By the People: The Election of Barack Obama is a documentary that captures moments behind the scenes during the 2008 campaign and released one year after the recorded events. If you are looking for a time capsule of what it felt like to be in his campaign, this is the movie for you. It is 1 hour 56 minutes, which felt a little too long for my tastes. If you are someone who is energized by remembering what it felt like for all your hard work to pay off, then this movie is a must see. As someone who lived it from a distance, it felt redundant and perhaps a bit too superficial. The film’s purpose is clearly positive and empathetic, not critical or exploratory. There is a palpable sense of hope and energy; however I’m watching it from a bitter perspective—at the beginning of the apocalypse.
Is it too soon to have any historical perspective on Barack Obama’s historic election in 2008? Was he an aberration, a last shining moment before the fall of Rome or a hopeful sign of a nation’s growing maturity only briefly interrupted as the rock of all of America’s sins turned over and all the creatures living underneath it reacted in outrage? I think that it is too soon for me and have resolved to stop watching documentaries about Obama, including The Final Year, until we hopefully emerge from this retrogade era. I find it too dispiriting.
I am obsessed by a silent question that I ask myself. Was it worth it? Which would you choose: Obama not winning, and Presidon’t never entering office or Obama winning and kakistocracy emerging subsequently? I’m not claiming that my response is the correct one, but with the gift of hindsight, I would choose the first: incremental positive change instead of an overwhelming, regressive backlash that may lead to the Earth dying sooner. I would choose an easier life for the Obamas than they chose for themselves. I would not wish what they undeservedly had to endure, punishment for being young, gifted and black, on anyone. I want them to live their best lives as far from us as possible. They did their job. I want to live in a world that at least gives the veneer of competence and caring about their constituents.
On the other hand, there are others who would answer differently. I don’t think they are wrong. By the People: The Election of Barack Obama reminds us what it was like to have intelligent, diverse people holding seats of power and accomplishing a lot despite incredible roadblocks. It shows us what is possible. It was great to see the Obamas at their Chicago home or his sister.
There is one inadvertently chilling moment in By the People: The Election of Barack Obama. After winning, a black woman security guard tries to substantively engage David Axelrod about what is on the agenda for the next four years. He understandably brushes aside her question, “I’m just trying to celebrate tonight.” The fact that the Obama administration was able to not only hold back oblivion and improve the world, but make it look so easy that most people on either side of the political divide took it for granted that anyone can do it proves that Axelrod could have answered that question. The real issue is not doing the work, but aggressively taking credit for it and making sure that the people understood it. Many would not have cared even if they did succeed, but the gap between what they accomplished and what people believe that they achieved is a failure in messaging that the campaign did not suffer from, but the administration did.
It is not fair that people can misjudge, blame then give credit to someone else for your work. It is galling. By the People: The Election of Barack Obama shows that when hope becomes reality, it is important to not lose the people on the ground in carrying out your work. Show the work.