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Vice Blog

LONDON - VICE ADVICE. Q. WHEN SHOULD I START HATING ON OBAMA?

He's made a name as a populist rabble-rouser, with slogans like ‚ÄòYes We Can’ and ‚ÄòFuck Plumbers!’. But now, the time has come to convert those dreams into reality. And so with a moronic inevitability will come the backlash and as the ship of dreams is dashed against the rocks of reality the bullion of hope will sink to the bottom of the sea of more dreams. We all know it’s coming, so to remain fashionable, you must choose you’re moment of treachery to occur a millisecond before everyone else. Observe:
10:59:59 AM: You denounce the 44th President.
11:00:00AM  Barack Obama flies a hijacked plane into the Empire State Building.

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Maybe it won't be so definite, but it is going to happen. Here's why. Traditionally, Presidents have been elected on the basis of graft. You sell your soul to big companies. Then you pay back their campaign contributions by passing laws in favour of lowering VAT on monkeys for scientific experiments. Contrary to this, Obama raised a lot of low-cap money on the internet. Now, he's going to have to graft it back to 100 000 people, not just the three branches of the military-industrial complex. So expect a lot of presidential support for bringing back Buffy and reverting to the old Facebook.  That's going to piss off the people who like the new Facebook or preferred Angel. He's going to have to do six contradictory things before breakfast. That's going to make him very tired. He'll get cranky when he's touring kindergartens and fall asleep when meeting the Queen. No good.

The more immediate danger, though, is that on the left his support has already reached saturation. Now, any growth will come from the right: if he gets any more popular, he's screwed. When Garth Brooks backs Obama the jig is up, because everyone knows that people wearing Stetsons should only be allowed to vote if it's in a referendum about beef jerky and no one ever wants to be seen agreeing with them. The political cycle will trundle hopelessly on and the media will start to switch sides, just to spice things up.

Here's BO's projected media life-cycle in outline. Year One: 'Honeymoon Period'. Characterised by a cult of personality and a soap-opera fixation on the domestic. President buys dog and the papers go mad. Everything is spun as good. If he takes his wife to McDonalds for their anniversary he's a real down-to-earth American. If he kills an elk, he's a real outdoorsman. If he nukes Korea, he's a real decisive leader.
Year Two: Like any love affair, characterised by a blithe, benign loss of interest. American TV interupts a major foreign policy statement to bring the breaking news that Samantha Ronson has dumped LiLo. He brings peace to the Middle East and America wonders whether he's putting on weight.
Year Three: A few broken promises simmer into resentment at the pace of change. This reaches a peak when John McCain passes away peacefully in his sleep at the wheel of a speeding Buick. World dignitaries flock to his funeral. Newspapers produce complex projections of what McCain would have done differently, and why it would have been better than the mess America's still in.
Year Four: The ultimate problem is not the feasibility of a black American president; it is going to be the oversupply of stock jokes from black American stand-up comedians on US television. "A brother in the White House? Man, he gon' have his whole block livin there soon…" etc etc etc. Insert own reference to KFC here. After a few years of these gormless witterings, the entire country will go spare, and there'll be a popular uprising against him.

Don't panic. First off, it's important to realise that it was always slightly unfashionable to like Obama. Remember: for every Scarlet Johansen, there are ten million douchebag college students who've transferred their allegiance direct from Death Cab For Cutie. These people think Will Sheff is a poet. What do they know?

So; when should you start hating on Obama? To stay ahead of the Jones', soon.

GAVIN HAYNES