[nathanbedford]

There is no issue at play in America today which comes close to duplicating the matter of slavery which tore the Union apart a century and a half ago but the financial crisis presently looming over the nation has the potential to distort our politics as much as did the Civil War or the Great Depression.

It is fashionable today to play the sophisticate and cynically dismiss both political parties as not having a "dimes worth of difference between them." But this is a cheap and easy analysis which does not do justice to either party. It fails to indict the Democrats for the Socialists and race baiting demagogues that they are, and it fails to credit the Republicans for their efforts, however inept and halfhearted, to bring fiscal sanity to the Republic.

Whether there is a major rupture or distortion of American politics depends on several factors and we must watch and abide events.

My expectation is that Obama will demagogue both race and fiscal issues right into the election because he really has no other option at this point. The economy is in such a wretched state that he must somehow change the game or lose the election. It is a common understanding that presidents do not get reelected with unemployment numbers in excess of 7.2% and we have an official number now of 9.1% and a practical number in the neighborhood of 20% with no reasonable prospect of reducing unemployment significantly before the election.

Obama look at this and that the gasoline prices and realize that he must change the subject or lose the election.

He will look at the demographics and start with energizing his base. That means he will play the race card to obtain 95% of the 12% African-American vote. He will certainly continue to play the immigration/race card to attempt to get in excess of 70% of the 14% Hispanic vote. Recently, he has pandered to the gays with his rulings in the military and he will hope to garner 80 to 90% of the + - 3% gay vote. They will probably still receive better than 50% of the Jewish vote despite his the trail of America's generations long support of Israel. He will further pander to the women's vote and he will demagogue Social Security and health care to frighten the elderly.

In addition, Obama will have at his disposal $1 billion to spend on his campaign which he will have gotten by cronyism or extortion of American business and by cronyism with American unions. This money will be liberally applied to demagoging the election.

Obama knows his negatives are high and therefore he must bring the Republican candidate down to his level by slinging mud and he has the money with which to sling a lot of mud. So we are destined to have one of the dirtiest elections in history and it will be a scurrilous example of the lowest kind of demagoguery. If Obama can bring the Republican candidate down to his level so that the Republican suffers from like negatives, and Obama can energize his base through demagoguery, the Republic might be sentenced to a final catastrophic episode of Obamaism.

But this is not to say that this political landscape means that we are in a 1860s condition. If we are in such a condition that must be because we are on the verge of some cataclysmic event not because of a general disillusionment with our American political parties. It could be a black swan event which in turn precipitates a fiscal calamity. If that should occur and Obama is reelected I cannot see how America can survive as a land of liberty. Certainly it would not survive if the Republicans do not hold at least one house of Congress.

Since before the last election, I have said that Obama is a demagogue and a potential tyrant. Even if Obama himself cannot marshal the forces to turn America into Zimbabwe, we are facing a demographic tsunami which is likely to prove irresistible within a generation and with this wave of aliens, both legal and illegal, comes a voting bloc with no understanding, much less appreciation or regard for democracy and capitalism.

So I do agree that the stakes in this election are as great as they were in 1860. This is so either because we faced an economic catastrophe or by operation over time demographic slide to the left. So, if liberty and freedom of enterprise are to survive we must not only win this election but we must install a leader who can by force of his vision radically change the course of the country so that all the demographic factors which weigh so heavily day after day against the forces of good can simply be neutralized and, as it were, detoured away. This kind of leader is one who rises to meet the time and it is difficult to foretell where he might come from. We have seen it before in our history as, for example, in 1860. We have seen the country radically change course respecting communism and capitalism beginning in 1980 with Ronald Reagan. We have also seen it go the other way with Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

Somewhere among us there is the man for the time and we desperately need him to step forward. Is it Paul Ryan? Is it Gov. Perry? Could it be Sarah Palin?

[luvbach1]

...not having a "dimes worth of difference between them."...fails to indict the Democrats for the Socialists and race baiting demagogues that they are, and it fails to credit the Republicans for their efforts, however inept and halfhearted, to bring fiscal sanity to the Republic.

A very good point not often made.

[RKBA Democrat]

Yours is a well thought out post and well worth the read.

I respectfully disagree with your point regarding the democrats and gop. The d’s have, as you indicate, become the party of race-baiters and socialists. The gop, however, has had almost as much of a hand in the fiscal destruction of the republic as their so-called opposition.

Let us not forget that the mother of all bailouts, TARP, was initiated not under the current maladministration but under that of President Bush. This was not just the camel’s nose but the whole camel in the tent.

To use a nineteenth century analogy, we’ve got the gop taking the role of the Whigs. But unlike the Whigs of the 19th century, the gop doesn’t have the decency to fade into obscurity and allow another more effective conservative political party to take it’s place.

[Jim Noble]

There is no issue at play in America today which comes close to duplicating the matter of slavery which tore the Union apart a century and a half ago...Somewhere among us there is the man for the time and we desperately need him to step forward. Is it Paul Ryan? Is it Gov. Perry? Could it be Sarah Palin?

The fundamental issue of our time, as of that time, is, "who owns your labor".

I contend that, if the GOP nominates Palin or Ryan (I don't know anything about Rick Perry), that the wing that can speak of "tax expenditures" without reaching for a rifle will not support that nominee.

People who believe, like Newt Gingrich, that ANY attempt to right the ship on the basis that the material fruits of your labor do NOT belong to you by right is "radical right-wing social engineering", people who believe, like Mitt Romney, that free economic activity involving discovery, extraction, and exploitation of natural resources affects the output of the sun, people who believe, like Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Karl Rove, and George Will, that cultural Marxism is ireversible - those people WILL NOT SUPPORT OUR CANDIDATE, even if we can get her (or him) nominated.

The GOP is fundamentally divided between those who believe that it is RIGHT to take your money to give to other people and those who believe it is WRONG. This is no longer a pragmatic disagreement about HOW MUCH of your money is is EFFICIENT to take, or about whether the race or gender of the looters affects the reasonableness of the confiscation.

Like the Democrats of 1860, the Republicans of 2012 will produce two candidates, because they cannot do otherwise.

[Old Badger]

Thank you nathanbedford for another well reasoned and well written post that I'm in full agreement with your conclusion.

Somewhere the right person exists and he or she had better step forward quickly or this battle will be lost.

[grey_whiskers]

Freepmail coming.

[EternalVigilance]

There is no issue at play in America today which comes close to duplicating the matter of slavery which tore the Union apart a century and a half ago...

Right. The fact that we're butchering thousands of little babies every day in this country is far worse than the wicked, tyrannical practice of slavery.

[PeaRidge]

Outstanding post!

But it should be considered as a primary truth that the Republican party of the 1850s and particularly in 1860 was drastically manipulating the slavery issue beyond its limits, and amplifying its alleged threat to the morality of distant people, (but more truthfully their labor), so as to generate voter support of the Lincoln party. This was in direct opposition to Southern capitalism, and nothing more than propaganda politics to get the votes.

We have exactly the same construct today with Obama stoking the fires of class jealousy and guilt. As more and more media outlets repeat this propaganda, the masses become convinced.....mental manipulation by availability cascading.

We must be mindful that the threat is not racial or class warfare, but the Democrats use of these issues to overturn the liberties originally guaranteed by the Constitution.

If class warfare or the economy cannot get Obama reelected, then the liklihood of a "black swan" looms larger.

When you can't get elected on the issues, you create a "crisis" that needs you as the solution.

A repeat of 1860.

[wardaddy]

nice especially about those who feel they are all rascals...they are but some worse than others

and the differences are stark over social issues and taxation and foreign policy

this is where times are very different from my youth

there actually is a profound difference in ideology

in the 60s when I grew up..socially southern Democrats and the Goldwater-Reagan GOP had more in common just as did the Rockefeller-Weicker GOP with the greater Kennedy style Democrats...and those two branches each voted more alike which gave an impression they were not much different..after LBJ, the GOP under Nixon started to resemble a more traditional values outfit and southerners(and others) abandoned by the LBJ democrats went GOP...Tower, Lott etc...if that had not happened the GOP would have never had the successes it had in the 70s, 80s and so forth...that shift...espcially with the population growth in the South and rise in electoral votes

granted beltway GOP are soft but there is a division today that is stark between folks

I would say we are at a division as stark as anytime since 1860 ...on par with FDR and Union socialist turmoil in the 30s and the youth revolt and Vietnam conflict of the 1960s

it's just the issues that we disagree on as a nation are hard to compromise on and all reflect a complete different idea of freedom and government role and values

we don't have slavery or what to do with frontier lands/new states as issues like in 1860 but we are at the same type of crossroads...in fact we are more like at a pivotal U-turn

[fabian]

...There is no issue at play in America today which comes close to duplicating the matter of slavery which tore the Union apart a century and a half ago ...really?
How about the excessive taxation and domination of the federal government and the states too? So bad now that many pensions and wages of state and federal employees are close to double of those in the private sector. We are litterally slaves to a partial socialist system and that is similar to the slavery issue back before the civil war. Enter into the mix the murder of millions of unborn babies as promoted by the feds, and you have a an even more volatile and split nation today. When we do not own our own wages and can be put in jail for not paying that tribute, and our homes can be taken away from us for not paying a huge property tax which supports a socialist school system...sorry, we have already lost our nation and it is going to have to be rewon.

[FreeReign]

Somewhere among us there is the man for the time and we desperately need him to step forward. Is it Paul Ryan? Is it Gov. Perry? Could it be Sarah Palin?

Palin and Ryan are not afraid to speak the truth about Obama, the Democrats and the media. That is the kind of candidate we need for this time. I would also add Bachmann and Cain to that list.

Perry?? What sign has he show that he is the one for this time.

[SVTCobra03]

“Somewhere among us there is the man for the time and we desperately need him to step forward. Is it Paul Ryan? Is it Gov. Perry? Could it be Sarah Palin?”

Only Allen West meets your criteria and he isn’t running. Secession may be the only answer.

[TexConfederate1861]

As a Texan, allow me to state that the LAST person we need is Gov. BIGHAIR Perry!!!