“What difference does it make?”
The more I think about Hillary Clinton’s question yesterday—“what difference does it make?”—the more important it becomes; a sort of leitmotif, not only for this administration, but for our times in general.
For the moment, let’s not talk about Benghazi itself. Let’s just mull over the fact that the priorities of the majority of Americans seem to have shifted. If the public doesn’t care about a certain tree falling in the forest, does it actually make a sound, even if the right is fussing about it?
The right has been outraged by a sequence of events and statements that have occurred under Obama’s watch, beginning with his 2008 campaign. Some are rather trivial (“corpse-man”) and some important (“bankrupt” the coal plants; “spread the wealth”). All have gained traction only on the right, because a majority (perhaps a small majority, but a majority nonetheless, and I believe a growing one) has answered the question “what difference does it make?” with the words “none at all.”
These are things that would have outraged an earlier generation. In fact, they have outraged an earlier generation; older people did not vote for Obama in large numbers (among voters 65 and older, Romney won 56% to 44%). But Hillary is correct; to most voters, Benghazi, and a host of other things that used to be considered important, make no difference at all.
One reason, which may seem somewhat paradoxical but really is not, is widespread cynicism. If the public doesn’t expect integrity or truth from what used to be called our public servants (what a quaint phrase!), then lies and strategic stonewalling will not bother most people at all. What matters is what those public servants can get for you, and what they can scare you into thinking the opposition will take away from you (tampons, anyone?)
I began to realize how exceedingly widespread this attitude of cynicism had become, and its effect on public perceptions about Benghazi, around the time of the 2012 election. I wrote about the incident afterward, here:
The American people do not seem to be “concerned,” [about Benghazi] either, not at all. Major Garrett can ask all the questions he wants…but few people except us blogophiles on the right are listening, and Carney and Obama have learned that simply thumbing their noses at the American people is an excellent way to get the people to shrug…
I discovered this myself a few days after the election, when I had dinner with an old friend who is an intelligent, moderate, non-leftist Democrat with some conservative tendencies. This friend just didn’t care about Benghazi or the administration’s handling of it, didn’t know the details and was cynically dismissive of the topic because “all politicians lie.”
Well, they surely do””but not this brazenly, because most politicians at least have the fear of being called to account by the media and then the American people…
Another big factor at work here is our decades-long education in moral relativism. What is truth, and can it be determined? Way way too many people answer “no,” and so they’ve given up trying or caring. And if they don’t care, why should our public officials answer inopportune and potentially embarrassing questions? No; what’s important is feelings, and so it made perfect sense for Hillary to act as though the best way to show concern about the deaths in Benghazi was to raise her voice in frustration and anger at the questions and cite her determination to “figure out what happened,” rather than actually exhibit that determination by answering questions about her own possible negligence in fostering conditions that may have contributed to those deaths. As for the subsequent cover-up of the reasons for the deaths, she’s implying that it’s just political business as usual, no biggee. And most Americans will nod, if they’re paying attention at all.
This administration has been stonewalling right from the start on whatever it just doesn’t feel like answering. Although previous administrations have done a little bit of that here and there, with Obama it is his recurrent m.o., made possible by the MSM’s abdication of its traditional role as questioner and challenger, and its adoption of the mantle of enabler.
A terrible development, to be sure. But it would not be possible if the American people didn’t allow it.
This is excellent. Perfectly encapsulates the attitude of the day and the politicians’ cynical use of that cynicism. It’s beyond using the media to cover. It’s actually using the indifferent apathy, the ennui, that has overtaken our society. But you’re right, it is because our worldview has changed. We are “below the line of despair” to quote “The God Who is There.” There’s no point to living except for our own immediate enjoyment, so given that, what is there to care about?
I suspect that cynicism about politicians runs in cycles, and probably was at high water marks during the Teapot Dome scandal, and before that during the Grant Administration.
Then, as now, the majority of people probably were indifferent. The difference is that the more intelligent, better educated, and more philosophically inclined had greater societal impact than today, when it’s “one man one vote” culturally. For every William F. Buckley Jr. type there are a thousand Snookis or other cognitively disenfranchised types whose views once would have been – and should have been – kept out of the mainstream culture.
Thus in culture, as in politics, it is possible to become too democratic, to accept input from those whose input is worthless and should be ignored.
I am wondering what it will take to snap out of such cynicism? Hopefully not an attack on us. Possibly terrible inflation such as we are on the edge of. Both are bad ways to wake up but I guess people won’t pay attention until something affects them personally. Wow.
She is in effect saying what difference does it make if we lie to the citizens. Liberals evidently believe that lying for a good cause is acceptable and naturally all their causes are good. It reminded me of Colin Powell on TV endorsing Obama and stating that Obama saved the automobile industry. That was a patently false statement AKA lie.
It’s not the lies that are most upsetting, it’s the fact that our president and others allowed American citizen acting on behalf of the government – their own employees – to be unnecessarily exposed to terrorists for some as yet unconfirmed reason.
* They ignored advanced warnings of terrorist attacks.
* They denied multiple additional security requests.
* When the attack occurred they chose not to act, instead watching for hours as these Americans fought for their lives.
This is not the behavior of normal, civilized people. This is reckless disregard Americans – again, their own employees, people the knew personally – and has surely encouraged additional terrorist attacks (see the recent Algeria hostage crisis). If our own Ambassador’s life has so little value then what does it mean for the rest of us?
Yes, you’re quite right. And under this administration it’s even become institutionalized.
Examples:
* The regular Friday evening “news dumps” of bad news.
* The carefully staged public events, photo-ops and photo shopping.
* Rigged Q&A sessions at press gaggles, briefings and “press conferences”.
* Rigged election “debates” ( e.g.. Candy Crowley)
* The burial of major stories other collusion by MSM outlets. [“Nothing to see here folks, move along”]
I’m sure there are others.
This would not be happening if the 4th Estate was doing its job as envisioned by the Founders.
It’s, ohhhh, 2003 or so. We’re already ^in^ Iraq. Our troops, as well as Iraqi citizens, are already getting killed/maimed.
What difference does it make, at that point, whether Saddam Hussein did or did not have weapons of mass destruction?
What difference does it make, at that point, whether Bush lied [people died]?
Things sure change when the foo’s on the other shoot, don’t they?
Excellent essay, neo. I haven’t found a way to express my outrage/disgust, but your writing has been most appreciated.
“What is government if words have no meaning?” asked Jared Lee Loughner. I would say it is the triumph of nihilism.
I wish I had had the opportunity to ask Secretary Clinton some questions. I would have asked her:
(1) Who arranged for Susan Rice to appear on the Sunday news shows? Who does Susan Rice work for?
(2) You said you didn’t see the Benghazi cables asking for more security. Should you have? Will the new Secretary be seeing such requests?
(3) Why did you tell the relatives of the Benghazi victims that the film makers would be put in jail? Was that not a premature statement from a government official since the “investigation was ongoing” as so many other government officials stated?
Just a few questions I would like to see her try to answer completely, coherently, and correctly.
This Benghazi-gate tempest will prove to go into the same teapot in which “Fast and Furious” resides.
“Public affairs vex no man,” – Samuel Johnson
This is, now more than ever, true. The citizen, having made his Faustian quid pro quo with the State – I’ll vote for thee, you send the check to me — is all that vexes the private man. Perhaps, like the prospector’s mule (the beast had to be slugged in the head — to get his attention — before he would move), the citizen will take note of what is going on when the checks turn into chits and get downright interested when the chits arrive late, yellowed, worthless… stamped Postage Due.
How fitting that it is a Clinton who asks, “what does difference does it make?”. Certainly, a Clinton would play on the public’s cynicism, because it was a Clinton who popularized the conventional wisdom that all politicians lie.
I suppose that Hillary learned at Bill’s knee. So to speak.
The Benghazi incident and Stevens killing is a microcosm of Obama’s whole light footprint and lead from behind Libya policy. The Libya policy was billed as the anti-Bush, anti-heavy footprint, anti-lead from the front intervention.
To be too critical of the Libya policy is to edge too close to supporting the Bush model, which neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to do. Republicans do not support actually changing the Libya policy.
That’s where I see the ambivalence on the Benghazi attack and the Stevens killing. Ie, what’s the alternative? If the alternative is the Iraq or Afghanistan interventions, which everyone *knows* were Bush’s folly, complete and utter disasters and failures beginning to end, then the Libya policy with its costs -including Benghazi- is still preferable.
I don’t understand how the Secretary of State can say, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
And then, just moments later say,
“It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”
So you don’t need to know how or why something happened in order “to prevent it from ever happening again”? What am I missing here?
Once upon a time, the average journalist would have jumped right on that kind of glaring disconnect.
CV: a reasonable question.
He is asking about the coverup, the lying to the American people ex post facto. In effect, what he is saying is: why didn’t you tell the American people the truth about what had happened?
Her answer goes off in a completely different (and confusing, probably purposely so) direction. Instead of discussing the coverup, and certainly instead of admitting that of course there was a coverup, she is basically saying they are hot on the trail of what actually happened, and why, in order to keep it from happening again. Not what they told the American people happened, but what really happened.
She uses the unclear pronoun “it” in the phrase “what difference does it make?” One could paraphrase another famous line (one uttered by her husband in another context: “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is”) and say, “It depends what the meaning of ‘it’ is.”
And indeed, it does.
Spot on.
I am convinced that cynicism is the right word, though. We all know that if George Bush has used the word, “corpse-man” he would have been mocked endlessly. And if Benghazi had occurred under, say, Mitt Romney the narrow majority of the nation would be yelling for heads to roll.
As it is, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had once ran a campaign ad aimed at what she rightly saw as a dithering Obama. It was called “The 3:00 am Phone Call”. The Benghazi call came at 3:00 in the afternoon and both Obama and Clinton ignored it.
Neo,
Regarding your excellent point about moral relativism, Pope Benedict XVI has called it “the dictatorship of moral relativism.” Here’s a good article on the subject:
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/print2005/ceo_relativism_may05.html
Excerpt:
“…It is, according to Pope Benedict XVI, “the most profound difficulty of our time.” Pope John Paul II said it is a leading cause for lack of evangelistic and missionary zeal. And the late Allan Bloom, author of the controversial bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, said it is the only thing that many university students believe in. All three are referring to relativism, the belief that truth is in the eye of the beholder. Relativism insists that morality, cultures, and beliefs are all of equal value, meaning, and worth. It asserts that what is true for one person might not be true for another, and each person can decide for himself what is true, good, and right. Popular expressions of relativism include comments such as, “This is true for me—and so I believe it” and “What’s right for you might not be right for me.” In his homily at the Mass preceding the conclave that quickly elected him Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Ratzinger said that “relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude [acceptable] to today’s standards.” He warned: “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires…”
If the alternative is the Iraq or Afghanistan interventions, which everyone *knows* were Bush’s folly, complete and utter disasters and failures beginning to end, then the Libya policy with its costs -including Benghazi- is still preferable.
Rubbish, from beginning to end.
If you told that person that because of that attitude he had demonstrated himself as not fitted by temperament or character to be counted as part of a community of self-governing moral and political peers; would he shrug and say what difference does it make?
Would he say, “So what, I’m just hanging on for the ride”?
Or would the thought of being considered as less than worthy of equal consideration and/or sacrifice, bestir him enough to raise an eyebrow and ask, “What community was that again?”
“What difference does it make;” the script is written, the play has been produced, the lines have been enacted, and it proceeds to the final act; what difference does it make to ask questions of the actors?
Unfortunately, I can find little to disagree with your analysis neo and find your conclusion depressing. Can it be true that the struggle of Western Civilization during the last 600 years towards enlightenment and individual sovereignty is over? America is the last stand. Will we give up and meekly stand in line?
It sort of explains the popularity of Jon Stewart and Colbert, btw. It’s cynicism, with a liberal default, because that’s just what is cooler.
I continue to lay 100% of the blame on the media. If this had happened under Bush, outrageous outrage would be ALL OVER the radio, TV, newspapers, Hollywood. And regular people would be outraged because the media would harp on every little detail with the attitude, “Aren’t you outraged yet?” But since it was Obama, they’re made to feel alone and uncool if they do care.
I saw that Donald Trump may be trying to buy the NY Times. This is what we need. A major newspaper, maybe a wire service, a couple of cable networks. It’s time to fight fire with fire.
http://tinyurl.com/b3kujxo
Feeling less discouraged now… flies recognize caca when they smell it,. 😉
I am so tired of the Clintons.
I just realized this morning that it’s been only 21 years since they popped on the scene — seems much longer than that since we got the “two for one” promise and “heck, don’t vote for him” if we had a problem with Bill and Gennifer Flowers.
Really has been a roller-coaster hell-in-a-handbasket ride since then.
An excellent post with many great comments. It’s days like this when I’m most happy to be a blog reader, especially here at neo-neocon’s.
neo, said, ” …..all politicians lie. Well, they surely do–but not this brazenly, because most politicians at least have the fear of being called to account by the media and then the American people…”
That’s the nub of it all. Most of the media have become a part of the problem because they will only call Republicans to account. The low information voters don’t get any sense of anything being wrong in the Obama administration because they are not called to account. Performances like Hillary’s (and many other things too numerous to bring up here) prove that. She knows there will be no accountability. She can say she didn’t read the cables asking for more security and – POOF! – she’s not accountable. She can claim to want to get to the bottom of this so it doesn’t happen again, but the glacial pace of investigation and the unwillingness to admit that mistakes were made shows no such determination.
More conservative billionaires need to get into the media business. I would love to see our major news outlets go back to labelling their philosophies as they did prior to WWII. Today all the MSM outlets claim they are “unbiased or middle of the road.” We don’t know if they sincerely believe that fiction or if they are just being prevaricators. We do know it is not serving the nation well.
LisaM:
“I continue to lay 100% of the blame on the media.”
I agree with you, at least up to 90%. I think Ace does as well (funny how these themes sometimes emerge from various sources simultaneously, no?):
Ace today at 3:51PM:
“What we are witnessing is the full and seamless fusion of media power with government power.”
See his post at http://ace.mu.nu/archives/336869.php
DNW: neither. This person would think I’d lost my mind.
carl in atlanta: it’s a funny thing. Ace and I have very different blogging styles, to say the least (and very different amounts of traffic :-)), but I’ve noticed we often write about the same thing at the same time and come to the same conclusions.
I can see the bumper sticker now:
Hillary 2016
What Difference Does It Make?
“Hillary 2016
What Difference Does It Make?”
😉 All the difference under the sun. 😉
The last line: “maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime . . ”
Hillary, some of us have already figured it out – and the lies don’t help to cover it up; except for those folks (as Neo has pointed out is many Americans) who are not paying attention.
Cynical certainly, but maybe more ironic.
Aren’t ultra leftists (let’s start throwing the hyperbole back why don’t we) always exhorting everyone to
MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!
That makes it more cynical yet.
As these events unfolded it was clear that the Americans of 2013 probably won’t react to hostage taking as the Americans of 1979 did. I’m sure the wrong people are taking notice.
Then again, no one has made today’s Americans wait in gas lines or take cold showers. Yet.
There’s that cynicism again.
Aren’t ultra leftists (let’s start throwing the hyperbole back why don’t we) always exhorting everyone to
MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!
That, and “Question Authority” (although if the authorities are Democrats you won’t get any answers, and my favorite, “Dissent is patriotic.” Counter-revolutionary, if there’s a Dem in the White House, but patriotic.
Notice how we don’t hear any of those slogans now? They’ve gone the way of “grim milestones,” and the “legions of homeless.” All are just resting until there’s a loyal American in the White House, when out they’ll come, along with the papier mache heads and such.
We will NEVER see “Question Authority” as long as liberals are the authority in question.
This can not be emphasized enough: “Another big factor at work here is our decades-long education in moral relativism.”
I will never forget a woman I encountered in a teaching credential seminar a few years ago, who argued that rape is not a moral issue at all. She declared “who are we to call it ‘immoral’ if it’s considered acceptable by some societies?” She absolutely meant this; in her world view there simply is no universal right nor wrong, only what common consensus embraces or rejects. Ergo, rape is not necessarily wrong if some people find it acceptable. And THIS is the kind of person who is teaching today’s children.
Neo – agreed – to a certain extent – For those paying attention or those who have gotten tired of paying attention. As you said.
What about institutional indifference? Our present culture is saturated with images of murder and death. Both as “entertainment” and news. The nightly news in most major US cities leads with at least 1 homicide per week, a sexual assault, and a missing child. 4 more deaths are just part of the background in the everyday news. People become callous and indifferent, or ignore it altogether. It’s commonplace. Somehow this constant exposure to homicide close to home must anesthetize the average person to a few poor bastards who were killed in some place most people couldn’t find on a map for a million dollar prize. It’s sad and tragic what has happened to us.
Another thing that I wonder about- People relate to each other with text messages, email, social media, but not so much face to face. We don’t talk to people we disagree with in a constructive way, but we sometimes find the courage ( and possibly regret it )via email.
You can “defriend” a real person, with a finger click. No explanation necessary. Poof, theyre out of your hair. Pretty convenient, and very impersonal. The point is we become more detached from each other. The irony of course is we are ” more connected than ever before”.
It’s all just a thought, but now ‘we’ are more able to seek out those who think as we do, and avoid those who do not, than was ever possible before. I’m doing it now.
Access to information, and communication technology have changed how we relate to each other, socialize, who we befriend, and who we trust. To some extent, maybe the victims of Benghazi are victims of our indifference to each other, and the paradoxical isolation our Information Age has fostered.
maybe she knows something we dont?
Last November the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point issued a 147-page treatise entitled “Challengers From the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right”
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf
Another big factor at work here is our decades-long education in moral relativism.
and may i add the bake sale at the medical school for the pederastic vagina monologues went ok. given that the administration and the rest are mostly women, sales were great, and everyone gets to understand the moral relativism of the little coochie snorcher that could…
The problem is that the regime routinely denigrates individual dignity (e.g. social justice) and supports a progressive devaluation of human life (e.g. elective abortion, including termination of survivors). They increase risk to law-abiding, productive members of society, while rewarding criminals and less productive members, legal and illegal.
There is an expression in Russia which explain this progress: my shirt is closer to my body. In other words, as the political power increases risk and uncertainty, people are choosing to protect their own interests. Some people exhibit an introverted behavior (i.e. preservation), while others are notably extroverted (e.g. exploitative, opportunistic).
For people who believe their lives are purposed with maximizing material possessions and sensual pleasures, the sacrifice and exploitation of human beings will mean exactly nothing to them. However, to be fair, there are few who can effectively mitigate mortal risks, and, after all, my shirt is closer to my body.
I will qualify the above comment with we are not gods, not even mortal gods. We each possess an individual dignity, which should be optimally respected and preserved. However, as a mother and father accept responsibility for life they bring into this world, so should our representatives who swear an oath to defend the constitution, and the rights (including life) of people it affirms. If they fail at this principal duty, then they (including the president, secretary of state, etc.) should be removed for insubordination. Their authority is granted to them by the people. Their mandate is delineated in our national charter and constitution.
Artfldgr:
It’s clear that someone at West Point does not understand risk management or maintains a severely myopic (bordering on egoistical) perspective of human life and dignity.
There is a simple reason to limit centralization (i.e. monopolization) of capital and power. It is because proximate disparities engender dissociation of risk which causes corruption.
The problem today, as it has been throughout human history, is the establishment of monopolies or monopolistic practices. In the worst case, we have a French Revolution, when “taxation without representation” is progressive and ultimately normalized, and corruption of a powerful minority interest can not be addressed by any means other than a pervasive, violent revolt of the people.
The individual or assembly at West Point needs to reassess their priorities. For the time being, it is conservatives, social and fiscal, who have the greatest stake and interest in continuing this American experiment. That much should be very clear from the explicit statements in our national charter.
It is dissociation or risk which causes corruption. It is dreams of instant (or immediate) gratification which motivates its progress.
It is! Is it?
It is a private conversation between Barack and Hillary, and perhaps Bill. I wonder if the Commander in Chief will, once again, escape scrutiny and responsibility.
Occam’s Beard,
Rubbish or not, that’s the rationale for the course they chose on Libya and they’re staying the course. The present Middle East policy is the direct result of the opposition to the Iraq intervention.
“I continue to lay 100% of the blame on the media.”
Absolutely, Lisa. That is *exactly* why Hillary takes for granted that she can get away with such an outrageous, contemptuous statement.
I’m late to the party, but I would just add that, if HRC really is so tired and jaded that she can’t understand why a good portion of the public IS interested in getting to the bottom of the Benghazi mess, then it’s a good thing she’s out the door.
As a more general observation, it seems that the lefties in govt and the media are doing their best to sell folks on a philosophy that says “NOTHING really matters except keeping us in power so we can get you stuff for free. The truth doesn’t matter, principles don’t matter, values don’t matter, America doesn’t matter — the only thing that matters is that we’re in charge and this time we’re not letting the Republican back in.” This strikes me as a real authoritarian kind of mindset. Perhaps it stems from the liberals’ dismay and revulsion over what they saw from the Republican side under Reagan and GWB, which is a party trying to use the flag and”family values” as a trojan horse for policies that the libs saw as mean-spirited and backward. Maybe the libs have decided that they can’t compete with the GOP if things like “truth, justice, and the American way” matter, so they say to people, “F— that crap. Who cares? What we’re about is free phones and birth control.”
What difference does it make, can also be another way of saying “So what?”
And that is how we are now to be ruled by our betters.
It’s stupid and pointless to limit the size of soft drinks sold. “So what. We’re doing it anyway.”
Most people are not in favor of passing a 2000 page health law before it is read, debated, and vetted. “So what. We don’t give a damn what you think. We’re doing it anyway.”
80+ million Americans are law-abiding citizens who have chosen to exercise their rights under the 2nd Amendment to own various sorts of firearms; and millions more may not own any, but are in full sympathy with their loved ones, close friends, or relatives who do. “So what. We’re introducing wide-sweeping legislation intended to take away your guns, and marginalize and demonize you if you don’t comply, anyway. Here – take a look at our middle finger, you neanderthals.”
The vast majority of Americans have no interest whatsoever in seeing their daughters, sisters, nieces or mothers placed into front line infantry combat units. “So what. If we want your opinion, we’ll ask for it. We’re doing this because, Shut up.”
What is shocking to me, and something I don’t think the old-school (e.g., Nat Review, etc.) conservative pundits have even processed in their minds is this: The old ways, where politicians would test the winds and go where the polls guide them — appear to be disappearing. Look at my examples above. I have gotten to the point where I roll my eyes if I read something along the lines of “Dem rep XX has to be cautious in supporting proposal Y since it might not be popular with his constituents.” Bah. That kind of thinking is SOO first 232 years of our history, thinking! How passe!
2014 is the target year for the left. They want the House. Then NOTHING will stand in their way – including “suspending” the presidental term limits, if they decide that is what the want to do, and want to keep O in office. The bulls eye will be on, and (under the table) BILLIONS will be spent, putting the full court press on knocking off the few and select GOP congressmen who are vulnerable – to get control of the House.
Then all bets are off. We think its troubling now? We ain’t seen NOTHING yet.
I feel so badly for my kids.
“All politicians lie” has become a widely accepted truth, especially among the more educated among us. I have increasingly heard it for some twenty years now, especially from the rent-seekers.
The corollary is, of course, that the fish rots from the head down.
And we few hope, try, struggle to undo this?
Yes.
We do it because we must, not because victory is assured.
What jumped out at me is that this is simply a disaster to be exploited in the future. The 4 dead are done with. This administration only wants to know how to exploit this for the future. Justice for the dead doesn’t matter.
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The LEft realized sometime ago that their former methods for trying to take over the US wasn’t working, especially when the Soviets dropped out of the game and stopped funding them.
Instead, by personally assassinating the character of America’s founding members and its current political leadership in times of war and peace, they done what Ayers recommended: heightened the tension between classes. It becomes more about who is the winner and loser, and less about what the good of America is. If you can destroy the character of a leader and make his followers think he is incompetent or insane, half the battle is already won.
Whenever Americans are tortured and suffering, where ever Americans die, Obama gets a big fat smile on his face. But the problem was never Obama. Get rid of him, and the Left’s evil alliance will still be in power, with a new replacement. No matter how many elections you win, no matter how many people you convince, there is no victory against the Left without the execution of all Leftist leaders and cadre cells. Such has been the case for many wars for the right to exist in human history. We are no different.