Monday, November 14, 2011

Obama Brings Liberal Stereotypes Back

The great theme of the Clinton presidency was the effort to hide the liberal stereotypes that had sent liberals to the political wilderness.  The only way for a Democrat to get elected, the Clintons believed, was by keeping a distance from "liberal, liberal, liberal."  But now Obama has gone full frontal nudity and exhibited all the offensive the liberal traits.  Yuval Levin enumerates them at the Weekly Standard.

  1. The Big Spender. Liberals like to shame us into making "investments" but "investments" are wasteful spending by any other name.
  2. The Incompetent Economist.  Liberals want to have their cake and eat it too on the economy.  The result is the 1930s Great Depression, the 1970s Great Inflation, and the 2010s Great Recession.
  3. The Bureaucratic Technocrat.  Liberals believe you can cheat the market with regulations and subsidies.  It always ends in tears.  See Hayek.
  4. The Big Taxer.  It is amazing that the Democrats are going full out on this.
  5. The Class Warrior.  Once you unleash the Big Taxer you need the Class Warrior to stigmatize the rich and make the American people forget that everyone pays taxes.
  6. The Cultural Elitist.  Keep quiet there in the back of the bus or we may make an example of you.
  7. The Peacenik Protestor.  Given how much the American people hated this chap the last time around, it's a bit strange that Democrats think he'll do them any good with the #OCCUPY movement.
For the veteran conservative it seems incredible that the Obamis could think they could win with this combination.  You start to doubt yourself and wonder if the Obamis know something you don't.

Most likely, we are seeing a generational  thing.  It was raised at the time of the Crash of 2008.  Financial crashes come only once or twice a century.  They occur because nobody now working was around the last time.  You have to think that the Obamis, earning their chops in the Hyde Park liberal enclave, just never talked to an ordinary American.  So they will have to learn the lessons of the 1960s the hard way.

Marx wrote that: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

He forgot to add that the third time, history repeats itself as a reality show.

1 comment:

  1. Full Frontal Nudity!
    I've always used the term "Letting Their Freak Flag Fly"

    It's a CSNY thing.

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