I have been reading various commentary from left and right since the elections and have to admit to some fatigue and discouragement. I am not discouraged by Barack Obama's election. To the contrary, I think the Republican failures, in conjunction with the polling data that America remains a moderate-conservative country, present a major opportunity and can initiate a renewal of a more Conservative (small government, strong defense, low taxes) Republican Party. What is discouraging is that a number of commentators have taken the position that there is nothing wrong with the Republican party that cannot be solved by mirroring the Democrats of the last 8 years.
The idea that Barack Obama's election is going to usher in the long, dark night of fascism in America is troubling. I have no doubt that there are groups and individuals on the far left who would like nothing more than to form the nidus of an American brown shirted militia, but we are a very long way away from such an eventuality. Vigilance by the loyal opposition will be necessary int he next four years but I would like to echo Glenn Reynold's comment, in reaction tot he formation of an "Impeach Obama" group on Facebook:
Really, can't people at least wait until he's sworn in and, you know, actually done something to merit impeachment? Sigh.
It may well be true that Barack Obama is the most liberal President we have ever elected, but reality always supersedes ideology in America. One of the great strengths of our system is that it tolerates perturbations and because of our dynamic equilibrium has much more flexibility and error tolerance than any other political system. This does not mean that a powerful enough perturbation could not break the system, but it does mean that we have far more resiliency than a great many people imagine.
If Barack Obama institutes the full panoply of promised liberal and quasi-socialist policies in the face of the economic and geopolitical realities of our time, one of two outcomes is most likely. Either those of us who opposed him will prove to be correct and various setbacks large and small will accrue or we will find that we were wrong and liberal/quasi-socialist policies, although having never before worked anywhere, will prove to work and we will all benefit. If the former is closer to the reality, no amountof MSM biasand slanting would protect Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress (with approval ratings hovering somewhere south of President Bush's numbers) from an electoral correction in 2010 and 2012. If the latter is the case, we will have eight years of PresidentObama, the country will prosper, international relations will improve and I will happily admit my Conservative beliefs have been superseded by reality.
In fact, I doubt either of these outcomes are in store. Barack Obama is a very smart man and I would presume he has no desire to be a failed, one term President. Further, I do not think he is surrounded by economic illiterates. Just as the old military adage suggests that "no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy", in America no ideology has ever survived contact with an inimical reality.
Two brief summary posts worth your attention.
In the economic realm, the Markets have already fired a first salvo. M_O_M explains why our economy could well be in much worse shape than currently anticipated, especially if the Democrats make some of their promised changes:
There's still some hope, but I am adjusting my forecast to 75% moderate US depression by 2010, lasting for perhaps two years.
As for the international arena, Charlie, at OpFor, notes that several gauntlets have already been tossed at Barack Obama's feet:
So What's Going on Abroad Today?
Just a reminder, it remains a dangerous world out there:
In 1960, John F. Kennedy bested Richard Nixon, not only because he was the more appealing candidate on Television, but because the Democrats skillfully exploited the "Missile Gap" between the Untied States and the USSR to attack the Republicans as being soft on defense. (Yes, there was a time when Democrats were the party of military intervention and the Republicans were the party of isolationism.) Once he won the election however, JFK discovered that there was no missile gap and it was never heard from again. More recently, George W. Bush ran on a platform that included no more "nation building", an attack on the Clinton administration's behavior toward the Balkans. Reality intruded,in the form of 9/11, and the rest is history.
It would be very useful and important for all to remember that the moment Barack Obama is in office and has to actually make decisions, he will also have to live with the effects of his decisions. He may prove to be another Jimmy Carter, or worse, but he also may prove to be a dynamic leader who energizes a dispirited population and inspires Americans to focus on what is important int heir lives, which secondarily will facilitatea recovery and dynamism that will be an echo of the Reagan effects. Feng, at Information Dissemination, does not agree with most of Obama's policies, yet explains a quite plausible reason why he voted for him:
I've been a supporter since 2006 when he announced his candidacy. Personally speaking, I don't agree with a lot of his policies, but I've always supported him. I believe that the leader of America should be a truly unique person with strong leadership qualities. The policies are formulated by the advisers and other members of the party. I will never find a candidate whose policies I agree 100% with. However, true leaders have something different. They have the ability to inspire the nation to do greater things. They have the ability to get the young people to believe in themselves and believe in the nation. They have the ability to give vision to the people, so that they can have hope and optimism. It's like in sports. The best leaders may not happen to be the best player/athlete, but their leadership inspires team mates to be better than they could ever be alone. That's what I always saw in Obama.
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As for his policies, I personally don't support a lot of them. I'm very fiscally conservative and also believe that offshore drilling should be allowed and nuclear power should be the largest part of a clean air initiative. I like Ron Paul the most. I personally think that his economic policies would've been the most positive for America, but they are too radical for the main stream media and the public. Basically, I like the old school conservatism that believed in small government, pragmatic foreign policy and low taxes (which no one can label the present day Republicans). So despite having such a leaning, I never looked away from Barack's character, leadership and intelligence. These are qualities that I did not see to the same degree in any other candidates.
Feng may well be naive to believe that a PresidentObama can bring change by virtue of instilling hope, but he does touch on an important factor in leadership. A leader who inspires does not have to be correct all the time. (No one is correct all the time.) Barack Obama has already inspired a great many people. As I have stated, if he leads from the far left, I believe his policies will be disastrous and his Presidency will fail. If his energy policies lead to $6-8 dollar gasoline, we will have a Republican Congress in two years. If the Republicans take the next two years to figure out what kind of party they are (ie, imitation Democrats giving out goodies to their supporters and bribing the electorate, versus finding their bearings in the kinds of Conservative ideals, not ideology, that have led to so much that is good about this country) they may deserve to be given leadership roles once again.
With incredibly low approval ratings, the Democratic Congress should be on notice. If they pass legislation that alienates people, their tenure in charge may be much shorter than they assume. Even with a docile press, the Honeymoon may be over before they even realize it.
When people write about this election as marking the kindof paradigm shift that occurred after Watergate or with the Reagan revolution, they forget something important. Our world is smaller and changing much more rapidly than it did in the prehistoric times of Ronald Reagan and LBJ. The bulk of our population do not remember a time when the economywas not working or the United States faced an existential threat; they expect rapid changes in technology and markets and a relatively peaceful international arena, where terrorism is a nuisance best dealt with by the police. They voted for change because the status quo of the prior 8 years had gone stale and felt unbearable. The special interests that comprise the Democratic party include quite reactionary forces. Setting the clock back is not what the youngdesire. They thrive on change and movement and have short attention spans. I do not think an Obama administration or a Democratic Congress can last if they fail to recognize the kind of world they are entering.
Whichever party shows itself better able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions is the party that will own the future. The Republicans failed to be adaptable enough; now it is the Democrats turn.
No one should be discouraged at this point. The future will be here much sooner than you imagine.
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