Hipsters are always impressed by “cool”, and seldom by “substance”. Often they mistake the former for the latter. Obama doesn’t have gravitas, he has eloquence. The first you must earn, the second you can learn. So his “change” mantra was really just an easy, empty rhetorical trope. He needs all the old insiders because he doesn’t have any real friends and has very few long time associates – at least those he can admit to publicly – that he can bring along. Where are Obama’s college friends, co-workers, or relations outside his immediate family?
“We are going to change America”. How, exactly? “Change we can believe in”. What, exactly. Obama is to be commended for comprehending his audience completely. The people he was aiming for are impressionable, easily impressed, and generally devoid of demands or genuine substance if you simply make them feel hip and cool by voting for you. They love image, worship it, must be somehow connected to and a part of it – must draw it and sing about it and wear it on the clothes. No one should blame Obama for his cult. That’s what these people do. They’ll forgive him his Washington insider appointments. They’ll convince themselves, and be convinced, that’s what cool people, people like Barack, do.
