Not since President John Kennedy urged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” has the rhetoric of sacrifice sat this well with the public. (Gordon N. Converse/Staff/FILE)
Sacrifice theme returns to US politics
Both McCain and Obama cite the need for selflessness and service.
By Alexandra Marks | STAFF WRITER/ November 2, 2008 edition
Reporter Alexandra Marks explains why political rhetoric about sacrifice is meeting a warmer reception in this election.
Reporter Alexandra Marks
Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP
John McCain’s ‘Country First’ motto (l.) speaks to the need for selflessness.
NEW YORK
The notion of sacrifice – asking Americans to give something up for a greater good – appears to be coming back into political vogue after decades of being seen as a poison pill.
Both major-party presidential candidates are emphasizing the need for individuals to shoulder responsibility for changing the direction of the United States, though they do so in different ways.
Personal sacrifice and service to the nation are central themes of John McCain’s candidacy. His campaign motto sums it up: “Country First.”
On the stump, Barack Obama cites the merits of sacrifice, calling it central to patriotism and urging Americans to help change the country’s direction – whether by turning off the television so children can study or by supporting higher taxes for wealthy corporations and individuals.
Both candidates have also called for expanded national service programs and lamented the Bush administration’s failure to tap the outpouring of civic and patriotic sentiment after the 9/11 attacks.
Not since President John Kennedy urged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” has the rhetoric of sacrifice sat this well with the public. Concern that the US confronts a huge crisis in the form of a global financial meltdown, plus an untapped desire since 9/11 to help the nation more, makes the public more receptive to the idea that sacrifice can be noble instead of just inconvenient.
“Americans are ready to sacrifice, and they have a whole history of doing it,” says pollster John Zogby, author of “The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream.”
Americans have long honored the sacrifice of its warriors. During World War II, average Americans also stepped up, planting victory gardens, buying war bonds, and recycling rubbish for the war effort.
They paid more taxes, too. The Revenue Act of 1942 subjected millions to the income tax for the first time. Most seemed not to mind. In 1944, 90 percent said the amount of income tax they paid was “fair,” according to Joseph Thorndike, coauthor of “War and Taxes” and a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
“The federal government launched an all-out campaign to market the new tax changes, including Disney-produced animated shorts featuring Donald Duck touting the importance of ‘taxes to beat the Axis!’ ” Dr. Thorndike writes in the book.
But in the past four decades, asking voters to sacrifice has been fraught with political risk. Just ask Walter Mondale. When the former vice president became the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984, the US faced a budget deficit of about $180 billion, considered massive at the time. During his nominating speech, Mr. Mondale decided to tell Americans what he believed had to be done.
“Let’s tell the truth,…” he told Democratic conventiongoers in San Francisco. “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.”
That was supposed to distinguish Mondale as the “honest” candidate. Instead, President Ronald Reagan and his political team characterized it as a “pledge” by Mondale to raise taxes. On Election Day, Mondale lost all but one state and the District of Columbia.
Previously, President Jimmy Carter hadn’t fared well either when asking for sacrifice. When the 1979 energy crisis hit, he called it a “moral equivalent of war,” famously donned a cardigan, and asked Americans to turn down their thermostats. He was not reelected.
“Sacrifice has kind of a bad name when it’s applied to the American people. We like to remember that we’ve sacrificed … – but in terms of asking people for sacrifice, that’s the sign to a lot of people of a liberal,” says Mark Leff, a historian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.“But the political discourse seems to be shifting.”
In his research, Mr. Zogby identifies what he calls “four meta-movements that separately and together are redefining the American dream.” Top on the list is living with limits (followed by embracing diversity, looking inward, and demanding authenticity).
If Americans are more receptive to the idea that they, personally, will be called upon to make sacrifices, it may be because the nation’s problems loom so large. The US is involved in two wars abroad and is reeling from a financial crisis, the depths of which are still unknown. More than 80 percent of Americans say the US has veered off track; to some, dangerously so. At times of crisis, historians say, citizens tend to respond to leadership that involves them in solving the problems.
“There’s some recognition of the country being under threat and being challenged and wanting to step up to it,” says Lewis Feldstein of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. “Obama is responding and generating and evoking this. I also feel there’s some of that in McCain’s rhetoric as well, with his ‘Country First’ [motto].”
Obama often invokes the “decent, generous” nature of Americans and their willingness to “sacrifice for future generations.”
“Patriotism must, if it is to mean anything, involve the willingness to sacrifice – to give up something we value on behalf of a larger cause,” he said in Florida in June.
When introducing McCain, his wife, Cindy, often praises his history of “sacrifice and service” as a prisoner of war and refers to him as “the man who taught me about selfless sacrifice.” At a September event in New York on the importance of national service, McCain explained his views this way:
“The best way to commemorate and to show our appreciation – and love and sympathy for the families of those who’ve sacrificed – is to serve our country….”
A key to public acceptance is how sacrifice is characterized. Mr. Carter’s initial calls to sacrifice were successful, Zogby argues. “We did put sweaters on, and we did turn our thermostats down. But then he turned it into a malaise and blamed the victim, which didn’t cut it.”
Americans have been cranky about high gasoline prices this summer and Congress’s vote to spend billions to bail out troubled banks. But the credit crunch, plummeting stock market, and risk of severe recession have been sobering. “Now somebody has to connect it and say, ‘There’s more sacrifice to come, but now it’s for something better – a better nation,’ ” Zogby says.
Of the two candidates, some analysts say, Obama has been more effective in evoking sacrifice than has McCain, who relies on his own history to stand as an example in itself.
“Obama’s goal is to look more like Franklin Roosevelt,” says Darrell West, director of governance at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “We faced a real challenge in the 1930s, and people … were willing to sacrifice because they knew the future of the country depended on it.
Obama has to basically say, ‘We’re facing a crisis on the level of the Great Depression, and we’re going to have to make sacrifices if we’re going to solve this.’ ”
When McCain talks about sacrifice, it’s usually in terms of national security. He has also said a “call to serve” will be central to his administration. But on the campaign trail, the Republican candidate has shied away from asking average people to sacrifice directly. Some analysts see his attack on Obama for “redistributing the wealth” as a kind of code for “Obama will ask you to sacrifice your money” – something that has never played well politically.
“What McCain’s doing is saying, ‘You mean that anybody is supposed to give anything up for anything else? That’s not what we do,’ ” says Professor Leff. “Sacrifice is OK and absolutely legit if you’re talking about soldiers, but that’s it.”
Whichever candidate is elected Tuesday, levels of public involvement in the campaign so far and high voter turnout could indicate a fundamental change in American political discourse and expectations.
“We may be on the verge of a substantial shift in … the political dialogue and rhetoric that dominate American politics,” says Dr. Thorndike, the “War and Taxes” coauthor, in an interview. “We have a real crisis right now that presents an opening for someone who knows how to rally the country in pursuit of a common objective.”
Comments
2. Ronni | 11.02.08
Alex, You forgot to mention that Obama was a community organizer on the south side of Chicago before and after earning a law degree from Harvard. He could have gone to Wall Street and earned millions. He knows what community service is and it is not lip service. He who can rally a community can and did rally a nation!
Thanks Ronni
3. Christina Silcox | 11.02.08
I agree that the American people are coming to a point where they realize that mid-term sacrifice will help in the long run to turn the country around. The green living ideology that has languished in the past may have found it’s opening to finally flourish. Providing future jobs as well as a better living environment for us and future generations. A need to get off of the hamster wheel that has become our lives of work, work, work. With no time to spend with our families or neighbors, churches or in our communities. We are ready to live on less and with less in order to have something far more precious, time. For the first time in my life there is a curiosity about the world. What are “those” people like? What does the rest of the world, think, believe and do?
It’s scary and beautiful that a generation like mine has grown up to believe that all things are possible for all people. We have tried the money = happiness formula doesn’t work and are now ready, willing and able to try something new.
Christin - in Texas
4. Dennis Myers | 11.02.08
It’s important to distinguish between a candidate’s record in a campaign and a president’s record in office, which this article does not do. For instance, it seems to portray John Kennedy as having demanded sacrifice from the public in the 1960 campaign. Actually, while he used the RHETORIC of sacrifice, his actual policy proposals asked little of the public– so much so, in fact, that during the second joint appearance with Nixon, Kennedy was asked by Harold Levy of Newsday why he talked so much about sacrifice when “you have spelled out many of the things that you intend to do but you have made only vague reference to sacrifice and self-denial.”
5. Miggity | 11.03.08
Sacrifice is dead. There is a socialist apathetic nannyism creeping throughout our society. American citizens increasingly often think of the government as an entity that exists to take care of us. Keep us healthy. Provide us with shelter. Provide us with jobs. Feed us. Protect us from speech that offends us. Educate us. Entertain us. Raise our children.
This is NOT the intended role of government. We cannot let it.
If we plan on continuing to exist as The United States of America we need to remember how to thrive. We cannot let those of us who are the bums and losers choose to remain ignorant, uneducated and unemployed assuming we will take care of them. They are not “entitled” to anything except the opportunity to make of themselves whatever they please. Health care is not a right. Owning a house is not a right. Higher education is not a right. Driving is not a right.
Everyone has their hand out.
When tourists began feeding the bears in Yellowstone Park the bears gave up on foraging for food on their own and became dependent upon the tourists trash and handouts. This created a dangerous atmosphere for both the humans and the bears. Humans were mauled and thousands of bears were killed when they wandered into areas they shouldn’t be. The bears became so accustomed to handouts that it was impossible for them to give them up. Generations of bears knew no other way to survive except wander through the park looking for someone to give them something.
We need to stop feeding the bears before it becomes impossible to fix what we’ve done.
We need a sign on Washington D.C — “PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS”
7. George | 11.03.08
I agree with Jimbo. I don’t believe ANY government in ANY country should have the right to take away a private citizen’s personal property and give it to someone else. Obama has flatly stated that he will do just that. I also believe that if you work hard you should have the opportunity to get ahead of someone who is lazy and doesn’t work. Obama believes the government should step in and give the lazy person money to help “equalize” everyone. McCain has called for a spending freeze and review of all government agencies to eliminate waste. That is the type of “Change” we really need.
8. Abigail | 11.03.08
The outcome of this election is going to be a statement against all those hypocrits like jimbo, who forgot Jesus’ teaching who made clear our obligation as our brother’s keeper. It is not difficult to see the mask that they wearing. Jimbo is the cold one who is only interested in preserving his privilages (his “value”), while not understanding the risk of ignoring the disadvantaged among us. He represents one of all those who passed by a person in distress before the Samaritan. A person with many excuses not to help, but with no compassion and no intelligence.
9. Nan | 11.03.08
I think both candidates should be respected for being great community
servants. They clearly have distinct differences but both are honorable.
I hold them both in the highest esteem and would be proud to call either of them Mr President. Let us finally ALL reach across the aisle and create a common bond that will heal this nation. Let us make needed sacrifices to get our true identity back as a caring nation that helps right the wrongs of the world, feed the hungry, take care of our children and seniors and replenish the soil that the American dream seeds can flourish in.
10. Guy Thompto | 11.03.08
Obama asking Americans to sacrifice? How do you come to that conclusion? The only group he is “asking” to sacrifice are the top wage earners. Why? Not because of some idealism, but rather his traditional leftist values that rich people are the enemies and must be made to “sacrifice” through punitive taxation. He is hardly a creative thinker.
11. April | 11.03.08
“…see his attack on Obama for “redistributing the wealth” as a kind of code for “Obama will ask you to sacrifice your money”
It’s not that we’ll be asked to sacrifice our money. It’s that it will be taken from us, and we won’t be allowed to determine how it is distributed. Americans are very generous. We give more money privately to charities and non-profit organizations than anyone in the world. But we like to be able to direct it where we want to, where our values are served.
Our perception is that Obama wants to take money from some working people and “distribute” it to people who may not be working as hard as we are for it, yet feel entitled to it. We believe it is selfish for some to demand access to our income and assets when we have worked so hard for them.
12. Harold Reimann | 11.03.08
You can sacrifice til you’re blue in the face but as long as we have abortion, sodomy, woman’s lib and multiculturalism God will not hear and this country will go down!
13. Clifford J. Wirth, Ph.D. | 11.03.08
The sacrifice theme has a good future, but it is really bad news.
According to most independent scientific studies, global oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%.
This is equivalent to a 33% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always exceed production levels; thus oil depletion will continue steadily until all recoverable oil is extracted.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.
We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from “outside,” and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
14. Joe | 11.03.08
Beware of those asking you to sacrifice. They’re asking you to do this out of their own green for power. I’m not going to willingly sacrifice a thing. I don’t live to serve other people at my own expense. There is no rational reason to treat other people as superior to myself. It’s degrading. Don’t ask me to sacrifice.
15. Heather | 11.03.08
To Abigail:
There is a HUGE difference between being one’s brother’s keeper in the VOLUNTARY Biblical sense & being forced to do it by government at gunpoint (try refusing to do what gov’t says you must–the guns always come out eventually). Giving voluntarily to the charity of your choice is not at all the same thing as having that money forcibly removed from your paycheck and given to whoever the government thinks oughta get it–be it crackheads or investment banks–either.
And before you carp about “privilege”, you might want to keep in mind that it is always the poorest of the so-called “red” states who rank highest in charitable giving.
16. Philip | 11.03.08
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, I hope that all Americans will show respect and civility toward each other and opposing views. Instead of denigrating supporters of the opposing party, I pray Americans will put that same energy to more productive use serving and making sacrifices for their communities and country and by encouraging others to do the same. Whether it’s McCain or Obama asking, everyone should be ready and willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of the country. I believe most Americans want not just what is best for themselves, but what’s best for the United States, and accordingly, we should show more respect for differing ideas on what is best and how to accomplish it.
17. Josh | 11.03.08
I’m not much of a good Christian, but of what I do know and have known for a long time is that the teachings of Jesus and the Bible are not being followed in any sort of way by most Americans. Tolerance and compassion are two things that are completely lost on people which ever side you stand on.
This moral dilemma has affected the perception of how we see our lives. Sacrifice is something many Americans have not grown up with. We’re confronted by it often, but it hasn’t become the balancing force we need for growth as people or a nation. I have many friends from Poland who barely knew what it was like to be free people nearly 20 years ago. They lived under a true socialist/communist regime that controlled the media and the lives of their citizens. Now people are saying that this is what Obama wants? I know of no supporter on either side that wants massive walls, state issued products and restricted media.
The voices that say Obama messages are vacant, are only because you haven’t heard anything good, honest or true in a long time. Whichever side you stand on, we haven’t been told the truth in a long time. The truth hurts sometimes. Your well being is influenced by the success of the nation and of yourself. If this nation does not exist, function and work because of the people, then you don’t exist. Sacrifice is selfless. In whatever form it needs to happen, you should practice it. Though I’m believing its gonna be tougher for the ignorant than the hopeful.
18. isa | 11.03.08
“If you destroy the egg of a bald eagle, you can be fined. Why? Because everyone knows that egg is a potential bald eagle. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that protects bald eagles and yet allows unborn babies to be burned and sucked from their mother’s wombs.”
it is common sense that vegetarians eat eggs. eating an egg has never been anywhere anytime by any society anywhere equivalent to killing anything. humans also don’t lay eggs. comparing an eagle egg to a fetus or embryo is biologically an absurdity, so the argument here is theological, not factually based in any way. There is something fundamentally wrong and unjust with making the rights of the living breathing here and now in your face human subordinate to the rights of some unknown unborn potential human. It places ideology and dogma and opinion above the needs of of the living.
In fact, about 40% of all fetuses and embryos are rejected by the body as a matter of biology. Nothing in medical science forsees anything else. Abortion is normal natural biological and when anyone says they want to outlaw than the god becomes an outlaw.
Every single cell in the human body is as equally and completely as human as any embryo or fetus and the Church has never in history baptized any embryo before it is born, nor conducted a funeral for any miscarriage nor given any embryo or fetus Last Rights, or any sacraments.
Imposition of theology, ideology, non-scientific and anti-scientific opinion by force of law on believers is exactly why we needed and why the Church demanded the First Amendment, to save the faithful from political abuse. Believe what you will, I know that all through human history, a human life always everywhere has started at birth. The rights of the living trump all.
19. Sam | 11.03.08
I just wanted to point out my favorite McCain quote to Jimbo up there.
“I will always hate the gooks.”
My guess is your not Vietnamese, are you?
20. amanda | 11.03.08
In response to jimbo, a society is judged by the way in which it treats the least advantaged of its members. For a myriad of reasons the poor, disabled and disaffected will always live amongst us. Thier plight has little to do with lack of “pride.” Sometimes it is not possible to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Sometimes instead you need a helping hand. While individuals, churches and charitable organizations can provide that help, they are unable to solely shoulder that burden. The majority of individuals do not rise to the occasion, and churches and charities are often cash strapped and overburdened. As American citizens and as Christians we should be glad that part of our tax dollars go to helping those of us in need. I’d rather my tax dollars pay for a social safety net and school meals than for war and weaponry.
21. Dave | 11.03.08
It is time for America to see the light. Neither of the runners up realy believe in the platforms they are standing on. They begin the race by searching a multitude of statistics of what Americans feel, about certain matters, and find the ones that most reflect decisions they have made in the past. They say what Americans want to hear and nothing more. The sad part, is that if you combine the two togeather, you have a fairly clear image of just how sick and feable America has become. Lady liberty has one arm in a mothers womb, ripping an unborn child to bits, with another arm swaying a gun, screaming “To arms you maggots”. And all of America sings about which part of her body they love the most, and then throw their votes to the wind in hope that it is good. It’s about posture and nothing more. They give us facts and not truth. Facts change like the wind but the truth is always the truth.
22. davis | 11.04.08
Jimbo see what your saying about the bald eagle makes no sense. The reason abortion is ok is mainly because it’s the womens right to do. And secondly, there are under 10,000 bald eagles in the US and there more than 300 million people in the US alone. I understand that if humans were an endangered species that would make sense but were not. And then the whole thing with Obama being associated with radicals is so stupid. Yes, he attended church at Jeremiah Wrights services but that doesnt mean he agreed with them. I gurantee that you dont agree with everything that your pastor states. And finally, this whole thing with saying that Obama can’t recognize evil. Thats really stupid because he can recognize evil he just has a different opinion of what evil is. I’m sure most people in Iraq or Afghanistan believe America is full of a bunch of people like George Bush and Cheney. People that love war and violence and are the biggest hypocrites in the world. Kind of like you Jimbo, so thats why your reasons for voting for McCain are stupid and deep down the reason your voting for McCain is because he’s a white, evangelical just like you.
23. Trude Blomsoy | 11.04.08
Thanks for the article !
Words from a wise one come to mind :
Beware of the man who is talking about sacrifice for he is talking about
Master and slave, and he intend to be Master.
24. Jesse | 11.04.08
People are generaly ignorant when it comes to these canidates. If people really sacrificed for their country and took the time to understand these candidates then they would all be great Americans. If people understood the ramifications of what these two men believe, and if they tied that understanding with a knowledge of history, there would be no debate of who should win the election. Sen. McCain
25. c c | 11.05.08
I really pray for the United States. I am appaled by a picture that stands in my mind of Obama, Hillary and a few others when standing with their hand on their chests saying the Pledge of Allegience, Obama has his hands by his side. What will he do the day he has to put his hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution. We the people, for the people and by the people…. is this the change we want?
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1. jimbo | 11.02.08
I have decided not to vote for Obama. I will vote for John McCain for president on Tuesday. Three things made my decision.
» Values. Obama can joke that when life begins is above his pay grade, but this is not rocket science. If you destroy the egg of a bald eagle, you can be fined. Why? Because everyone knows that egg is a potential bald eagle. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that protects bald eagles and yet allows unborn babies to be burned and sucked from their mother’s wombs. When Obama was an Illinois state legislator, he wouldn’t even vote to protect a baby that lived after abortion. That’s cold.
» Judgment. Obama has associated with the most radical people of our lifetime. Can you imagine the outcry if it were discovered that Sarah Palin attended a church with a racist pastor? There would be no end to the calls for her to stand down and return to Alaska in disgrace. Obama’s list of radical friends doesn’t end with Jeremiah Wright. He has chosen the most inflammatory people for his closest confidants so repeatedly that you have to call his judgment into question.
» You may vehemently disagree with President Bush about the war on terror and the strategy that he chose to pursue this conflict. But, he does recognize evil when he sees it. Obama doesn’t recognize evil, when he is in the same room with it, and for that reason, alone, I hope he doesn’t become our president Tuesday
Vision. Obama is a man of vision. It’s just the wrong vision for America. If he is not a socialist, then the word has lost its meaning. Jesus is our hope to change hearts. The change Obama seeks is not a change of heart. It is the authority of the state that arbitrarily takes from some to give to others. It creates a dependent people devoid of pride who believe only the government can help them. Ronald Reagan was right when he said, “A government that gives you everything you want can take everything you have.”
This is not the change we’ve been waiting for, nor the change that would be good for America. Yes, Jesus is my hope, but McCain has my vote.