Posted on 12/24/2009 4:32:10 AM PST by Tolik
The Origins of Obamism
I do not think it will be easy to delay Obamism. It is not just that both houses of Congress are under liberal leadership with ample majorities, with a White House and captive media egging them on. The problem is that now the entire engine of the federal government is harnessed in the most unapologetic way to pushing through a far left agenda. There is no shame, no hesitancy in using the full powers of the state.
How does that work out? Without qualification (remember we are in a new age of transparency and ethical reform) votes are bought with hundred-million-dollar earmarks; the attorney general predicates judicial action on the political ramifications of indicting or not indicting; federal bureaucracies (watch the EPA if cap and trade stalls) are devoted to the new Caesar rather than the letter of the law.
Such a strange scenario we have found ourselves in—a clear majority of Americans is opposed to almost everything Obama has to offer; congressional representatives know they are acting against the will of the people, but know too that they are offered all sorts of borrowed money for their districts to compensate for their unpopular actions. And a charismatic commander in chief believes that he can charm even the angriest of critics, and that anything he promises (Iran’s deadlines, closing of Guantanamo, new transparency, no more lobbyists, etc) means zilch and can be contextualized by another “let me be perfectly clear” speech spiced with a couple of the usual “it would have been impossible for someone as unlikely as me to have become President just (fill in the blanks) years ago”
No, I would not count Obama out. So what drives his agenda? What are its origins?
Here are the three most prominent catalysts.
Equality of Result
What Barack Obama advocates is as old as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics, the agenda of the classical dêmos and Roman turba.
It is why the French Revolution emphasized égalité and fraternité, while the Founding Fathers instead championed the freedom of the individual from the despotism of the state. In short, equality of result doctrine ignores the role of markets, of skills, of tragedy itself that renders some of us ill, others in perfect health, some born gifted, others less so, some evil by nature, others good, and instead promises that the state can even us all out through its power of material redistribution. Give us all the same amount of money and perks at the end of the day, and then utopia reigns under the benevolent watch of Ivy-League professors and organizers.
It is a given that what we make is not our own, but predicated on the liberality of society. Thus, for those who were too greedy, too conniving, or even too lucky, the state must step in to ensure that we end up the same.
In its most benign form, we know this as progressivism or communitarianism, a big government, high tax philosophy that co-exists within democracy. Its more pernicious strains are socialist, in which the state ensures, through bureaucratic fiat and a labyrinth of laws that curb free expression, that redistribution is institutionalized. And the virulent form (thankfully with the fall of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China not so global-threatening any more) is, of course, a murderous communism, in which any means necessary are justified to ensure the desire ends and the rule of anointed apparat. Remember, history’s greatest killers (Stalin and Mao) do it all “for the people.”
Multiculturalism
But there is another element to Barack Obama besides progressive statism. A number of contemporary –isms and –ologies (multiculturalism, moral equivalence, utopian pacifism, post-modernism) also help to explain Obamism, especially in cultural terms. Our universities subscribe to race/class/gender theory of exploitation, in which much of the unhappiness of today’s women, of today’s nonwhite, and of today’s poor originates with the privileges of the white Christian Western male that are predicated on oppression.
It works like this: The ghetto resident, the denizen of the barrio, the abandoned and divorced waitress with three young children, can all chart their poverty and unhappiness not to accident, fate, bad luck, bad decisions, poor judgment, illegality or drug use, or simple tragedy, but rather exclusively to a system that is rigged to ensure oppression on the basis of race, class, and gender—often insidious and unfathomable except to the sensitive and gifted academic or community organizer.
So Obama combines the age-old belief that the state is there to level the playing field (rather than protect the rights of the individual and secure the safety of the people from foreign threats), with the postmodern notion that government must recompensate those by fiat on the basis on their race or class or gender. Remember all that, and everything from the Professor Gates incident, to the dutiful attendance at the foot of Rev. Wright to Van Jones become logical rather than aberrant. Michelle Obama could make $300,000 and she will always be more a victim than the Appalachian coal miner who earns $30,000, by virtue of her race and gender.
The Chicago Way
A third and final ingredient to Obamism is the Chicago way. Here we see an interesting updated version of the old big-city, Daley thuggery. Rahm Emanuel threatens recalcitrant congressmen with reminders of the long Obama memory. The Axelrod/Jarrett clique ensures that the government channels stimuli to blue-states, that key Congress people are bought off with tens of millions of government largess, that every campaign promise—from no lobbyists and airing on C-span health care debates to posting impending legislation on the Internet for set durations and “reaching across the aisle”—is simply cynical fluff that no sane person would take seriously.
So?
In short, we have a traditional statist bent on redistribution (Obama’s words, not mine), updated with the postmodern belief that race/class/gender oppressions require government affirmative reactions (which also abroad explains why we reach out to enemies and shun allies), all energized by an ends justify the means Chicago bare-knuckles apparat.
And?
These true believers, then, don’t really care that the Blue Dogs (if such really exist) bite the dust in 2010, if Harry Reid goes up in smoke, or indeed, if Barack Obama is reelected. Instead, they will institutionalize an agenda that will affect America for generations, move it sharply to the left, and earn a spot in the academic pantheon of American heroes.
Asking why would Obama & Co. be so self-destructive to push through an array of proposals that have no more than 45% of the public’s support is like asking whether the English Prof who teaches incomprehensible Foucauldian theory worries whether he has only 2 students, or whether the well-off union boss is all that upset that membership has sunk to 30% of the workforce, or multimillion-dollar-earning Sarah Palin-interviewing Katie Couric is worried about her sinking ratings, or whether the New York Times columnists are upset that their mother paper is broke with subscription and readership down, and laying off thousands of blue-collar employees.
Instead, for the true believer, it is all about the self, and the sense of the self—and damn all other considerations. (We saw that with Jimmy Carter as well; that he destroyed liberal Democrat politics for a generation meant nothing; that he won prizes and jet-setted the world for thirty years meant everything. For these people, it is always about them—all the time. Let us eat cake as they end up liberal icons for the duration).
What Are We Left With?
The most blatant cynicism in recent American political history—a man who ran as a bipartisan who is the most partisan we’ve seen, a healer whose even flippant comments are designed to offend, a statist who assumes that the sheared sheep cannot stampede somewhere else, a reformer who trusts his honey-laced rhetoric can disguise Daley style-corruption.
On that happy note.
Everything, as my dear late mother lectured me, happens for a reason, or at least presents a sort of logic—irony, paradox, karma, and nemesis being the best ways of interpreting our unfathomable existences. It took messianic narcissistic Barack Obama to expose the full extent of the mess that a once noble tradition of 19th-century liberalism had devolved into. Only he could have rammed it down the throats of the American people, and when he is done, we will suffer, but also sicken of it for quite a while.
Otherwise, Merry Christmas! And thanks again to the most informed, articulate, and outspoken commentators in the blogosphere!
Meanwhile, a country like the UK or Israel, since they are successful, must (by definition) be part of the problem. They also exploit and oppress. If we were to reach out to these nations, it would send a bad message to the bad people of the world and make it seem like we were not sufficiently contrite about our own past mistakes. Therefore, we must shun the UK and Israel (and others) and we must make an extreme effort to help the dictators around the world.
It shows we care.
typo - “solidarity”
In the 60’s it was idealistic kids going to Cuba to harvest sugar cane for Fidel. That could be somewhat understood as youthful enthusiasm with a large dose of arrogance and ignorance about how the world really works.
Some of us were there with them “in spirit.” But, we finally grew up and educated ourselves (which task most of our professors had deferred to indoctrinating us.)
But, many us us took the indoctrination to heart and nade it their life’s goal. They have won this round. But, the fight is not over.
The wonderful weakness of evil organizations is that they develop as or into obelisks: tall and spindly, with almost all power concentrated at the top. When the top cracks and falls (as narcissist Hussein must, given enough pressure), the whole structure crumbles. Please God, let it be today!
Correct!
ping
I appreciate VDH’s words of wisdom, but I still wonder just who/what is behind BO. While BO is totally impressed with himself, I don’t see him being smart enough to pull all this off. Is it Soros or someone else like him? BO’s like a wind up doll who is trained in what to say/read.
My other great concern is that this country can’t wait until 2012 to run him out of office. I see our two choices as total change in the 2010 election - get rid of democrats and any RINO’s — assuming we can find decent people to run. The other is IMPEACHMENT of BO. I personally think he’s committee enough crimes against Americans and the Constitution to warrant impeachment action.
Thx!
oops typo = he’s committed enough.....
As good a summation on why we are where we are as you will read, methinks.
Why can’t this man be the norm in our universities? If we had more like him, we wouldn’t be in this shape.
Pick up any rock, move the snail and that’s where BO & Company came from...
The ultimate problem, though, is the voter. Anyone who was willing to do a few minutes' worth of research should have known who Obama is. Stop voting for bumper stickers, yard signs, lofty-sounding speeches of no substance, and slick TV commercials.
“Of course, the next ten years were pretty rough.”
Maybe it’s time to get “pretty rough” again.
Because of the left’s fetish of a (perceived) weakness. It’s all encompassing. Nothing else matters. Weak is always in the right, strong is always in the wrong. That “weak” may be lazy, or wrong, or evil, or simply unlucky. Other side’s hard work, or virtue, or talent does not matter.
It’s ironic that one of the most popular accusations of Bush from the Left was that they said he approached the world’s problem as “black and white”, no shades of gray allowed. It’s ironic because The Left is more guilty of this no shades of gray approach to strong-weak than Bush ever was. Just one example out of thousands: The Left’s “human rights” organizations are unrelentingly critical of democratic, human rights supporting, gay tolerant Israel, much more than of murderous, “human rights is western creation”, gay killing Hamas.
I viewed it as a perversion of the Biblical "first shall be last; last shall be first." In fact, ALL of socialism, communism, collectivism is a perverse reading of the Christian message. That's why it's so hard to defeat. It's a counterfeit theology that requires the recipient have really, really good eyes and ears to catch.
It took the Russians 70 years to throw off the chains of Soviet communism and the Poles did it in 40 years. It CAN be done. Probably not in our lifetimes and probably not without another, perhaps violent, revolution.
Merry Christmas!
When are we going to make our politicians accountable?
Great post. Enough links for the whole week. Thanks!!
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