Krauthammer and I agree
Obama knows he has only so many years to change the country. In his first two, he achieved much: the first stimulus, Obamacare and financial regulation. For the next two, however, the Republican House will prevent any repetition of that. Obama’s agenda will therefore have to be advanced by the more subterranean means of rule-by-regulation.
But this must simultaneously be mixed with ostentatious displays of legislative bipartisanship (e.g., the lame-duck tax-cut deal) in order to pull off the (apparent) centrist repositioning required for reelection. This, in turn, would grant Obama four more years when, freed from the need for pretense, he can reassert himself ideologically and complete the social-democratic transformation – begun Jan. 20, 2009; derailed Nov. 2, 2010 – that is the mission of his presidency.
And here I am, on November 7, right after the election:
[A possibility for the next two years] is that Obama actually will move towards the middle, in deed as in word. But it will be a temporary feint, a move made to convince doubters that he’s gotten the message and changed his ways.
It need only be until the next election. If Obama can moderate himself enough to be able to point to a few small but real compromises with the Republicans, he won’t be losing much and he’ll be gaining a lot. The American people are a generally genial and forgiving (not to say trusting) lot, predisposed to like him, and by then he may indeed have rehabilitated himself in the eyes of enough voters that he will win his bid for re-election and even increase the Democrats’ Congressional representation.
And then, and then””voila! Four more years! Four years in which he won’t have to answer to the electorate at all. He will be unleashed to do whatever it is he really wants. And does anyone think that would look moderate at all?
I agree that’s the plan and the danger and conservatives should be as smart and aggressive as we possibly can be and pray the Republicans aren’t too stupid.
However, I also think it’s likely that, given Obama’s feckless foreign policy, we’ll see an attack on the U.S. and/or some other huge foreign crisis in which our interests are at stake and we MUST act. Obama will make Jimmy Carter look like Reagan (sorta). That won’t be tolerated.
I heartily agree with my fellow Evil Neocon, Charles the Great, and with our landlord on this one.
A good reason for us to be semper vigilantes.
Part of the issues here are the Gifts That Keep on Giving – namely Politics in general, Obamacare, the Stimulus, and well Obama himself.
The Dems can’t really be bipartisan, or at least haven’t so far. Not only do those on the right notice that they are drug kicking and screaming there but they make sure everyone knows they are – in a large part because they tend to buy the line that everyone hates Conservatives and they are the Source of All Evil.
Obamacare – if conservatives didn’t care about anything other than legislative cannon fodder – could they have written a better bill? It fails to deliver even the smallest victories we were assured yet delivers worse than expected even by most detractors in costs and failures. It will continue to do so. Wait until the fines start coming into those who can’t afford insurance – they can’t afford the new insurance, can’t afford the fines, so they loose what little they have. Yep, that’s make everyone happy.
Stimulus? Did we say Stimulus? Uh, yea – if you are in a highly densely populated Blue Area you see all those nice signs and get money, the rest of us not so much. As such not that popular, or at best a non-issue. Knoxville is the third largest city in Tennessee, I have seen *one* of those signs up yet how much of my tax dollars go to it (and even then it is so uncommon I had to look it up on the internet, most don’t even know what it means and wonder why in the world they are expanding a road that few use and was resurfaced only a few years ago)? Further many have to note that it is going towards places that already had lucrative govt contracts and were doing well – economy still sucks and pointing out you gave money to your already wealthy supporters doesn’t help.
And of course we have Obama himself. When in campaign mode and needing to do nothing more than denigrate his opponent he is quite good, when he has to, you know, do something not so much. Not sure how this one is going to play out as elections are campaigns and he does a great job there, I’m confident the American people aren’t that stupid yet I’m also confident that the Republicans are.
The Democrats ran Kerry and I can see us running our own version of that – yea a dead pig could beat him but when you run a dead highly decomposed pig full of munitions set to spread the disease across the country that dead pig looks awful attractive.
Sadly a large part of is who in their right minds wants to be President now? Obama is no different in that regards. Whomever the Republicans run are going to pretty much be in that position too – almost anyone you would want to be there isn’t going to run. That is currently the Dems primary hope as far as I can see.
I still say we are moving towards a complete breakdown of society and it will take violence to restructure. I still hope, and think we are not past this point, that a peaceful resolution is achievable. I just do not think it is likely.
I do think ultimately the Conservative Viewpoint will win out mostly because the liberal is going to fail miserably, however I think that point will happen after my natural lifetime – I think we are going to have to fall MUCH more than we (and that includes Europe) currently are looking at before those ideas are refuted. The idea of gain with little effort is too seductive unless it is totally proved as unworkable to the point of no ability to rationalize why it isn’t working – and make no mistake humans are great at rationalizing what we do not want to see away.
strcpy, the doom and gloom forecasts usually do not come true because reality does not follow a linear path. It will be interesting to see what happens next year in CA and NY. They have huge deficits and will not get a bailout. If they dp get bailed out, imagine the rage of the voters of other states. The spectacle of blue states failing may cause the country to move farther right in the next election. The public is not suicidal. I think Krauthammer may have an ‘inside the beltway’ perspective. He thinks Obama and the dems will just play centrist when Republicans break up the funding process into a series of small bills which result in major spending cuts and defunding of Obamacare?
Frankly, I don’t see where he has much of his agenda remaining. By around 2016 or 2017, the regulations and price controls put on health insurance companies will bankrupt them, and the only choice will be a complete government takeover and public option. That’s simply the natural and intended result of Obamacare. The only thing he has to do to make that happen is get re-elected to prevent repeal.
To the extent the cap & trade law was intended to bankrupt the coal industry (as he is on video proclaiming), that can be accomplished through bureaucratic fiat via the EPA. The “trade” part of cap and trade may not be accomplished, which will be a huge disappointment to Goldman Sachs and his other Wall Street contributors who had expected to be enriched by trading carbon credits, but tough luck. Gaia will be saved.
Card check doesn’t strike me as that big a deal. Most public sector workers are already unionized and huge contributors to the Democratic Party. Many manufacturers and miners are already unionized. I guess he can re-distribute some wealth from sharedholders to workers by unionizing some private sector service industries, but if it doesn’t happen his other measures will have accomplished the goal of eliminating the idea of American Exceptionalism (as we’ll be more like Europe and have no compeitive advantage), so I’m not sure he’ll care that much.
The way I see it, if he gets re-elected the Social Democrat transformation into the United Socialist States of America will be complete without him having to do a whole lot more. Then we get to look forward to structurally high unemployment, disincentives to innovate and take risks that create growth, strucutally high taxes and deficits, and hundreds of new government regulations concentraing nearly absolute power in Washington and several restricting what few freedoms remain.
Utopia.