To dream and vote the impossible dream

Just under 30 years ago, a young Columbia undergraduate was reading the Spec on the steps outside Low Library. Because the year was 1981, the opinion column may have been on the decline of newly elected President Ronald Reagan’s overwhelming campaign popularity. Thirty years later, the former undergrad, President Barack Obama, inspired one of the largest groundswells of popular interest in American politics. However, Obama’s popularity, similar to Reagan’s, is on a downward spiral.

Two years ago, our country was in the midst of Obama-mania. Barack Obama the Candidate was a prophet who would usher our embattled country into a golden age. Everyone from the media to the independent voters loved him. He gained the most votes for a presidential candidate in United States history. He even mobilized a demographic that historically has the lowest turnout in every election: the youth. Many analysts say that the under-40 vote won him the election in 2008. Two years later, the honeymoon is over. Candidate Obama is a distant memory. Now we have President Obama, a vastly less popular figure. Obama has gone from one of the most popular politicians in history to a figure with little support and confidence from the public. His base has become disillusioned.

Obama was a master at blending in and connecting to a wide array of people from all walks of life, something that didn’t carry over to his presidency. Numerous times, Obama has tried to be receptive to Republican ideas, and just as many times, the Republicans have rejected the olive branch. He even watered down his trademark bills, the first stimulus and then health care, to appease the Republicans. They still roundly rejected all cooperation, making it appear that the Democrats aren’t accomplishing anything.

Furthermore, Obama was a visionary as a campaigner, but a mere legislator as president. If his campaign slogans were “hope” and “Yes We Can,” then his governing slogans are “pragmatism” and “Yes We Can do things incrementally, if acceptable to all parties.”

On the other hand, maybe Obama’s success was never within his control. His electrified base is a skeleton of its former self. There was so much optimism that it’s impossible to believe that America has declared his dream dead so quickly. We have to put aside Obama’s actual performance as president to understand the key issue at work: Americans, and specifically young Americans, have unrealistic expectations. America’s government is slow and laborious. Even if Obama had all the answers, he never would’ve been able to turn all these ideas into concrete laws.

The campaign system is built on unrealistic boasts—false promises that rarely even become a semblance of legislation. In 2008, the youth supported Obama unlike any politician in recent history. Normally, our generation and age demographic views politicians with scorn. In 2008, for whatever reason, we believed. We believed that the change Obama spoke of wasn’t just a campaign tactic conceived by his advisors. Our backpacks and walls were adorned with “Yes We Can” pins and posters. We helped the grassroots campaign and voted in record numbers. In 2008, we believed in Obama’s impossible dream of change and prosperity.

Over the past two years, our hope changed to impatience, which settled once again into apathy. Although an enormous amount has been accomplished over the past two years, this hasn’t been apparent to the American voter. Obama’s base, and specifically his young supporters, have lost sense of their goal. Change is not instantaneous; it takes time and effort. This November, everything Obama’s supporters fought so hard for will be lost. The people are still there—they’ve just given up, even though the fight is far from over. If there’s any lesson to be taken from this, it’s that we need to keep voting. It doesn’t matter for whom—all that matters is that, as proven in 2008, the youth vote makes a difference. Apathy accomplishes absolutely nothing.

The authors are Columbia College first-years.