Obama's Fake Empire

There's a history of conflicted concerns, betrayal of intent and unlikely bedfellows when it comes to using popular music for political campaigns. The most obvious case was Reagan's use of “Born in the U.S.A.” for his campaign for second term in 1984; Bruce Springsteen mocked him by pointing out at a concert that the President had probably never heard Nebraska.

It set a precedent for presidential and primary nominees, typically Republicans, using or appropriating rock stars and their music without asking. George W. Bush's first campaign found him almost sued by Tom Petty for trying to use his song “I Won't Back Down”, and in the last election both John Mellencamp (whose “Our Country” was used by John McCain) and Tom Scholz of Boston (whose “More Than A Feeling” was used by Mike Huckabee) kindly asked the Republican candidates to stop using their music. This from artists never known for outspoken politics.

But it also set a precedent for politicians not really paying attention to where these would-be campaign songs' sentiment lay. The gulf between what Reagan thought “Born in the U.S.A.” represented and the story it told lyrically -- “Born down in a dead man's town/The first kick I took was when I hit the ground” -- is enormous in a way satire could only hint at. In Obama's case, he didn't jack the song – The National, along with a slew of other indie and mainstream artists, actively supported his campaign – but did he really intend to empathize with the conceit of “Fake Empire”? What exactly is he trying to say using a song with that title anyway?

Of course, just as Reagan was only interested in taking that fist-pumping chorus from “Born in the U.S.A.” -- a passionate but vague repetition of the title, whose irony could easily be recontextualized as xenophobia/un-complicated patriotism – Obama's heart-wrenching campaign video used a purely instrumental version of “Fake Empire”. Like much of Obama's campaign, it emphasizes his grassroots support, showing people across America holding signs reading “Hope” and “Change”, and probably most encouragingly, a party member saying “I don't want a nation just for me, I want a nation for everybody”. In its instrumental form “Fake Empire” really does seem to take on these almost absurdly optimistic connotations; with its sustained full piano chords and sharp drum fills it perfectly captures a nation brimming with expectation. In this context, it's hard to ignore the similar taut snare and piano that opens “Born in the U.S.A.”.

You can't blame Obama for altering the song: no doubt even the most radical politican would shy away from lyrics like “We're half awake in our fake empire”. But just because the lyrics aren't used explicitly, doesn't mean they're not there, especially if we're to believe that Indie Rock and all its affiliates had a substantial part in getting Obama into the White House. In this sense, Obama isn't just using a song but (consciously or not) everything that it represents.

The National also designed a t-shirt with a picture of Obama's face and the words “Mr. November” -- another of the band's songs heavy on irony. In fact, both “Mr. November” and “Fake Empire” perfectly encapsulate the band's lyrical themes of fighting alienation with a forced sense of self-importance and command over one's environment, and the insincerity of wearing the costume of respect and middle-class sucess (“Showered and blue blazered/Fill yourself with quarters; “In my best clothes/This is when I need you”).

But if both “Fake Empire” and “Born in the U.S.A.” are emblematic of songs whose cynical point of view can be downplayed by shifting the focus towards their sense of urgency, there's also a huge difference between what they represent. Springsteen equally rejected Reagan's Democratic challenger Walter Mondale in his attempts to claim Springsteen's endorsement. The reality may have had less to do with Springsteen's political affiliations and more to do with the underhanded way both parties tried to ride the coattails of his massive success, but the point is that the song was an expression of working class angst. Its seething bitterness hardly belongs in any political campaign with an ounce of integrity.

In contrast, The National were active in the election, and on closer inspection their music is less from the perspective of an outsider than a somewhat reluctant participant. The song also features the line “Let's not try to figure out everything at once”, an admirably pragmatic philosophy. In reference to The National's “Mr. November” t-shirts, one writer pointed out that the narrator to the song is “searching for an identity”, and that the shirt is a “subtle way of insinuating that Obama’s [sic] provides a haven for such searchers”.

The idea that Obama has stirred up voters who were previously apathetic towards politics is an overused maxim. It might be more accurate to say that he's the first presidential candidate in some time that many people inside and outside of America feel could actually affect change. Here it's less an issue of apathy than it is complacency: while the former suggests un-educated Americans who are unaware of the stakes of their vote, the latter suggests people who are keen enough to notice America's two-sides-of-the-same-coin-politics. Whether or not Obama is actually primed to be that alternative is up for debate, but the point seems to be -- as many reviewers have noted over and over again -- that people believe him to be.

Here we have a rather interesting conundrum, though one rather suited for American politics: does a President automatically become what the public expects him to be? It would obviously be naive to expect that he does entirely, considering the degree to which advisors and lobbyists form a buffer zone between the administration and the general public, but there's no doubt that grassroots organizations play a more important role in American politics than say, Canadian politics; a distinction that has less to do with left-wing versus right-wing than top-down versus bottom-up.

Furthermore, this concept is ingrained into Obama's campaign, particularly with his encouragement of advisors who “disagree with him”. When we get past the whole messianic, “Great Man” theory aspect of Obama, it's apparent that his existence as the next president has almost been willed into being by America's (and the world's) exasperation with impenetrable, self-serving regimes (and yes, “regime” is the right word). Fittingly, in an age of shifting, uncertain identities, Obama is the first American president who exists in the abstract. This can be seen from two very different perspectives: one which suggests Obama embraces lofty concepts like “hope” and “change” as a way of avoiding concrete political issues (a hard sell considering Obama seemed to have a more specific platform than McCain) or of emotionally manipulating the voting public (cynical but slightly more credible), the other which sees these concepts as evidence of his shifting the playing field away from the moral and political scruples of an elite minority.

Either way, if there's cause for hope it's in the fact that Obama seems to present a great deal of malleability; one that, with any luck, goes beyond the self-interest of the political pundits closest to him. George W. Bush has spent so much of his second term systematically destroying his reputation that it's easy to forget that he was elected twice based on exuding confidence, certainty, even bravado. Obama will take his place just at a time when his blind policies have failed not only abroad, but finally at home. The mess left Obama is far from lost on the president-elect, and so his confidence is of a very different sort; tentative, pragmatic. While Bush commanded just the kind of respect that The National question in their lyrics, Obama commands attention and participation. From this perspective it's not hard to see how the narrator of “Fake Empire”'s declaration of “Let's not try to figure out everything at once” could actually provide a realistic aphorism for the new administration.

At the climax of the “Fake Empire” campaign video, we hear Obama's voice declaring the start of the “next chapter of American history”, with “words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: yes we can”. It's easy to be cynical of the speech, especially as a non-American, but there's almost a sense of desperation in his voice; pushing himself to say the words because he knows the country will only change if people feel empowered. Whether he likes it or not, Obama speaks for everyone, including the reluctant, the cynical and the disenchanted.