustration that deadlines prevent us from seeing Hope!—the Obama Musical Story before writing this brief notice. The show premieres in a concert hall in far-off Frankfurt, but the website (www.hope-musical.com) gives the curious a good, stiff taste of what that magical evening will entail.
Randall Hitchins, the composer of Hope, says he “had the idea [for the musical] during the presidential campaign,” making it one of the few genuine ideas to be associated with Obama’s run for the presidency, and the only one to have borne fruit. Hitchins began by composing a single song. It was called, as if you couldn’t guess, “Yes, We Can.” He found himself so swept up in emotion and joy that he decided to give it the full Rodgers and Hammerstein.
He set his show in a boarding house in Chicago. As the website explains, “Seeing through the eyes of the inhabitants in an apartment-sharing community, we experience the American society which is distressed by the prevailing economical-political chaos, lost in social helplessness—disoriented.”
Disoriented seems to be the right word. Among the “dazzling characters” are “the Puerto Rican Ricardo”—Germans think all Puerto Ricans are named Ricardo—“who has had enough of politics.” (We know the -feeling.) Also there’s “the ultra-conservative widow Mrs. Shultz of German origin”—ultra-conservative German must be a euphemism for something—and a political activist named Elaine, and John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Hillary Clinton, who, from what we can see on the website video, belts out a Liza Minelli showstopper called “I Will be Ready on Day One.” Then Mr. and Mrs. Obama arrive to heave Dreamgirls-style love songs at one another until they finally “succeed in enthusing and thrilling all people from different cultures, religions, or skin colors.” (Make ours magenta!)
With little drums attached to each seat in the theater, the show is meant to be interactive, relying on heavy audience participation. This is what the Obama administration was supposed to do, too, before its audience turned against it. The musical-lovers in Germany—birthplace of Sturm und Drang, after all, and much else—will be more kindly disposed. It’s good to know that there’s one spot in the world where the dream has yet to die.
Collins’s Rant
THE SCRAPBOOK has a confession to make. When pondering certain principles of democratic governance, we do not ordinarily turn to the writings of Gail Collins for guidance. Collins, who was briefly editorial page editor of the New York Times and now writes a column for the Times’s op-ed page, is sadly symbolic of the general quality of her surroundings, fodder for comic relief more than political insight. Not for nothing has she been described as “Maureen Dowd Lite.”
But one of her eruptions last week did remind us of a fundamental notion of our system of checks and balances. Distressed at the thought that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts might fail to return a Democrat to the Senate, and that the rush to Obama-care might therefore be slowed down, she complained that “all it takes to stop legislation is one guy plus 40 senators representing 10.2 percent of the country.”
Got that—all you good-for-nothing, underpopulated states? “Think about what we went through to elect a new president,” writes Collins. “A year and a half of campaigning, three dozen debates, $1.6 billion in donations. Then the voters sent a clear, unmistakable message. Which can be totally ignored because of a parliamentary rule that allows the representatives of slightly more than 10 percent of the population to call the shots.”
Collins exaggerates, of course. Yet in her self-described “rant” she not only reveals the authoritarian impulse that is never far below the surface on the left, but a fundamental pitfall of representative democracy that has concerned observers as diverse as James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Lani Guinier: the tyranny of the majority. Writing to Thomas Jefferson during the Constitutional Convention, Madison asked a pertinent question: When “a majority, united by a common interest or a passion cannot be constrained from oppressing the minority, what remedy can be found?”
In THE SCRAPBOOK’s considered opinion, you cannot do much better than Gail Collins’s churlish complaint to illustrate the tyranny of the majority. We went to a lot of trouble to elect Barack Obama, she says; on Election Day we sent you guys a clear, unambiguous message. And now you representatives of smaller states and minority parties dare to stand in our way and demand public debate and accountability?
To be sure, THE SCRAPBOOK does not expect Collins to comprehend these finer points of political theory, or recognize how her triumphalist tone must sound to American ears. But she underlines, in her artless way, the genius of the American system—of limited government, checks and balances, divided power, and consent of the governed. The system doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to, of course; but it’s a system that, at its best, acknowledges we are a country composed of 50 very different states, self-governing in a spirit of forbearance and compromise. Or as Madison expressed his hope to Jefferson: With enough “different interests and parties . . . no common interest or passion will be likely to unite a majority of the whole number in an unjust pursuit.”
Sentences We Didn’t Finish
“While Rove conveniently ignores that it was President Bush—not Obama—who signed into law the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout for banks, the Obama administration’s rigorous stewardship added transparency and . . .” (“What Karl Rove Got Wrong on the U.S. Deficit,” by David -Axelrod, Washington Post, January 15).
The Devil and Haiti
Televangelist Pat Robertson has a theory to explain the destruction in Haiti. Two hundred years ago, “They were under the heel of the French,” he explained last week, “and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ ”
“True story,” Robertson added (for some reason). “And the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ . . . Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another.”
THE SCRAPBOOK brings this up not to pile on Robertson, who has been justly and roundly condemned for his jejune theological speculations. Rather, we want to note that his is not the only devil-theory floating around.
Danny Glover, the left-wing actor, and henceforth THE SCRAPBOOK’s go-to expert on natural disasters, explained that “What happened in Haiti could happen to anywhere in the Caribbean because all these island nations are in peril because of global warming. . . . When we did what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m saying? We have to act now.” Next time, listen to Al Gore!
Oh, and then there’s that favorite devil of the American left, George W. Bush, who while presumably not responsible for the plate tectonics under Haiti, must be blameworthy for something. Sure enough, Mother Jones weighed in with the goods on “How Bush-Cheney Policy Screwed Haiti”:
In the aftermath of September 11 and the Bush administration’s numerous adventures around the world, Haiti returned to its usual state of invisibility in Western eyes. Few people noticed a remarkable report that appeared in the New York Times in 2006, based in part on the analysis of former ambassador Brian Dean Curran, showing how US policy helped to destabilize Haiti in the years leading up to 2004. . . . For the most part, Europe and the United States have continued to sit by as Haiti has grown poorer and poorer. . . . It is hard to imagine what a magnitude 7 earthquake might do to a city that on any ordinary day already resembles a disaster area.
Like the devil’s, the Bush curse just keeps on keeping on.
Whatever Happened to Equality?
One of the great buzzwords of the Obamacare P.R. campaign used to be “equality.” Here’s a random press release from last March:
More than 20 major labor, community, health, civil rights, social justice, and faith organizations gathered in Washington today to kick off a major coalition campaign, the Healthcare Equality Project, to fight healthcare disparities. . . . The Healthcare Equality Project is fighting for healthcare that works for EVERYONE.
Oh, right. The latest behind-closed-doors Obamacare deal will make a few exceptions to the Senate’s 40 percent tax on so-called Cadillac health care plans. The Washington Post reports: “Plans with significant numbers of women or older workers would receive an additional break, as would workers in high-cost states and high-risk professions. . . . [Union] workers with collective-bargaining agreements and government employers would be exempt until 2018.”
Turns out, some people are more equal than others.
Help Wanted
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