I knew when I left for Europe that in all likelihood President Obama would be re-elected, though I was anxious. The stakes were high. If he won, as expected, my return from my few weeks visit would feel like I was truly returning home. If he lost, I would feel like I was venturing to an alien country, one that I had hoped had been left behind, a country trying to revert to a state that didn’t include me, and many others, as full citizens.

A key of the Obama election, presidency and re-election has been inclusion, and the Republicans were pushing back, clearly revealed in their voter ID, voter suppression campaign. The changing demography helps to explain the President’s victory, but his great gift to the country has been to show the country how these changes are our greatest strength. The changing demography plus Obama’s vision go a long way in explaining the election results and the forthcoming changes in the United States.

He did it again in his victory speech as the nation’s storyteller-in-chief. It was a beautiful conclusion to a less than beautiful election. The ugliness of the opposition to Obama left a bad taste in our collective mouths for months, in fact, for years, thanks to the Tea Party, Fox, Rush and company. Obama in his victory speech reminded the American public and the rest of the world to keep our eyes on the prize. I watched on CNN in my hotel room in Warsaw. Today, I watched again with my friends at the Theodore Young Community Center. We decided to share the moment together. We were inspired.

“Our man,” as my dear friend Beverly McCoy speaks of the president, first got our attention, by marking the accomplishment of a free election and celebrating all who took part, linking fundamental political facts with the theme of his campaign, but including those who campaigned against him:

“Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.  (Applause.)

I want to thank every American who participated in this election.  (Applause.)  Whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time — (applause) — by the way, we have to fix that.  (Applause.)  Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone — (applause) — whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard, and you made a difference.  (Applause.)”

He highlighted common goals of all Americans:

“(D)espite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future.  We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers — (applause) — a country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.

We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt; that isn’t weakened by inequality; that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.  (Applause.)”

He presented his specific policy priorities in his speech, as they are part of American aspiration: education, economic and technological development, the deficit and growing inequality, and climate change. The way he formulated these problems in this passage, I imagine, is difficult to oppose, though it is noteworthy that he was outlining a political center that he was attempting to move to the left.

I take this to be his specific political orientation, which explains why he spent so much of his time during his first term assuming the goodwill of Republicans when many of his supporters wished he would aggressively opposed them. And it also explains the nature of his great achievements including Obamacare, major advances in equal rights for gays, African Americans, women and immigrants, and significant assistance to the less advantaged as we have been enduring the Great Recession. He seeks a center framed by progressive principles.

And on election night, he emphasized citizenship and its obligations, linking his program with the aspirations and actions of his fellow Americans.

“The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote.  America has never been about what can be done for us.  It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.  (Applause.)  That’s the principle we were founded on.

I am hopeful tonight because I have seen this spirit at work in America.

What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on Earth — the belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations; that the freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for comes with responsibilities as well as rights, and among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism.  That’s what makes America great.  (Applause.)”

He went on to described the heroic acts of ordinary citizens: family business owners who took cuts in pay to avoid laying off their neighbors, workers cutting back in their hours so that their fellow workers wouldn’t be laid off, valiant soldiers who re-enlist and who killed Osama bin Laden, and political leaders acting beyond partisan concern to most effectively respond to Hurricane Sandy (an unsubtle shot out for Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey).

He presented his vision of the American Dream with inclusion emphasized:

“I believe we can keep the promise of our founding — the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or where you love — it doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white, or Hispanic or Asian, or Native American, or young or old, or rich or poor, abled, disabled, gay or straight — you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.  (Applause.)”

I think it is especially noteworthy that gay or straight and the disabled are on his list.

Obama’s presented in his victory speech, as he campaigned in this election, an expanding vision of equal citizenship with its rights and responsibilities for all. He governed utilizing this vision, and all his major speeches have included this vision from his address to the Democratic Convention in 2004, empowering his race speech, including his victory speech last week. It is part of an inspiring whole.

Demography + vision = the re-election of Barack Obama. It’s good to be home.

The Convention was a big success. Obama’s speech was pitch perfect. The election has been framed on his terms. Much of the immediate commentary doesn’t get how good the speech was, although there seems to be a consensus that in the battle of the conventions, the Democrats won, improving the chances of the President’s re-election. As a practical matter that the brilliance of the speech, with its purposive understatement and disciplined focus, is not appreciated is not really important. But I do want to explain how I see it. The closest commentary to mine that I have read this morning is from a usual suspect, E.J. Dionne.

I will write a post, deliberately considering the speech over the weekend. For now, note: the speech should be understood as it contributed to the success of the Democratic National Convention and the campaign ahead, as it, along with the other speeches at the convention, will frame the politics of second term of the Obama Presidency, and as it is part of the long term story Obama is telling about the American Dream in his project to reinvent American political culture.

Later today, we will post an important post from South Africa on Bishop Desmond Tutu with Tony Blair. For now, if you haven’t seen Obama’s speech yet, take a look, note the eloquence of the language, the presidential demeanor, the seriousness, the command of the moment and of the overall political and economic situation, the engagement with the partisan and the governance tasks at hand.

The Democrats in the first two days of their convention manufactured news. But I think it is important to understand that it wasn’t propaganda or an infomercial, as many overly cynical academics and commentators would suggest, from Noam Chomsky to Joe Nocera. Rather, like the Republican Convention last week, it was a modern day media event, a televisual combination of demonstration and manifesto, revealing, or as my friend and colleague Daniel Dayan would put it “monstrating,” where the party stands, who stands with the party, how it accounts for the past, present and future. The first two days were particularly about the past and the present, identifying the party. Today, Obama will chart the future. This, at least, is how I understand the storyline. We will know, soon enough, if I am right.

The structure of the presentation, thus far, has been interesting and informative. There was a clear understanding on the part of the convention planners. Before 10:00 PM, without the major networks broadcasting, with a much smaller audience watching, was the demonstration slot. It was the time for showing the stand of the party and demonstrating who stands behind it. Between 10:00 and 11:00 PM, with the full prime time audience watching, the manifesto was presented by the major speakers: on Tuesday, Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio and First Lady Michelle Obama, on Wednesday, Massachusetts Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren, and former President Bill Clinton.

The coherence of the Democrats’ presentation was striking. This contrasted with the Republican convention, in which candidate and platform were in tension, and the personal qualities and not the political plans of the candidate took priority, and the speeches didn’t add up. The worst of it was Eastwood’s performance piece. It represented accurately the state of the party, with its pure ideological commitments and tensions, as I have already discussed here earlier during the primary season.

The Democrats revealed some differences of opinion, in symbolic floor scuffle on God and Jerusalem (pandering nonsense it seems to me), and also as the more left of center Warren gave a full throated critique of Wall Street, while Clinton more explicitly and softly appealed to the center (see video below). Yet the party was clearly united in its support of Obama and its recognition of his first term achievements, expressing its unity and diversity in the speeches in their embodied words.

Two examples, not given much attention, politically clear, elegantly presented:

Jared Polis, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Colorado –

My name is Jared Polis. My great-grandparents were immigrants. I am Jewish. I am gay. I am a father. I am a son. I am an entrepreneur. I am a congressman from Colorado. I am always an optimist. But first and foremost, I am an American.

And the America I believe in is the America Barack Obama believes in.

A severely wounded Iraq veteran, “one of the first Army women to fly combat missions in Iraq,” Tammy Duckworth, candidate for the US House of Representatives, Illinois, walked up to the podium on two prosthetic legs. She described how she grew up in the family of an impoverished Vietnam veteran, and explained how her family managed and she advanced herself through food stamps, public education and Pell grants. This enabled her to finish high school and college, going on to earn her command of a Blackhawk helicopter company. She testified to her work with President Obama.

President Obama asked me to help keep our sacred trust with veterans of all eras at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. We worked to end the outrage of vets having to sleep on the same streets they once defended. We improved services for female veterans. I reached out to young vets by creating the Office for Online Communications.

Barack Obama has also lived up to his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, ending the war in Iraq, refocusing on Afghanistan and eradicating terrorist leaders including bin Laden. President Obama pushed for fairness in the military, listening to commanders as we ended “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and on how to allow women to officially serve in more combat jobs—because America’s daughters are just as capable of defending liberty as her sons.

And there were many more speeches that fit a pattern which I think is of crucial importance. Each testified not only to their political support of the President, but also to the crucial difference between the major themes of the Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican: Government can and has been a part of the solution, not the primary problem.

On women’s rights this was expressed most directly by Cecile Richards,  Lilly Ledbetter,  and Sandra Fluke. Each spoke about their specific experience, highlighted the principles they drew from the experience and indicated how this points in the direction of appreciating the achievement and promise of President Obama. Experience, not abstract ideological commitment, illuminated the political approach.

Thus, the remarkable elegance of Michelle Obama’s speech.  It had an apparently traditional approach, too traditional for some of my friends. The wife of the President spoke to his human side, about her concerns for their family as he decided to run, and about her conviction that their decision to proceed on this course was good for them and good for the nation. She testified to the quality of his character, as Ann Romney testified to the quality of her husband. But Mrs. Obama went further. His political project, and her support of it, emerges from their experience and what they have in common with their fellow citizens. The First Lady, and many of the other speakers at the convention, gave substance to the classic feminist slogan: the personal is political.

This was beautifully revealed as well the keynote address by Julián Castro. He poignantly expressed his version of the Barack Obama rendering of the American dream and the American experience (the high note of Obama’s keynote address), in Castro’s case as experienced by a Mexican American: hard work, support of family, government help, including support for education, with aid from and given to community, and, thus, out of many, the singular American success story. Benita Veliz testified to this Latin American variation on the American dream, by illuminating how it is experienced by those who for no fault of their own came to the country undocumented. Congressman Luis Gutierrez applauded the President for his approach to immigration in stark contrast to Mitt Romney and his policy of “self deportation.”

President Clinton brought these strands and others together in a remarkable speech last night. If you haven’t yet, it is worth viewing in full. In form and content, it is a masterpiece. His focus mirrored the deep concerns of the American public about the state of the economy, as he argued that President Obama has been successful in addressing the crisis and also succeeded in foreign policy and addressing many other issues (the speech was long). Clinton’s criticism of Romney – Ryan and the Republicans was forceful but presented with humor. He considered the contrast. He combined analysis of policy detail, with warm humorous affect and passionate commitment.

This afternoon the media chatter is that the President is going to have a hard time distinguishing himself, as he speaks this evening in the shadows of the former President and his wife, both of whom have higher approval ratings than he. My guess is that the President Obama will conclude the convention with a passionate statement concerning his plans and expectations for the second term, drawing on the power of the previous speakers, Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama, but also the many others. If he does, he will not only have greatly strengthened his chances for his re-election, but conclude a convention that in sum has communicated where the Democrats stand, who they are and what they plan to do.  The news from Charlotte was manufactured, but it still was important.

It was during the naturalization ceremony of my mother-in-law in Los Angeles, when I got my first glance at the immigrant’s American Dream: a packed auditorium of new US-citizens, exhilarated, proud and happy. When I read Jose Antonio Vargas’s article “OUTLAW: My Life As an Undocumented Immigrant” last week in The New York Times Magazine, I saw the unfulfilled version of this dream. In his article, Vargas gives an unexpected face to the more than eleven million undocumented immigrants living in the US: his own! As a successful journalist, Vargas uses his power to challenge the idea of what a US-American is. As much as I admire Vargas’s courage and hope it is not in vain, his claims are neither unambiguous nor unproblematic. On what grounds do they stand? Legality? Practice? Culture? Also, while Vargas intends to move the boundaries of what constitutes a US-American in the authoritative framework of the nation-state, do his claims not reach further? Do they not challenge the nation-state USA in terms of authoritative legitimacy? Following Vargas’s recent video on DefineAmerican.com, I want to take on his plea: “Let’s talk.”

“There are believed to be 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. We’re not always who you think we are. Some pick your strawberries or care for your children. Some are in high school or college. And some, it turns out, write news articles you might read. I grew up here. This is my home. Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own.”

The statement in the beginning of Vargas article shows two problems:

1. The general problem of the USA in sustaining a historically grown, economically integrated and sizable group of undocumented immigrants.

2. The paradoxical life-situation of these immigrants as being part of a social whole, without being legally recognized.

Where is this boundary of recognition drawn? Is it really just a matter of a piece of paper? This is what Vargas claims, as he lays out his argument woven through his life-story. Vargas came as an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines. He did not know this until he was 16 when he realized he had a fake Green Card. He still was able to get a high school and college education, work for major newspapers from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times and win a Pulitzer Prize, while hiding his lack of legal status. This is the societal basis on which he claims being American: as a successful member of society, contributing and paying taxes. But is this really all that constitutes American identity?

Ferdinand Toennies in his famous dichotomy of “Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft” defines society as based on the individual will, constituted through the social interactions this will produces. These interactions create practices, customs and laws that not only govern, but define society. The problem in Vargas’s claim is that by entering society as an undocumented immigrant, he violated a fundamental structure of law, first unknowingly, but later consciously. In terms of legality, can he really claim membership? This is at least questionable, but of course the legal frame of society is moveable. The “Dream Act” (interestingly enough just made one of its occasional reappearances on the legislative agenda) would provide such a legal shift, but as it stands will be rejected again.

The strong appeal of Vargas’s case for me actually does not lie in his claim of being US-American on the basis of society, but rather, community. Toennies defines community as social organization based on commonality. In a very 19^th century view of this conception, he specifies it in terms of the nation that this commonality is based, to different degrees, on: territory, blood (heritage) and shared beliefs (or more implicit practices leading to values). The larger communal aspect of the US nation-state is not based on blood (let’s ignore the nativism movement), but on territory, shared practice and beliefs. This is significantly different compared to other nation-states (such as my native land, Germany) that base the community of the nation mainly on blood (or at least did until 2000), which is much more exclusive. Vargas goes through some length to show how he learned, embraced and embodied language and American popular culture, how his life experience, beyond the document issue, does follow the shared practice and institutional education which makes US-Americans (Toennies actually points out that this is an important factor of communal identity formation). In terms of this understanding, Vargas truly is a US-American.

Vargas’s claim of belonging on the basis of community is therefore strong and much less conflicted than his claim on the basis of society. But the nation-state in general is an unfortunately very muddled conception based on both community and society. This becomes pretty clear if one considers again the issue of legality. I would argue that the violation of the legal structure of society has much larger implications in terms of being US-American than Vargas acknowledges. If he were right in his claim that initial legal status does not matter, that only life-practice counts, what does this mean for all the actually documented immigrants in the US? The immigrant experience – especially in the US-case – is a vital part of community, but it is based on the legal frame of society. Through their immigration practice US-society extends its reach across the borders of its territory. The filing of paper-work, waiting for permission, and interviews, are a vital part of the US-immigrant experience – starting before crossing the border. Vargas’s claim to basically decouple the definition of being US-American from the legal status of entry would not only challenge the legal system of migration. It essentially renders an important part of what has been a communal identity-building process for generations of immigrants meaningless.

Vargas’s important claims surprisingly leave the authoritative potential of borders and territory unchallenged: when he wants to “Define American,” he ignores the conception of legality that marks the boundaries of the territory. His whole claim is based on being in the USA, not how he got there. As much as I sympathize with Vargas and as much as I hope that his act revitalizes the debate and leads to change, his critique remains in the frame of the nation-state concept in general without challenging its authority. He therefore just moves the internal boundaries of definition. If one would take Vargas’s claims further, they actually can be redefined as potentialities:

1.    On the basis of society: everybody in the world can be a member of US-society. They just have to contribute.

2.    On the basis of community: everybody can be a member of the US-community. They just have to share practices and values.

Can these two potentialities only be realized on US-territory? If not, then the concept of the US nation-state is meaningless. If yes, we come back to Vargas’s initial problems, as it just shows the arbitrariness and injustice of the boundaries of territory, especially with existing and tolerated practices of undocumented migration. In trying to “Define American” Vargas implicitly puts his finger on the wound of the general legitimating problem of the nation-state in a globally interconnected world of politics, economy and culture. This is of course a very radical reading of Vargas’s claims, but to say it with his words: “Let’s talk.”