Obama’s presidency: a watershed?
In one of yesterday’s threads, the conversation veered into a discussion of whether the Obama administration was a major turning point or just a continuation of basic trends in the Democratic Party with nothing all that special or different about it. If you haven’t seen the back-and-forth, it starts around here and goes on for quite some time.
I think it’s some of both. Obama was indeed a continuation of long-time trends – many limited to Democrats, but some shared by both parties: identity politics, increasing government control/spending, encouragement of illegal immigration, polarization, promising one thing and delivering another.
But he also brought his own very special elements, some of which have since been picked up by the party as a whole and by certain members of it in particular. He showed the Democrats how far it’s possible to go without being completely rejected by the American people. Obama was elected while hiding his leftism (at least somewhat, unless a person knew a lot about his background and could read between the lines of some of his statements), but while in office he demonstrated it much more fully and was still re-elected and is still revered by huge numbers of people. Democrats lost ground and lost control of the House in 2010, but there’s been a fair amount or recovery and they once again control the House and have hopes of gaining the Senate in 2020.
Prior to the Obama administration, I think Democrats were frightened to show their leftist hands or to go too far too fast; now they are much more bold than they were.
It was under Obama’s watch and with his encouragement that the Democrats did something never done before [see *NOTE below]: passed a major bill revamping a basic part of American life (health insurance) without bipartisan support and with the barest of majorities. Prior bills of that sweeping a nature had either had significant bipartisan support or overwhelming majorities from one party, or both. Before Obamacare, politicians were afraid of the backlash if they did something like that without overwhelming support, but Obamacare taught them that if they could squeeze something in somehow, even without such bipartisan consensus or overwhelming support, it had a good chance of standing. Yes, they suffered a bit in 2010, but they held the presidency and continued with that “fundamental transformation” of the US.
Obama did something similar with the Iran deal.
Those are just two examples, but there are others, and I think their significance was and is huge. Not only was each – Obamacare and Iran – a big thing in terms of its immediate and longer-term consequences, but the entire package showed the Democrats that the process could be successful, and applied to future topics.
Obama was helped in accomplishing this by some personal characteristics of his, including but not limited to: his smoothness and calm demeanor, his voice, his looks, his appeal as the first black president, his use of blame and excuses, his identity politics, his Alinsky background, and his boldness in realizing what was possible.
The Trump administration is the backlash. The impeachment is the counter to that. This is a deadly serious engagement, played for high stakes despite its seemingly farcical nature.
[*NOTE: One possible exception was Medicare Part D. You can look at its long and complex legislative history here. But although it was an important bill, it didn’t have the same sweeping scope as Obamacare. Part D was more of an extension – although a large one – of an already-existing program, Medicare.]
It seems to me that many people delude themselves, when they view this or that Leftist/Democrat action as these actors violating some one or more of a set of commonly agreed on rules and precedents that have evolved and generally governed U.S. politics for hundreds of years.
In this view, these Leftists/Democrats have just stepped outside the boundaries, but, outside of these exceptions (which these Leftist actors know are wrong), the boundaries still hold.
I would argue that assuming that this structure of rules and precedents, these boundaries are merely being “honored in their breach,” is the wrong way to look at many of these Leftist/Democrat violations and that, instead, what is happening is that many of these actions are not attempts to step over these traditional boundaries but are–in a act of revolution—actions taken to simply ignore these traditional boundaries as having no longer any effect at all; to overturn and destroy them.
If this is the case–that many of these Leftist/Democrat actions no longer adhere to any conventions, are no longer bound by any rules, and can take any form—then, to analyze and react to them as being just exceptions to the rules rather than as deliberately destroying/ignoring them, is a grave mistake.
In other words, the left has cut down all the laws thickly planted thickly from coast to coast to get what they want, and having only been opposed by the worthless GOP, they can’t imagine the Devil will ever turn around to bite them.
These people are fools. They will drive the country into yet another ruinous civil war with their traitorous stupidity.
I was recently in the State of Minnesota visiting family. I had coffee with an old friend who said, “Maybe Trump is the President that we need to have at this moment in time.” I think he is right. In the past, my friend liked Reagan and I liked Mondale. We never argued about our political differences. We both voted for Trump. Not because we loved him, but because the Country needed him.
I do not think Obama was a watershed moment. I think he was very inexperience about middle America and put put too much into strategy (like HRC) than actual encounters with people from all walks of life. It was almost as if they were dirty. I saw Obama speak in Wyoming. For him it was last minute. Bill and Hilary were in the State, so he had to come. People were excited, including myself. Saying that, although it was a decent speech there was something wanting. I had the same feeling went he voted for the expansion of wiretapping while he was running for President.
I think the biggest problem our country has had because of Obama, is the insincere virtual signally from elected officials and the media, that has created a ‘fog of reality’ in America.
Methinks ye fergot to mention executive privilege run wild. Wielded rampantly. Unsheathed and unbound. (Or might that be considered “just a continuation of basic trends in the DP with nothing all that special or different about it”?)
That brutal onslaught and good ole boy Harry Reid’s obliterating the status quo (and decency itself—not to mention anything approaching good judgment, let alone good governance) by unleashing the nuclear option on a defenseless—because partisan DP—Senate.
(Just two examples of a myriad.)
Because “YES WE CAN”…and also because “YES, WE WILL **ALWAYS** BE ABLE TO…”
QED…(based on their lurid fantasies of never-ending power—with echoes of never-ending impeachment?—but QED nevertheless.
Indeed a [fill in yer favorite number]-year reich, though English-speaking to be sure…
(Gosh, no wonder the Hillary and her dark wing-ed minions knew absolutely that they had it all sewn up. And that the ONLY way they could lose was if the other side cheated…. It was fore-ordained. It had to be. It HAS to be. Trump got in the way. Bad move, Donny boy….)
One thing about our life and times is the gleichschaltung. You may not be interested in it, but it is interested in you. Here’s an example from Australia.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/in-the-court-of-pc-opinion.php
AD…the attacks on Margaret Court have been roiling Australia for most of the last year. Just do a quick search on Lawrence Mooney & Court…The Bernie Bros got nothing compared to him!
But I think Obama was an international watershed in that he legitimized that “punch back twice as hard” mentality…as surely as he legitimized the hardcore Islam factions with his nuclear give-away…or massive gov’t overreach with 0-care.
President Trump is a similar watershed, but the negative image. Boris Johnson isn’t possible without Trump. Scott Morrison isn’t possible without Trump. Brexit being accomplished by next week…etc…IMHO. Let’s see how long we wait to fill another SCOTUS seat and then we’ll know for sure.
It’s probably better to call Obama’s two terms a “watershed” than to say merely “an eight year criminal enterprise”. Let some future historian 85 years from now say the truth of it when there won’t be anyone to get all riled up about it.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/23/breaking-spy-court-admits-fisa-warrants-against-carter-page-were-not-valid/
In their ideological fanaticism, the democrats ignore a fundamental truth and, in doing so are making a fatal mistake.
When 51% shove down the throats of the other 49% legislation and regulations that make a mockery of liberty, they repudiate peaceful resolution of differences and redress of grievance.
That guarantees the eventual violent resolution of differences. A conflict for which they are utterly unprepared and logistically unfit.
“Watershed”
I think we’re using the wrong metaphor.
It’s more like a controlled burn supervised by a pyromaniac…leading a whole group of like-minded psychopaths. (Unless we’re talking about a “controlled inundation” of Biblical proportions…)
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/russiagate-spy-paid-1-million-obama-admin-was-wapo-deep-throat
Well, at least we have no excuse NOT to understand the “rush to impeachment”….
Neo,
Obama did something similar with the Iran deal.
But this will raise another point here with president Ronald Reagan,the Iran-Contra scandal
Iran Contra unfolded shortly after the midterm elections of 1986, when Democrats retook control of the Senate, and news reports started to reveal a secret shadow operation that had been conducted by high-level officials in the administration to free hostages in Lebanon by selling arms to Iran.
The 2nd case here
Obama did something similar with the Iran deal.
Nice word Art Deco. I had to look it up.
I was very worried when Obama was elected and even though Mitt Romney didn’t interest me much, I was a strong supporter because I felt it was necessary to stop the Obama momentum. My fear was that Obama’s reelection was an unrecoverable tipping point.
I am hopeful now that we are recovering, but more time is needed to tell whether we end up on the positive side of the that tipping point. As to the “seemingly farcical nature” of today’s politics, I would point to recent history. History seems to say that the Dems and the MSM ran a political experiment during the first couple years of Trump’s presidency, and the result was that they took back the House. Naturally, we’re now getting much more of the same.
____
It was interesting catching up with those comments from Art Deco, huxley, and AesopFan. My impression was that they thought those ideas were more contradictory than they are.
Yes, Obama is something of a non-entity with secret grade-points and academic transcripts and a history of gaffs when he was off tele-prompter, which was relatively rare. And it is true that swaths of the country worshipped him then and still. A relative of mine emailed just weeks ago that [Saint] Obama was the purest, most scandal free leader we’ve ever had. I presume that this is some meme started by the NYTimes or elsewhere.
Isn’t this the nature of con artists? Or perhaps only the really good ones?
As AesopFan said,
“…he [Obama] was only a front for some kind of handlers, most probably Valerie Jarrett and behind-the-scenes for-real-communists.
—
Maybe it really does come back to his remark in the prologue to his second book:
‘I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.’ ”
I love that last quote. It is like a magician telling you how the trick works before he performs it, then he performs it and gets a standing ovation.
I wonder if the foundering of Kamala Harris and Corey Booker’s campaigns have a lot to do with Americans saying fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Opposition to Obama was always blunted by the race card.
IMO, the Progressive wing of the Democratic party played their hand way too early with Obama. They should have let McCain or Romney win (both men being Republican Progressives), and build up their support in the Senate and House.
The Democrats would have had two terms worth of establishment Republican trash fires for Obama to put out and play the role of the lightbringing savior.
If the Progressives had been patient and played the incrementalist political game that the Fabian Society in Britain had, they might have arrived at where they wished to be by 2040.
As is, the Democrats may have mortally wounded themselves.
Trump is the antibody.
He’s media-proof.
Trump beats up the democrats-with-bylines brigade, regularly. Worse, he steals and absorbs their power.
The MSM attacks do not weaken Trump. They make him stronger.
The old strain of resistance withered under the hot glow of the media spotlight. The orange strain grows!
https://giphy.com/gifs/reactionseditor-trump-wrestling-3ohryCNP6uXSqXAoGA
Let’s have a look at the non-geographical definition:
Definition of watershed
1: a crucial dividing point, line, or factor : TURNING POINT
–https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/watershed
I’d say Obama’s presidency qualifies. Imagine if Obama hadn’t run for the nomination in 2008, then Hillary had won the nomination and then defeated McCain. (The latter is not hard for me to imagine.)
Does anyone truly believe Hillary would have had the ambition and the personal power to ram through all that Obama did?
Sure, Hillary would have aided and abetted the general movement to the left. No question. But with Bill as an advisor and by her own burnt fingers after HillaryCare in the 90s, I say she would have been run a more conventional Democratic presidency. She certainly did not have adoring crowds like Obama supporting her.
Neo puts it well: “[Obama] showed the Democrats how far it’s possible to go without being completely rejected by the American people.” No triangulation here.
That was the Obama breakthrough. Watershed, one might say.
Similarly, imagine Reagan not running in 1980 and George H.W. Bush elected as president instead.
One can argue, as Art Deco does, that resultant vector forces were already at work, moving the country to the right (as John Mitchell predicted in 1969), but does anyone wish to argue “Bush, Reagan, tomato, tomahto, what’s the difference? It’s vector forces all the way down.”
One can argue, as Art Deco does, that resultant vector forces were already at work, moving the country to the right (as John Mitchell predicted in 1969), but does anyone wish to argue “Bush, Reagan, tomato, tomahto, what’s the difference? It’s vector forces all the way down.”
You’re misunderstanding my argument, which is that Obama himself adds no original content. In addition, the Democratic Party hasn’t had much intramural dispute over policy. There are role-playing games in the social nexus for which the Democratic Party is the electoral vehicle (e.g. that between antifa and higher ed administrators, between lawfare artists employed in law offices and lawfare artists on the bench). There are disputes over tactics. That’s about all. The situation isn’t analogous to that in the Republican Party ca. 1978 because there you had differences in policy and in general disposition. Also, Reagan actually did add original content, and had thoughts on many topics which were not just reactions to his peers in politics. He managed, to a degree, to change the terms of discussion in the Republican Party and to a degree outside of it. Obama didn’t do that.
And the gruesome decay in the quality of political discussion was quite advanced before anyone had ever heard of Obama. Robert Bork identified 1981 as a crucial year in official Washington. Recall he’d been Solicitor-General from 1973 to 1977 and then returned in 1981 to take a position on the Court of Appeals, so he knew something of the culture before and after. His concise description: “that’s the year liberals turned vicious”. From thence there was the advent of the Clintons and the continuous spin cycle. There were repeated instances of lawfare through independent counsel investigation over a period of 20 years, culminating with the rage of the Democrats that their machine had been turned against them. Then the most unedifying spectacle of the Florida recount. Then what we christened ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’. By and large, the Democrats and the interests they represent have been aggressors every step of the way, even as they pretend to be aggrieved parties. Obama’s just part of this logic.
I’d say Obama’s administration was a watershed. On election night 2012 I said to my wife that it was the end of the Republic. She laughed at me. It was the beginning of a concerted effort to mobilize the FBI, the CIA, and the other clandestine agencies, and the DOJ and State as well, as political weapons against the administration’s “enemies”. Luckily HRC lost and it has been exposed, though not destroyed, yet.
I should note a couple of attempts at generating a counter-current. After the Bork and Thomas hearings, Robert Dole and the Senate Republican caucus allowed Bill Clinton’s court nominees to sail through. The favor wasn’t returned 12 years later, when Bush’s nominees were subject to vociferous resistance and the Senate Republican caucus permitted lower court nominees to be bottled up for years at a time. The other was George W. Bush’s assiduous (and somewhat demoralizing) refusal to defend himself publicly.
Does anyone truly believe Hillary would have had the ambition and the personal power to ram through all that Obama did?
Hillary’s much more aggressive than Obama. Neither one have good one-on-one people skills when dealing with legislators.
They should have let McCain or Romney win (both men being Republican Progressives),
They are / were neither. Romney is called ‘windsock Romney’ for a reason. As for McCain, his Senate voting record was generally starboard, but he had some personal shticks and liked to disrupt other’s plans.
Obama’s Iran deal and unconstitutional Paris agreement were two of the worst things ever for the US. Trump saved us. And I bet he takes out Iran’s nuke infrastructure after he wins re-election.
The “watershed” is the problem of Christian Capitalism, which is unequally but very successful, combined with a very successful Gramscian march of Democrats thru the elite institutions.
Some Obama-policy like Leftist was bound to win, because the college “educated” = indoctrinated now are opposed to Christianity and Capitalism; the two key pillars of Western Civilization.
The 2008 Financial “shock” shook the elitist self-confidence, and also the general confidence in “capitalism”. Yet virtually no Americans died, nor were seriously impoverished by it, as previously by the Great Depression. And Iraq had some casualties, but fewer deaths than by car crashes. Far fewer, tho much heavier publicized.
Before the Great Recession, there was huge expectation of “perfection”. This expectation was unrealistic, yet nevertheless resulted in massive disappointment, depression, and wrongful ascribing blame to … Capitalism, and Christianity.
The opposition to Christian morals, which are economically optimal for human beings the way they are, has long been led by “free sex” loving rationalists. Yet most middle, upper middle, & rich Democrats are married, and stay married for the kids — while it is the poor that suffer the broken homes, limited life opportunities, and more problems which are inevitable among poor people with “poor” morals.
Look at Venezuela, recently the richest S. American country, Democratically electing Chavez in 1999. and becoming a socialist basket case in just 20 years. How can any thinking person, much less “educated”, support socialism after that? Yet … more and more the college elite professors, anti-Rep by about 95-1 (based on numbers of donations), have indoctrinated students to hate capitalism and like socialism.
Is “Watershed” the “straw that breaks the camel’s back”? Or is it an earthquake, shaking foundations? Obama was the inevitable “straw”, waiting for the anti-capitalist opportunity, which was provided for by the 2008 housing bubble econ crash. Look at Bush Derangement Syndrome while Bush was taking on the Quixote goal of creating a free, democratic, human rights respecting Iraq. (Notice no “capitalism”? I now claim we need well-functioning capitalism, like S. Korea got under a dictator, before “democracy” will work.)
Trump is a backlash to Political Correctness. Perhaps a watershed backlash, but I keep waiting for anti-Dem indictments, and Lock Her Up, and nada, not 2017, not 2018, not 2019. I have roller coaster hopes and low-expectations about Durham’s reports and 2020.
Under Obama, the Democrats openly moved Left, so many saw them without masks. Under Trump, those masks are further removed — yet still many Dem supporters, elite college educated folk, still see them with masks. For many, the masks have been on since Reagan, and the voter viewers have been happy to accept the masks. More strongly since Bush. Hysterically with Trump.
God help us.
God Bless America — too many college elite won’t.
Art Deco makes the distinction between tactics and strategy. I’ll agree with him that if Obama was a uniquely different Dem president, it was a difference in tactics more than in the big picture strategy.
An interesting example is the original Progressive (Bull Moose) Party platform that Teddy Roosevelt signed onto after his career had peaked. It took a long time, but we have almost all of that platform now, except universal healthcare. Guess what leading Dem candidates are talking about now. The strategy hasn’t changed that much.
However, if the tactical superiority of one candidate or president is great enough, then he/she can let their inner child run wild. (The other fear is that the mechanisms of that superiority might be replicated by others.)
Example: FDR was massively popular in the middle of his presidency and was very upset that many of his programs were struck down by the SCOTUS. He must have thought, if I’m this popular I can get away with almost anything, like packing the Supreme Court. Felix Frankfurter talked him down from that decision.
____
As Bernie’s national polling numbers break into the Dem lead, the latest media scuttlebutt is that Obama may speak out about how Bernie can’t win the presidency. See this. There are direct quotes from Obama in the article, but notice how vague and oblique they are. The hard hitting quote is from Jim Messina, an Obama surrogate.
The mechanics of Obama and Trump are diametric opposites. Trump makes hard statements directly; by himself and putting himself on the line. Obama speaks in vague terms and platitudes and lets his surrogates talk smack.
One thing that was a watershed about the Obama years was how the media simply stopped doing their jobs. I am a veteran Clinton-hater and can give you chapter and verse on how the media kissed his behind during the ’92 and ’96 campaigns. But even I will admit that reporters and news organizations would occasionally hold his feet to the fire while he was in office. Not to the extent they would a Republican, of course, but they still made some effort.
With Obama, it became a contest among “journalists” to see who could heap more praise on the emperor’s new clothes. And I think after eight years of that, a good chunk of the press has simply forgotten how their profession is supposed to work.
Mike
You can’t have a ethical government building an opaque wall between its policy and the world shaking importance of the outcome….e.g. the Arab Spring. Has anyone associated with our policy in the Arab Spring ever explained what we were trying to do? Now look at the pure hell in Syria. And crickets as to why. A sin.
The conversation seems to be oscillating around the three definitions of “watershed.”
(1)n. The entire region draining into a river, river system, or other body of water.
(2)n. A ridge of high land dividing two areas that are drained by different river systems.
(3)n. A critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point.
It looks to me like there was an on-going watershed #1 in society (the Gramscian march), resulting in an ideological ridge #2 that irrevocably separated the Right and the Left (Art Deco: the year 1981 when Bork said “the liberals turned vicious” due to Reagan’s win), and ending up in a tipping point #3 with Obama, sort of like a dam that is continually over-stressed until it finally gives way.
The turning point is not that the Democrats and progressives were trending hard left, but that they quit hiding it.
* * *
These observations dove-tail with the conversation on yesterday’s impeachment thread: when do you start fighting back?
(Not accepting the identification of GOP with the Devil, while appreciating the parallel.)
Seems an apt place to link this article for discussion.
RTWT for the back story, but this is the important section.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/whitefield-academy-hate-doesnt-win-but-it-scores/
Things happen slowly, until they happen quickly.
Preparation doesn’t have to involve counter-violence, but it does have to involve conscious effort.
Obama was when the GoP openly showed its disdain for voters and utterly capitulated to the Dems.
Many had suspected they were spineless shallow creatures with no stamina to stand up for conservative values, but now they showed it openly and proudly.
THAT was a watershed, but it wasn’t really a big change apart from the openness of it.
JTW, it was the GOPe, the establishment Reps like Romney (I voted for him 2012!), who are disdainful of Rep voters.
Why isn’t the Tea Party the watershed? Because they were the polite GOP nice guys, finishing last. Actually, they DID win the House for GOP, to slow the Obama Dem march. But they were not fighting. See how Kurt describes the Dems:
Democrats cannot be trusted with power. The GOP leadership, such as it is, is entirely too lame to make that case.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/01/02/newlyelected-democrats-let-their-masks-slip-revealing-the-fascists-beneath-n2558766
Kurt calls GOPe folk Fredocons.
.
Aesop +1: ” a dam that is continually over-stressed until it finally gives way.”
(Much like my camel back-breaking straw, but a better set of analogies).
Then again, perhaps the B Bee describes the Turning Point best:
https://babylonbee.com/news/being-outraged-by-stupid-nonsense-replaces-baseball-as-national-pastime
I actually do think the reduction of college folk being interested in sport, like my own disinterest, has increased the desire to use politics to get those sports-win feelings. People like to “root for their side”, for their “tribe”. If not sports, then politics.
‘Take me out to the voting booth.
Take me out with my crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack.
More fun than work I may never go back.
Oh then root, root, root, for my own team.
If they don’t win it’s a crime.
For it’s work, play, 24/7,
Politics all of the time! ‘
Pseudo-religion AND sports-winning substitute, politics can provide MEANING and (spectator) accomplishment, at very very low “cost”.
I even think the Dem rage is a lot like the soccer hooligans who rage when their team loses. (World ‘football’ = US soccer) Plus, laughing at their rage about their “team” losing might allow more folk to laugh at them. Reps need to be better at laughing at the Dems.
That’s the real art of politics: identifying the crazies, winding them up, and pointing them toward some target… all while maintaining culpable deniability.
Making amphibolous statements that
canwill be misconstrued by troubled people is the MSM’s bread-and-butter.The MSM doesn’t know that calling a group of people nazis… and maybe doxing them… will lead to said group of people being assaulted? Gimme a break.
The commies, terrorists, gangsters and other sundry enemies of the people on the left had best watch their 6s cuz the first amendment can be used to inadvertently (oops!) stir up uncontrollable passions against their supporters, too.
Half the population is below average intelligence and those people are arguably easier to “accidentally” deceive and scare.
A certain percentage of these easy-to-scare dummies have perceptual and cognitive impairments that lead to predictable misapprehension and misunderstanding… which is a predictable shame, especially when said dummies act on their frightened misconceptions.
Yeah, it’s too bad the MSM has to worry about wound-up crazies disrupting their telecasts.
https://youtu.be/fb9LAxO4USE
I agree with neo’s overall analysis here, but I would make more of a distinction between the ACA and the so-called Iran Deal. I agree there is a strong similarity. Both were conducted in a shockingly dishonest manner, and in both cases the policies enacted were things Congress would not have voted for had they been involved in the normal fashion.
But the Democrats have been talking about nationalizing health care for a long time; the ACA was a radical policy, but Obama is a radical guy, so it didn’t seem inexplicable that he would ram through something that had long been talked about on the Left.
The so-called Iran Deal was not a policy anyone had ever contemplated before, as far as I know. The situation was complicated and difficult, and nobody had any good ideas, but there was a general consensus that one keeps one’s enemies at bay, one way or the another. Obama’s brave new idea amounted to surrendering to an enemy. His method was to re-brand them as a non-enemy, without any clear reasoning as far as I could tell. I could not believe it and still don’t understand it. He reached out secretly to this enemy, we now know, and then he engineered a “deal” that gave them the terms they asked for, with nothing in return; and not only did he not pursue this as a normal treaty, which would have required Congressional approval, he closed the “deal” without even putting anything in writing. I think all that qualifies as “new content.”
Yes, Obama was a watershed, the mask dropped, I’d say, in his second term, especially with the BLM movement. Weirdly, if Hillary had just put the mask back on she probably would have won. For example: her reaction to the Dallas police shootings:
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/presidential-candidates-address-dallas-shooting-protests-40488197
It’s obvious that the Republicans made a huge tactical error in conceding the bureaucracy, schools and academy to the left:
https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/22/when-will-conservatives-understand-that-its-not-a-contest-of-ideas/
I don’t know if Christopher Caldwell’s new book, The Age of Entitlement, has been discussed on any of the threads her at the NN. He posits that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 put forth a “rival constitution” that cannot be accommodated to the 1789 one, and has been consistently undermining the older one since. I’ve only read one review, but it seemed a stimulating idea (I am not arguing race here, btw). I had seen the (at its core basically Marxist) concept of exploiter/victim (perhaps even more fatally employed in the field of feminism than race) munch through our culture to reach today’s “Who cares what a bunch of white men wrote then” state. The demise of mainstream religion and its concomitant sexual revolution were the gasoline to this fire.
Everything said on this thread is true. But there is one aspect to all of this that may require further emphasis: the role of the media. MBunge, I think, is the only commentator to focus on it. Obama got away with what he did because the entire media was in his pocket. Not as bad as it is today, but close.
I am uncertain about what Obama planned to get done outside of health care, which was on the plate whether he won or lost. His weaponizing and stealth expansion of government, partly abetted by our overreaction to 9-11 (bureaucratically speaking), I suspect, came about after he realized the entire American, if not international media was simply a tool for him to use. See Ben Rhodes on this topic. I think Obama, who is an out of the part narcissist, was hyper-fueled by how he could manipulate callow, agenda-driven reporters. What they wrote lined up with his vision of himself.
He never had to cover anything up. They did it for him.
But the media. The death of the media as an honest broker is the most catastrophic development in all of this. They saw a “black” man and lost their minds. Either the media takes its foot off the Progressive/Stalinist gas pedal, or this republic is doomed.
Trump almost has nothing to do with it.
The real culprit behind all this? American colleges and universities. They have quite deliberately produced these wanker legions of gatekeepers.
One thing that was a watershed about the Obama years was how the media simply stopped doing their jobs. I am a veteran Clinton-hater and can give you chapter and verse on how the media kissed his behind during the ’92 and ’96 campaigns. But even I will admit that reporters and news organizations would occasionally hold his feet to the fire while he was in office. Not to the extent they would a Republican, of course, but they still made some effort.
Per Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, the written press ca. 1998 remained willing to publish inconvenient, embarrassing, and critical material, but the broadcast media were extensions of the White House press office. Cannot recall if his judgment encompassed PBS (NB, Jim Lehrer was still working and Robin MacNeill had retired only in 1995), but it certainly did encompass the commercial networks, CBS in particular.
Fred Barnes has said that having worked for metropolitan newspapers for 20 years, a liberal opinion magazine for 10 years (The New Republic under Martin Peretz, 1985-95) and a starboard opinion magazine for five years (The Weekly Standard in the Murdoch years, 1995-2000), he’d come to the conclusion that it wasn’t just that people of a starboard disposition weren’t attracted to reporting as a career, it was that the media were going out of there way to not hire those who made the applicant pool. He noted The New Republic was a dissenting voice in the Democratic Party, but still written by and for loyal Democrats and a must-read in official Washington; interns working at The New Republic when he was there got recruiting calls from metropolitan newspapers as a matter of routine. He noted that The Weekly Standard had interns of similar calibre, but they received no calls, and in the previous five years hardly anyone who’d worked as an intern there had landed a position at an ordinary metropolitan paper.
Note that people like Laurie Garrett and the late Sarah Pettit had landed agreeable positions in the mainstream media. Garret was recruited off the staff of the Pacifica Service and Pettit off the staff of Out magazine. Working for a red-haze radio network was acceptable preparation. Working for the gay press was acceptable. Working for The Weekly Standard was not. Pettit was the culture editor of Newsweek. Did you catch what happened ten years ago when Newsweek tried to re-invent itself as The Atlantic? They revealed that the politics of the staff were not only leftoid, but bubble-dweller leftoid who could hardly generate an observation that wasn’t jejune. Made you appreciate the work people like Michael Kinsley had done over the years to make liberal opinion journalism interesting.
Now, you add to that disposition the collapse in the economy of the news business, and you’re not only hiring leftoids, you’re hiring people of significantly lower calibre who are pleased to be generating witless click-bait. See Obama’s deputy national security adviser on these people: they’re 27 years old, there preparation for their work consisted of covering campaigns, and ‘they literally, know nothing’. Rhodes could feed sh!t to these people and they’d write it up.
the ACA was a radical policy, but Obama is a radical guy,
It wasn’t and he isn’t. The ACA was just another failure from the legislative sausage factory. Put mediocre lawyers who do not understand business or economics and who are unwilling to tell the truth to their constituents about cost allocation if they even know what the truth is, and you get a mess like the ACA. As for Obama, his biases are those you see among NGO apparatchicks. He’s banal.
But the media. The death of the media as an honest broker is the most catastrophic development in all of this. They saw a “black” man and lost their minds.
The New York Times began to decay when AM Rosenthal retired. The decay grew rapid when the Boomer-trash Pinch Sulzberger succeeded his father in 1992. By 2001, the place was making comical editorial decisions. Remember the 30+ news stories that Howell Raines had his subordinates run on the membership policies of the golf club which hosts The Masters? Remember The Times acting as a press agent for the likes of Michael Nifong? These antedated Obama.
Regarding the Iran deal that Obama made, Sarah Rolph says: “I could not believe it and still don’t understand it.”
I think the reason is Valerie Jarrett, plain and simple. That and the fact that Obama was coming to the end of his two terms, and knew he had the wind at his back as far as the American media was concerned. Our Magic Negro, as he was dubbed by David Ehrenstein in the LA Times in March of 2007, was there to save us, and Obama himself believed (with help from Ben Rhodes) that he was indeed America’s Magic Negro, which is a riff on a Hollywood story line that grew out of the success of Spike Lee’s films of the early 21st Century.
That doesn’t make it believable to people who, like Rolph (and me), have a longer view of history than Lee’s films, but for modern American culture, that’s a good explanation and one I can find a lot of traction with.
Iran was only one manifestation of this American mindset. We tend to forget the numerous times Obama instituted a policy that should have set off sirens among his opponents, but which we (or at least Republican politicians) shrugged off as “his turn at bat,” and thought they would turn around when they were elected. If Trump had not come along, those same politicians would be looking at the end of Hillary’s first term in office and deluding themselves that they would turn it all around when it was their turn at bat. That ignores the reality that conservatives would likely not have had their turn at bat after four consecutive terms of hard-left Democrats: Obama, Obama, Hillary, Hillary. All of which would be reinforced by a corrupt FBI, IRS, and DOJ and by the “deep state” that is Washington D.C.
America dodged a bullet when Trump was elected. It remains to be seen if we can continue to dodge that bullet in the face of a compliant media establishment and a corrupted educational institution.
…the fact that Obama was coming to the end of his two terms…
The planning for the Iran turn Obama had in mind long pre-dates his second term: he sent a secret emissary to begin negotiations with Iran before his first term had begun, before he had been inaugurated. This would be difficult for any account of his actions to align with a late administration move.
The planning for the Iran turn Obama had in mind long pre-dates his second term: he sent a secret emissary to begin negotiations with Iran before his first term had begun,
Agreed. Obama’s mentality in foreign policy was 80% late Carter Administration and 20% back issues of The Nation. That and the green energy shtick are among the better examples that come to mind of a President manifesting his vintage. (Another was Gerald Ford’s WIN program, which AFAICT was inspired by WWii-era save-your-bottlecaps voluntarism).
Superficially, I found that Obama’s policy decisions could be understood if you asked yourself, “Which choice would best serve Sunni Islamists?”
Up until Iran, that is.
Unless Obama thought that a nuclear-powered Iran could, and likely would, so devastate the ME that inevitably, rising from the ashes, would be … Sunni Islamists.
Obama got away with it because he had the media propaganda machine behind him. Had it been against him, he’d have been toast.
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Trump’s destruction of the MSM as an effective weapon for the Left. If it was the only thing he managed to do in his first term, it would make him a very successful president.
The MSM has wrecked itself on the rock that is Trump. His ability to withstand the relentless assault and not only survive, but THRIVE, has been the most incredible performance I’ve ever seen.
Everything is changed now in American politics. The fraudulent media stand exposed. Or perhaps we should say is lying on the ground with one foot in the grave exposed.
Obama would struggle in the new reality of our politics. Trump happened. Brexit happened. The media is broken. Elites are laughingstocks. The bankruptcy of the Left is exposed.
re: Bork saying 1981 was the year liberals turned vicious. He was right. Reagan was no Rockefeller establishment R. He took marginal tax rates from 50 to 28. He refused to accept the narrative about the Soviets. He was such a threat that both Carter in 1980 and Kennedy in 1984 made offers to the USSR to commit treason, if the Soviets helped the Dems defeat him.
So the liberals got vicious. The litany of slanders began. And they’ve been ratcheting up the hate ever since.
stan:
Obama has not destroyed the MSM as an effective weapon for the left. He has dealt a blow to it. But enormous numbers of people still use it as their main source of information or at least a large contributing source of information. Whether or not they say on polls that they trust it, they are nevertheless greatly influenced and shaped by it. I have seen this over and over again in virtually all the Democrats I know, and I know a lot of them.
F on January 24, 2020 at 11:32 am said:
…If Trump had not come along, those same politicians would be looking at the end of Hillary’s first term in office and deluding themselves that they would turn it all around when it was their turn at bat. That ignores the reality that conservatives would likely not have had their turn at bat after four consecutive terms of hard-left Democrats: Obama, Obama, Hillary, Hillary. All of which would be reinforced by a corrupt FBI, IRS, and DOJ and by the “deep state” that is Washington D.C.
America dodged a bullet when Trump was elected. It remains to be seen if we can continue to dodge that bullet in the face of a compliant media establishment and a corrupted educational institution.
* * *
I would be more inclined to say we dodged a Howitzer shell, except that’s now a brand-name for patriot-themed clothing.
Call it dodging generic cannon-fire.
We are still under sustained attack, and walking through a minefield as well.
https://howitzerclothing.com/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=**LP%20-%20TM%20-%20General&utm_term=%2BHowitzer%20%2BClothing&utm_content=Howitzer%20Clothing
“Trump happened. Brexit happened. The media is broken. Elites are laughingstocks. The bankruptcy of the Left is exposed.”
True … among Reps who are watching.
BUT, capital BUT,
the majority of Dems still believe the Dem media,
laugh at Trump far more than they laugh at elites,
and Socialist Sanders might win their nomination.
But the Dems believe in the Uncle Sugar Fairy of Free Stuff.
And rich Dems like Bloomberg are happy to promise more.
We’re still in the river towards the Waterfall, tho at least we’re headed upstream.
It’s not clear we’ll make it, and reform the colleges, before their anti-Western Civ hate destroys America … like Venezuela has been destroyed.
Of course partisan Democrats believe their partisans in the MSM. That’s not particularly relevant for elections (although it does increase the anger and partisan hatred). What has changed is that independents and squishy Republicans who once believed the MSM no longer do. For evidence, see the 90+ % approval for Trump among GOP voters and extraordinary support levels among blacks and Hispanics.
This is where elections are won and lost. This is where it matters. The point is that the MSM once scared GOP politicians in DC to death. To the point where they wouldn’t even acknowledge that the news media was biased (much less intentionally partisan).
The MSM convinces partisan liberals. So what? So do AOC and Greta. That’s how far the news media has fallen. They don’t have much more influence on the general public than AOC and Greta.
Stan – good points, but it’s scary to see how narrow the margin is on almost every election. The landslides of Reagan and Nixon were remarkable when you look at how much more partisanly divided the country is today.
Are the LIVs whose lives are much better now going to be able to set that against the non-stop doom & gloom of the media, or will they vote based on the cognitive dissonance so amply demonstrated by the intelligentsia as exemplified anecdotally in this thread and elsewhere?
Romney was roundly bashed in 2012 for his comment that “47% of the country will never vote for me” but he was absolutely correct, as was Hillary in her imputation with the Deplorables remark that, by that time in the campaign, part of the country would never vote for her. She thought it was a lesser part than turned out to be the case, but the point is the same.
Talk about ripping the mask off – at least Romney was civil and made no comment about the morality of his opponents, simply stating the reasons for their entrenched opposition to all persons GOP; Hillary was unabashedly derogatory.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-checking-romneys-47-percent-comment/
https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/
Stan:
But why are “partisan Democrats” partisan Democrats? Well, many reasons, but one big reason for many of them is the propaganda they are fed by the MSM. So the number of “partisan Democrats” in the US is not a given. One of the reasons the left keeps mocking sources on the right is that they don’t want their voters to read them, but instead to reject them out of hand. They want to control the narrative and make sure partisan Democrats stay partisan and don’t defect.