Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest Owen Symes. Owen is a social historian, political activist and author of He Was Our Man in Washington: A History of the Obama Years.

Good day Owen and thanks for taking part in our interview.

Norm: Please tell our readers a little bit about your personal and professional background. How was it that you decided to become a historian?

Owen: I've been interested in history for as long as I can remember - my dad named my favorite stuffed animal (an elephant) "Hannibal" after the Carthaginian general who fought Rome, so I suspect his general interest in the past transmitted to me as well. I grew up upper-middle-class in northeastern PA, outside Scranton, and spent most of my youth engrossed in typical nerd stuff: Star Trek, Magic: the Gathering cards, etc.

I received a BA in history from Hillsdale College (in Michigan), but, unsure what to do upon graduating, since typical post-college pursuits like law school or politics didn't interest me, I took whatever jobs came my way: psychiatric technician, retail worker, PC repair, call center supervisor.

I never stopped reading or studying history, though, and when the 2016 election happened I decided to devote my time to understanding our recent past, trying to figure out how the country had gotten to the point of electing a reality TV star to our highest office. 

Norm: In terms of your development as a historian who would you say your influences were?

Owen: In high school my dad gave me the book Bomber Command by Max Hastings, saying that one of the duties of a good historian was to make the reader consider their subject from a new angle.

In college, I was very influenced by the writing style of Edward Gibbon and Winston Churchill, the analytical provocation of Rousseau and Foucault, and the way RG Collingwood wrote about the study of history itself.

Since then, I've been heavily influenced by historians that break from the more traditional focus on politics and war, like Will Durant and WEB DuBois, not to mention the great precursors to modern sociology like Ibn Khaldun and Montesquieu.  

Norm: Why do Kids know less about history now—and why does it matter?

Owen: "Knowing less" is hard to quantify - I think it's correct to say that most people in the US are provided a historical education that focuses on a particular narrative: that the US is a "city on a hill," conceived in liberty, and carrying that precios fire, maybe with an occasional stumble, to the four corners of the earth.

I can't fault this for being a story - all history, we should remember, is narrative, a story told with facts that are selected from an infinite mass of information; but I do think that this particular story is factually inaccurate, it leaves out too much information (about slavery, about Indian genocide, about segregation, about capitalism) for it to be legitimate.

This story serves those already in power, and so it's the story that gets told more often than not. This matters because our understanding of the past shapes how we understand the present and plan for the future. If we misunderstand our own history, that warps our understanding of who has power in the present, who our political enemies and allies are, and thus leaves us prey to some pretty dangerous ideological movements.

Norm: When did the idea for He Was Our Man in Washington: A History of the Obama Years, first emerge? As a follow up, why did you choose this title?

Owen: It emerged in the wake of the 2016 election - I was apolitical for most of Obama's years in office, so I didn't pay much attention to current events; Trump's victory thus confused me and I went looking for answers, figuring the best place to start was in the administration of the guy who came before Trump.

That led me to delve deeper into US history, as I tried to contextualize the Obama years (the fight against ISIS led back to Bush's invasion of Iraq, led back to the Gulf War, to our alliance with Saudi Arabia, etc.).

At the same time, everyone was talking about Trump, and since no one else seemed to be making the effort, I thought I'd try my hand at writing about Obama. The title comes from a quote from a financial executive, thankful that he had an ally in the White House; I thought it spoke volumes about the true nature of the Obama presidency. 

Norm: What purpose do you believe your book serves? What would you say is the best reason to recommend someone to read your book? What matters to you about the book?

Owen: The purpose of this book is to illuminate recent history so that people will better understand the world around them, why people did what they did, do what they do, and how they might act in the future. Without a firm grounding in history, we get political disasters like the 2003 invasion of Iraq or the election of Donald Trump - or the quixotic belief that a president even has the power to radically remake the country.

The best reason I can give to recommend this book is that it is partisan without being unfair - it has a point of view that the reader can agree/disagree with, while presenting as much information as possible so that the reader can make up their own mind. That's what matters to me most: that the reader is provoked into thinking critically about the world around them. 

Norm: What surprised you most as you researched and wrote this book? 

Owen: I was thoroughly surprised at how similar Obama's policies ended up being when compared to his (supposedly more conservative) predecessors.

When I started researching how he handled the War on Terror, I never imagined that this supposedly "socialist" Democrat would have ended up expanding the scope of the War on Terror (most conspicuously, in Africa); I never would have guessed that he'd champion the same kind of budget cuts and "austerity" measures that the GOP had been wailing about for decades.

I didn't realize that, despite some complaints, the financial sector really considered Obama a defender of their interests. There was often a difference in emphasis, as with Obama's preference for drone strikes rather than invasions, but in many ways his administration had remarkable continuity with the conservative political trends in our politics that date back to the late 1970s. 

Norm: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your book? 

Owen: Like most historians, there's always more things I wish I'd had time to cover: Obama's immigration policies come immediately to mind, or his "pivot" towards China.

There are also some slight amendments I'd like to make, a detail or clarification here or there that I'd add to an existing section. On the whole, though, even after reading Obama's 900 page memoir (the first of two volumes!), I think the book stands up pretty well to scrutiny. 

Norm: What has been the feedback and reaction to your book?

Owen: So far people who've actually taken the time to read it have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback. Most negative push back comes from people reading the title, assuming it's some liberal hagiography of Obama, and scolding me for hero worship.

In this way, I think the title serves a useful function as a kind of litmus test. As the book gains more traction and publicity, I'm sure more legitimate criticism will come to light, which I very much look forward to. As mortifying as it can be to be publicly proven wrong, I'll never improve as a historian if I never receive actionable criticism. 

Norm:  What do you believe is the biggest misconception people have about Barak Obama?

Owen: The biggest misconception is that he was a "radical" or "socialist." He's not a conservative on the same level as, say, Pat Buchanan, but his political instincts were to salvage the system we already have in place, not to build an entirely new structure.

He is a capitalist - he thinks that private ownership of resources, of factories, of financial institutions is a good thing, just with a few rules in place to keep the abuses to a minimum. He believes in American Exceptionalism - that the US is a unique force for good in the world. These beliefs are typical and I only dwell on them because so many people think Obama believed and acted otherwise. 

Norm: Of all the incidents, anecdotes, events and operations you mention in your book, which stands out most in your mind? 

Owen: What stood out to me the most was the fight over "Obamacare," i.e the Affordable Care Act. This was (and is) a fundamentally conservative piece of legislation: healthcare is treated like a consumer good (like a television), to be bought and sold in the marketplace, rather than a human right (like education) that needs to be distributed equitably to all people.

Despite this fact, conservatives spent many an apoplectic hour trying to dismantle the whole thing, which speaks volumes about the political circumstances that have evolved in the US over the last two generations - and how unhinged many Republicans have become. They wouldn’t even accept legislation primarily composed of ideas from their own party! 

Norm: Now as president, how is Joe Biden influenced by the vision and policies he supported as Obama’s faithful VP?

Owen: Biden did not have many major disagreements with what came to be Obama’s legacy. He championed the use of special operations and drones to fight the War on Terror under Obama, backed the market-oriented portions of the Affordable Care Act, and proved preternaturally amenable to “compromises” with the GOP under Mitch McConnell – often negotiating away far more than most other Democrats thought prudent or necessary.

Perhaps the events of January 6 have shaken Biden from his Senate-bred habit of bipartisanship-for-its-own-sake, but in many ways Biden will likely be a continuation of the Obama years, i.e. a continuation of neoliberalism (faith in markets to solve problems).

Norm: How did Obama’s eight-year reign in the White House open the door for Trump and the rise of White Nationalism? 

Owen: Obama’s policies helped usher in Trump, but so too did the conservative overreaction to Obama. Obama abandoned the progressivism of the campaign trail as soon as the day was won, so the resulting sense of betrayal among progressives soured many to the prospect of mainstream political action, making anyone who did not seem “mainstream” that much more appealing, for better or worse.

At the same time, his policies ultimately served more to defend and uphold the neoliberal status quo rather than shake things up in any fundamental way; thus the problems of inequality, racism, global warming, etc were not properly addressed, leaving them to fester and produce more radical, more desperate, or more misguided politics.

Finally, the massive minority voter turnout in the South and West (and the sight of more and more minorities in our government) terrified conservatives, galvanizing the “race realists,” who for instance began a concerted assault on voter rights in the wake of 2008 that has certainly contributed to the rise of US fascism by removing even the slight power voting had given to minority communities.

Norm: In Canada there is a limit to the amount of money you can contribute to a political candidate. Should this be implemented in the USA?

Owen: I'm skeptical that electoral politics can solve our problems, because the institutions we have are inherently conservative. Nevertheless, any law that curtails the flow of money into our politics is surely to be applauded. Big business has always had an outsized influence on our politics, whether the power of the slaver aristocracy, the oil baron, or the tech tycoon, but that influence ebbs and flows and right now corporate influence flows like the Mississippi throughout DC. 

Norm: Should lobbying be abolished?

Owen: I think that question misses the point, which is that as long as we live under a capitalistic system, where the Few are allowed to amass huge fortunes on the backs of the Many's labor, our politics will always be aristocratic. Economic power translates to political power, so if most people lack economic power, our politics will reflect that. It is capitalism we should abolish. 

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and  He Was Our Man in Washington: A History of the Obama Years?

Owen: My book's webpage; a playlist of a few of my interviews; my twitter

Norm: What is next for Owen Symes?

Owen: I'm currently researching the history of policing in the US - there are a lot of books on various aspects (how our colonial adventures in the Philippines created the first state police force in the US, for example) but not a lot of "overarching" history that ties everything together into a coherrent narrative, so that's what I'm interested in pursuing. 

Norm: As this interview comes to an end, if you could invite three historians to your dinner table, (living or dead ), who would they be and why?

Owen: Polybius, WEB DuBois, and Will Durant would make for quite the dinner companions. Polybius spent a lot of time criticizing other historians, while writing one of the greatest histories we have from antiquity;  DuBois lived and wrote history, with a life spanning from Booker T Washington to MLK; and Will Durant, while writing one of the most expansive series of histories ever, just seems like a nice guy, pleasant to be around.  

Thanks again and good luck with  He Was Our Man in Washington: A History of the Obama Years.

Follow Here To Read Norm's Review of  He Was Our Man in Washington: A History of the Obama Years.