Book Review: The Audacity of Hope

Our most recent book club book was The Audacity of Hope.  We actually just had our cross-continental meeting about it today, and at the beginning I felt the need to warn Farrah (the newest member of our book club who worked for a think tank while she was getting a masters in some sort of international politics degree) that this book club might not be quite as intellectual as she is hoping.  Our book club (over 2 years running!) meetings usually include about 10-20 minutes of book review and discussion and then 40 minutes of girl talk.  When we were scheduling the meeting, Farrah was concerned that she had a hard stop an hour after the start of our meeting.  Oh Farrah, you need not worry!

Anyway, back to the book.  For anyone who hasn’t read The Audacity of Hope, I highly recommend it!  Regardless of your political affiliations, I think it’s interesting and useful to know the standings of our President-Elect. 

Before reading the book, I was already an Obama fan.  I voted for him for three main reasons:

1) He inspires people, which I think our country needs right now (as evidence, see record voter turn out statistics)

2) He comes across as well-spoken and fair, which I think our world needs right now (I’ve always thought that if G. W. Bush worked for my company, we wouldn’t be able to put him in front of a client because, regardless of whatever intelligence he may or may not have, he sounds like an idiot)

3)    The Republicans have effed everything up for 8 years and someone else should have a shot at it, for better or for worse

After reading the book, I went from liking and respecting Obama to loving Obama.  Being fairly moderate in my political beliefs, I was relieved to find that most of Obama’s standings are fairly moderate as well.  Even more relieving, he seems to genuinely consider any counter-arguments to his platforms.  There were several stories he shared in the book about times he encountered people with very different beliefs than his.  Each time he considered their stories and input and recalled them in the future when making decisions.

One of my favorite quotes of the book is actually Obama quoting Warren Buffett:

The free market’s the best mechanism ever devised to put resources to their most efficient and productive use.  The government isn’t particularly good at that.  But the market isn’t so good at making sure that the wealth that’s produced is being distributed fairly or wisely.  Some of that wealth has to be plowed back into education, so that the next generation has a fair chance, and to maintain our infrastructure, and provide some sort of safety net for those who lose out in a market economy.  And it just makes sense that those of us who’ve benefited most from the market should pay a bigger share.  *

Another point that ties in with this and wasn’t explicitly stated in the book, but was somewhat of an underlying theme, is that something needs to be done to keep our middle class afloat.  Over the past decades, we’ve seen a shrinking middle class and growing lower class.  It’s become increasingly harder for a single-working-person family to make ends meet.  I think the middle class is the stabilization of our economy.  A strong middle class means lots of discretionary income.  Discretionary income also gives people a bit of cushion between the ups and downs in life, a little bit of padding to try something new and think outside of the box.  While I don’t think the answer is to completely stop moving certain types of jobs overseas (globalization is here, there’s no stopping it – we can choose to change our businesses accordingly and stay competitive, or our businesses can all die a slow death), I do think that the circumstances can be made better for the employees losing their jobs.  The companies and/or government can offer a stronger safety net, retrain employees for a different type of job with equal pay.  During our book club meeting, Rose had a great example of this.  Her dad’s hometown used to be a factory town, but then the factory closed.  Lots of years later, Dole has opened a food processing plant there, reusing some of the same factory buildings and employing the aid of nearby universities to do research.  Granted there was a big time gap in this example, but it wouldn’t have to be that way.

Anyway, I could go on forever, but I’m tired!  Moral of this very long post is: Obama sure has his work cut out for him!  But honestly I think he’s just the man for the job.  There were a few times in the book when Obama referenced meeting people around Illinois and on occasion people would say to him in more or less words, “Please don’t let us down.”  I think 60% of the people in the country are holding their breath, thinking the same thing.  The stakes are too high.  Please don’t let us down.

*Most right-wing people don't like this idea of wealth redistribution.  I certainly would agree that there have to be 'incentives' for succeeding in the market economy.  However most of those right-wing people also claim to be Christians, so I would like to remind them of the following:

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." -Luke 12:48