Watching the speech President Obama gave last night on the deficit cum debt ceiling debate, in addition to noticing how tone deaf to the reported state of the negotiations, I was struck by one specific line. While castigating the republicans for seeking to unfairly heap the burdens of deficit reduction on the poor and middle class, he rhetorically asked "How can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don't need and didn't ask for?" (emphasis added).
"People like me," obviously, refers to the "millionaires and billionaires" earning $250,000+ annually, who the President would like to see start to carry an increased tax burden. A curious group for the President to name himself a member of while he tries to rally the support of those well outside that tax bracket. Nor is this the first time that Obama has drawn attention to his own personal affluence: During one of the primary debates back in 2007, he cracked a joke related to his book sales. At the time, it was an amusing and refreshing way to couch the tax argument he was making, lending himself credibility on understanding the personal finances of the wealthy and peremptorily deflecting accusations of class warfare. Almost four years later, the charm and originality has worn off.
Instead of lending credibility, it seems that constantly reminding the American people that he is substantially wealthier than most of them will ever be saps Obama of it. The upper classes with whom he identifies in those moments has, by and large, rejected his entreaties, and considering that he earned his money through activities that don't trickle down much (book writing versus, say, running a sales business), he can't effectively rebut the main argument lodged against his tax position, that it would overly burden job creators. All that's left, then, is a reminder for the average Joe that the President identifies with a different class, feeding into the charges of elitism that have dogged him ever since he first ran for the Presidency.
What makes this approach so mystifying is that the Obama earned much of that money telling the story of how he was once much like the middle class voters he so desperately wants to connect with. He demonstrated during the health care debate that he is capable of drawing upon his own personal narrative to further the cause (even if that narrative might be embellished). Yet on the deficit and the economy, on the issue where he can do the most good for the people he professes to want to help, there he is, constantly reminding the people that he is no longer like them, that he has already risen above their level. But why?
This is an interesting perspective, one I hadn't seem before. My personal interpretation is that the President is attempting to play off of those who try to paint him as an elitist. People who dislike him as president probably do so in part because that is how they see him, as a rich guy who doesn't care. He wants those people to see that he is willing to sacrifice and that he is not going to benefit personally. I think it typically works, otherwise it would get more attention from right wing pundits. You may be correct about the fading originality of the phrasing. But at this point, everyone is used to Obama's speaking style, and turns of the phrase like this are part of that style.
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