HopeOver, HopeLash, HopeBreak: A Lexicon of Disappointment

Naomi Klein
Huffington Post
Saturday, April 18, 2009

I was a bit concerned about posting my latest column on Huffington Post, for obvious reasons. But I have decided to do it anyway, in the hopes that HuffPo readers will submit additions and modifications to the Lexicon of Disappointment. Or, alternatively, just yell about how wrong I am.

I await the verdict…

All is not well in Obamafanland. It’s not clear exactly what accounts for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from Treasury’s latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president’s chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from reregulation now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama’s silence during Israel’s Gaza attack.

Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.

This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding.

The first stage, however, is to understand fully the awkward in-between space in which many US progressive movements find themselves. To do that, we need a new language, one specific to the Obama moment. Here is a start.

Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn’t really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It’s the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: “When I listened to Obama’s economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I’ve got a serious hopeover.”

Hoper coaster. Like a roller coaster, the hoper coaster describes the intense emotional peaks and valleys of the Obama era, the veering between joy at having a president who supports safe-sex education and despondency that single-payer healthcare is off the table at the very moment when it could actually become a reality. Sample sentence: “I was so psyched when Obama said he is closing Guantánamo. But now they are fighting like mad to make sure the prisoners in Bagram have no legal rights at all. Stop this hoper coaster — I want to get off!”

Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling–usually by exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama decency. Sample sentences: “I was feeling really hopesick about the escalation in Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of Michelle in her organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all over again. A few hours later, when I heard that the Obama administration was boycotting a major UN racism conference, the hopesickness came back hard. So I watched slideshows of Michelle wearing clothes made by ethnically diverse independent fashion designers, and that sort of helped.”

Hope fiend. With hope receding, the hope fiend, like the dope fiend, goes into serious withdrawal, willing to do anything to chase the buzz. (Closely related to hopesickness but more severe, usually affecting middle-aged males.) Sample sentence: “Joe told me he actually believes Obama deliberately brought in Summers so that he would blow the bailout, and then Obama would have the excuse he needs to do what he really wants: nationalize the banks and turn them into credit unions. What a hope fiend!”

Hopebreak. Like the heartbroken lover, the hopebroken Obama-ite is not mad but terribly sad. She projected messianic powers onto Obama and is now inconsolable in her disappointment. Sample sentence: “I really believed Obama would finally force us to confront the legacy of slavery in this country and start a serious national conversation about race. But now he never seems to mention race, and he’s using twisted legal arguments to keep us from even confronting the crimes of the Bush years. Every time I hear him say ‘move forward,’ I’m hopebroken all over again.”

Hopelash. Like a backlash, hopelash is a 180-degree reversal of everything Obama-related. Sufferers were once Obama’s most passionate evangelists. Now they are his angriest critics. Sample sentence: “At least with Bush everyone knew he was an asshole. Now we’ve got the same wars, the same lawless prisons, the same Washington corruption, but everyone is cheering like Stepford wives. It’s time for a full-on hopelash.”

In trying to name these various hope-related ailments, I found myself wondering what the late Studs Terkel would have said about our collective hopeover. He surely would have urged us not to give in to despair. I reached for one of his last books, Hope Dies Last. I didn’t have to read long. The book opens with the words: “Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up.”

And that pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture toward the president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential. The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it — in the factories, neighborhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins, squats and occupations are seeing a resurgence.

Political scientist Sam Gindin wrote recently that the labor movement can do more than protect the status quo. It can demand, for instance, that shuttered auto plants be converted into green-future factories, capable of producing mass-transit vehicles and technology for a renewable energy system. “Being realistic means taking hope out of speeches,” he wrote, “and putting it in the hands of workers.”

Which brings me to the final entry in the lexicon.

Hoperoots. Sample sentence: “It’s time to stop waiting for hope to be handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots.”

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Wow... Interesting read.

I flat dare someone to say Naomi Klein is somekind of right winger.

They should include "Whipped Dog Syndrome" as in a lot of the more rabid Obama supporters now are copiously silent suddenly. Many evade the issues stemming from Obama's decisions and when confronted tuck their tail between their legs and run like their asses were on fire.


Sadly you cannot dig a fallout shelter sufficient to hide one from the upcoming fallout of Obama's wonderful decisions.

Remember Obama's recent comment about the "Pitchforks being real?" Well, like Louis the 14th he is on the top of the mob's most wanted list while his cronies get to hide in the shadows. He may have used that remark to shake up the bankers but in reality it is HIS worst fear because he is the one everyone including his supporters will blame for failure.

Sucks to be him!

Very interesting, as always Warmachine.

Hate to break the news to you, but WM isnt exactly on the side of the right wing. You should have been here to see the things he said about Bush and the Republicans. He had right wingers jumping his **** for months for the things he said. Warmachine is a TRUE independent and make no mistake, when he sees a chance to critisize the right wing, he will do that too.

Viva La Warmachine

Oh NO!

LOL! I don't know if I'm ready for fans! Then again, if I get to be associated with Gordo the dancing Banana...

You're right, I don't think I've strayed from my message, even if those who used to be in my corner have traded in my Proliberty/AntiGlobalism message for one about Obama and Hope...

Well, I think of phrase I've heard off and on, one about taking a crap in one hand and hoping into the other and seeing which fills quicker.

I had a lot of faith that my left leaning friends would have the willpower to see through the brainwashing, but sadly quite a few haven't. I hold out "hope" that they'll come around, but you know what they say about crapping into your hand.

left wingers bash him now...catch 22

Personally I don't care what she is, I like her and some of the things she says that you really can't in all good conscience disagree with such as the article here that I have linked to about the corporate take over of our brains,good article

http://www.commondreams.org/views/092300-103.htm

Though I might not agree with her completely about Obama supporters, simply because I am one but was never a fan of anyone ever. I have to agree that many did have more hope than seemed reasonable to me, but hey expectations crash hard. He is not doing everything the way I thought he was going to, but don't know the reasons why he chose differently in some cases because I am not there, and am no expert.

There are virtues within both sides BUT BUT BUT likewise there is a lot of sin on both sides. Make no mistake, I bash both sides for their failings which are failing us all! I didn't like bush Sr. or Jr. I especially hated Clinton who actually set most of this crap in motion in the first place. They both have plans that only work for them and not us all.

Warmachine just happens to be very well thought out about what he says period. If anyone has the chops for objective journalism he has them.

Me, I try to come from the heart but he Economist inside keeps reigning it back!

I agree. I have watched Warmachine on here for about a year and I have seen how the "rightys" used to go after him. The only reason that changed is that now we have a leftist goverment. But I guarantee that if the shoe was on the other foot, he would be going after the rightist goverment just as hard or harder. I have seen him do it. So dont think that he is on "your" side. Warmachine is neither right nor left

Your stuff is cool, whether I agree or not. I like seeing you branch out a little bit into other topics too (like the UFO stuff).Your ideas and concepts are interesting. You have a consistency to your message that most of us dont have Maybe you have some ideas on religious subjects as well. You're like Jeanniebean. Unique.

I branch out from time to time, I'm not exactly a "Aliens rule the world" type, but I find it hard to believe that all of these stories from thousands of years ago, the pictures, cave drawings and such from all corners of the planet, which somehow all match up, to be just some grand coincidence. Mathematically speaking, the odds are with life existing elsewhere.

I've branched out into religion as well, not often, but a few times when the situation was right, or when someone has brought a thread to my attention.

However, none of those things make me want to educate more than the push for world government, under control of these sick, power mad eugenics loving globalists.

That's really my area for now, either until it gets too hot or until people finally wake the frak up and start holding these demonic freaks accountable for their actions.

D@mn! Now thats a compliment.
Thanks!

"Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

Thomas Jefferson