When friends and I talk about politics these days, the discussions often end at an expression of simple awe at what Barack Obama been able to accomplish over the course of this presidential race.
They end there, in part, because of a lack of words to describe what has happened. Because, when you step back and look at Obama's achievements, and consider them in the context of not just the last eight years but also in the context of more than 230 years of American history, it can be hard to describe how big what's occured, and what's probably coming, feels.
The other day, during one of these awe-stopped conversations, I found myself wondering, when we ran out of words, whether this was simply because we were seeing the emergence of something none of us had experienced in our lifetimes, but had heard a lot about: the arrival of a Great Man.
All of us in the conversation were under 32. We belong to a generation that not only hasn't experienced leadership by any Great Men (or Women), but is somewhat predisposed not to believe in the Great Man Theory of history anyway. We're taught that the world is complicated, post-modern, maybe even sub-altern. That the locus of power is hard to find, and probably not singular. That the heroic journey of the individual and the master narrative are a bit old-fashioned.
But Obama is making all of that old stuff feel new, or at least newly relevant. Which is leading me these days to fall back on Great Man Theory in conversation, because how else to describe him, what he's accomplished, and what he seems poised to do for the Democratic party and this country?
If all of this sounds a bit starry-eyed, perhaps even "in the tank" or straight up wrong-headed, here's an alternate take. Over at the American Prospect, Ezra Klein gets out in front of me and my friends and our conversations, and attempts to shoot down the idea that Great Men, even if they do exist, matter all that much when it comes to Big Change:
The "great man" theory of the presidency is not convenient when it comes to actually creating change. Again and again, presidents disappoint. They fail to pass health-care reform or Social Security privatization. They don't ease partisanship or break through gridlock. They prove impotent in the face of immediate crises and leave long-term challenges to fester. And so we tire of them, resolving to replace them with more presidents. Better presidents. Presidents of the other party, or of the same party, or of no party at all. Businessmen like Mike Bloomberg, insurgents like Ralph Nader, charismatic leaders like Barack Obama, self-professed mavericks like John McCain.
Executive leadership is important, of course, but the continual failure of our presidents should be lesson enough that it is not sufficient. The executive is but one actor in a sprawling drama.
Read the whole, theory-puncturing piece here.