|
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
 |
Mail Magazine 24
Catastrophe
by Ron Radosh
MM24: “This is one of the best - maybe THE best - articles
about/analyses of the 2012 election and the situation our country is
in, I have read by now. With this article, published at PJmedia, Bryan
Preston hits the nail on the head - very precisely and hard.”
Barack Obama has been re-elected president. Like most on the right, I
misread America.
The United States of America faces huge problems as a nation. Our
economy is skidding, we have racked up massive debt to an unsustainable
level, and we are no longer a culturally confident or united nation. We
are a scattering of enclaves, barely on speaking terms, swaggering and
vibrant Texas suspiciously eying bankrupt but arrogant California,
rural and traditional Oklahoma having nothing in common with corrupt
and secular Illinois, and so forth. Our entitlement spending threatens
to engulf red state and blue state alike. We now owe more per capita
than ridiculed Greece, and we may be heading down that sad country’s
path.
In the face of these problems, the American people chose to throw
almost none of the bums who got us here out. The US House remained in
Republican hands, the US Senate remained in Democrat hands, and the
White House remained in the hands of Barack Obama. Things did not
change dramatically at the state level either. Neither party was
soundly repudiated or given electoral wind in their sails. It’s as if
the American people are so confused and troubled they decided not to
decide anything. Or maybe apathy won out and name recognition trumped
the real issues. Republicans nominated some foolish candidates here and
there, but so did the Democrats. Theirs won, ours lost. The most
foolish candidate of them all kept his job. Media assists surely played
a major role.
The most immediate lesson that can be learned from this is that the
Obama-Axelrod ground game is very very very good. It had four years to
build out its infrastructure and it is much stronger than anyone,
including most Democrats, anticipated. Despite the lousy economy and
his flagging personal popularity, Obama’s team turned out his vote
everywhere he needed it, and he won. Republicans will fight about
whether a more vocally conservative candidate could have won or whether
Romney could have provided a sharper contrast with Obama, but
organizational superiority may have had more than anything else to do
with this result. Republicans will have to study that ground game and
find a way to beat it just as the football world had to study and
defeat the flex defense. That’s not a job for ideologues, but for
tacticians who understand ideology and communication.
The second finding from this result is that America as we know it is
over, or soon may be. The government will get bigger and bigger, until
it breaks. Whether it was Hurricane Sandy or Chris Christie’s hug or
the power of incumbency or lingering Bush fatigue or the power of image
or the mendacity of the media, an unqualified and fundamentally
dishonest man has been returned to the highest office in the land. At
the same time that he has brazenly lied about the deaths of four
Americans at the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Republican candidates
for the US Senate have had their candidacies destroyed over their
unfortunate comments. The tilt in favor of Democrats, and especially
Obama, in how our media culture processes what comes out of
politicians’ mouths may have finally become too much for Republicans to
overcome. Every campaign going forward is a one-false-move minefield
for Republicans, while a Democrat can get away with corruption (Claire
McCaskill in Missouri) and allegations of relationships with
prostitutes (Bob Menendez in New Jersey) and covering up a terrorist
attack that killed four Americans (Obama himself). Massachusetts turned
out a perfectly serviceable moderate Republican in favor of a dishonest
ideologue with no experience outside academia. One likely result of all
this is that Republicans are likely to become more programmed than they
already are, and less confident about articulating stands on social
issues. The media is emboldened to pounce on every Republican syllable,
confident that every gotcha can keep another seat in Democrat clutches.
Perhaps all Republicans should just switch parties at once, confuse the
world and render the media toothless for a while.
Our future looks bleak. Our debt is a mortal threat. Unless we make
radical positive changes to the structure of our government, now, Obama
will rack up another four to six trillion dollars in debt over the next
four years. Obama will not make the necessary changes and he will not
allow them to be made as long as he is president. He has already said
that he believes in raising taxes on job creators, and he will use
re-election to push for that. Even though it makes no economic sense at
all.
The amazing thing is, Obama told us that his economic policies weren’t
based on economics before he was ever elected president. Then he kept
doubling down on non-economics as “fairness.” And he kept winning. What
does this say about a majority of Americans?
Republicans find themselves in a demographic Catch-22. They will have
to move aggressively to capture more of the growing Hispanic vote, and
Hispanic cultural values align well with those of the GOP. But
Republicans tend to downplay those issues in order to woo moderates.
Any attempt to secure the border is cast as racist, driving some
Hispanic voters away and making moderate voters wince. But the porous
border threatens the rule of law and threatens to demographically
render the GOP a minority party forever, or at least until the Democrat
coalition splits, if that happens. In a contest between a serious issue
(security) and a mostly rhetorical issue in modern America (racism),
guess which one gets more media attention, and tends to move more
voters?
Unless the looming sequestration defense cuts are prevented, our
national defense will shrink to pre-World War One levels, while threats
from Islamic terrorism, Iran, Russia, China, North Korea and elsewhere
are likely to grow. Obama’s own defense secretary warned about these
cuts, but Obama ignored him and then lied about it during one of the
debates. Obama has proven that he will never level with the American
people about the threats we face.
But the evidence says that enough Americans care little enough for our
national defense to render it an irrelevant issue. It just doesn’t
matter. Neither do economic and individual liberty.
Our economy will remain shackled by unpopular ObamaCare (since America
rejected the candidate who promised to repeal it) and the regulatory
overload that Obama intends to impose. Millions of American workers may
be forced into unions via card check, which Obama reportedly intends to
impose with or without Congress. Increased union power will lead to
less agile and competitive American companies, and will price more
American workers competing with overseas workers out of jobs. If you
liked the last four years, you will love the next four.
Unless we curtail entitlement spending, we are headed for bankruptcy.
Obama promised to reform entitlements four years ago, and spent four
years demagoguing against every attempt to get to any reforms. Then, he
was re-elected.
Here, I may read more into the re-election of Obama than is warranted,
but here goes. The situation we find ourselves in has come about
because we have become a soft and superficial people. We have spurned
our traditional beliefs in favor of fads. We know more about the
Kardashians than the Constitution. We have become more a nation of
takers than makers, and ever more a nation of broken families that
looks at government as daddy rather than as a necessary evil. The fact
is, stable husbands and wives and churchgoers voted for Romney, while
singles voted for Obama. But a narrow majority of America’s Catholics
voted with Obama as well despite his direct and public attack on their
church. A heavy majority of the Jewish vote went for Obama, again,
despite his hostility toward Israel. Decadence is good for Democrats,
and the evidence that Obama’s victories provide is that we are
decadent. We have no god, yet Obama is somehow its prophet.
Because of the way he backed into his second term, Barack Obama has no
coattails, and he has no mandate. He chose not to run on a serious
agenda and he ran a small ball campaign that painted Romney as a felon
and murderer when Romney is as clean as they come in politics. He
painted the man who saved the Olympics as a villain. Is it the economy,
stupid? No, it’s a ground game and Big Bird and lady parts.
Obama has every reason to move to the center to make his second term
successful, but he will not. His lack of a mandate will not stop him
from pushing hard for his agenda, either with Congress or more likely
around it. The Senate in Democratic control will block any efforts to
stop him, if it can. The courts haven’t proven to be much of an
impediment, and Obama now gets to appoint more judges who agree with
him. We will keep funding the government on continuing resolutions. The
states may be compelled to go along with his agenda or they may be
bribed with their own money. Obama’s second term could be a time for
governors to reassert state authority in a big way (while getting
trashed by the left, for protecting the people of their states).
ObamaCare is permanent and a threat to our health care system, the war
on coal will be pushed toward its conclusion, and this president’s
drive to disarm the United States while vastly expanding the
entitlement state will proceed apace. Obama’s re-election is a
catastrophe for those who want a strong and liberty-based America
rooted in traditional values and our Constitutional order.
The three-way split inside the Beltway is a opportunity for Obama to
behave as a regulatory tyrant, and that is what he will probably do.
The divided nation suits a divisive president.
Source: PJmedia
Read more articles at Mail Magazine 24
|
|
|
|
