The scariest thing about Obama’s presidency…
January 20th, 2009
…may surprise you.
One of the reasons conservative commentators focused on Barack Obama’s associates during the 2008 election season is that they’re so obviously radical. The Big Blue O’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, preaches flame-throwing liberation theology. William Ayers, an unrepentant domestic terrorist whose violent past is such a casual part of his identity even conscientious citizens don’t raise an eyebrow to it, has hosted a fundraiser for Obama and donated to his campaign. Like her husband, Michelle Obama is not particularly unpleasant, yet she’s vulnerable to the siren song of victim politics. More than once she has claimed: “Every woman I know, regardless of race, education, income, background, is struggling every day to keep her head above water.” If I were foolish enough to take Mrs. Obama’s words to heart, I would be forced to conclude that Oprah Winfrey is a misstep away from some sort of breakdown.
Yet President Obama isn’t guilty by association. For all of his boring, conventional liberalism, Barack Obama won’t be the most terrible leader our country has endured (America’s future presidents would likely have to sabotage the economy to surpass the downward spiral of Jimmy Carter’s reign). As much as an Obama presidency would lurch the country leftward, the most disturbing prospect of his rule is not his executive power, but the worst behavior of those who voted for him. I’m afraid that a victory by Obama will legitimize the hatred, arrogance, and aggression of not Obama or his cabinet, but Obama’s most vocal supporters. Now that a relatively young idealist has become the President of the United States, it could be seen by his constituents as a four-year mandate to act out.
Once liberals see one of their own in the oval office again, what will become of American culture? This isn’t an abstract question. In between the economy, the Middle East, and the millennial generation’s corny communitarianism, the nation won’t be able to return to the tranquil 1990′s, so what kind of culture will Obama’s rule inspire? Will those who think the government created AIDS to get rid of black people start to be taken seriously? Will our educators be trained by more people like the aforementioned professor Ayers, who won’t concede that bombing the U.S. capital is terrorism? Will it empower the immature activism of people who vandalize property in democracy’s name? Barack Obama’s presidency will be a victory for the deepening politicization of American culture, which will please the “vote or die” crowd. But as anyone can observe every time an election draws near, this isn’t a good thing, as it invariably leads to political strife and the further institutionalization of resentment.
This was clearly demonstrated through the misbehavior of many Obama supporters during the 2008 Presidential election, particularly in their treatment of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin after John McCain announced her as his running mate. Because she’s a conservative woman, one left-wing entertainer called her a traitor, and commented how Palin would be gang-raped in her neighborhood. Another liberal actor condescendingly compared her achievement to a shallow family film. Many uninformed citizens believe that Palin wanted to ban books from public libraries, even though many of the books on the supposed blacklist hadn’t even been published when she purportedly tried to censor them. Even the twenty-year old son of a Democratic representative has been indicted for breaking into her e-mail account and attempting to distribute the contents for the entire world to see. Most embarrassingly for her opponents, aging feminists complained that Palin isn’t authentically female because she isn’t liberal. This is only the tip of an iceberg full of outlandish editorials, bad comedy skits, and weeks of internet message boards filling to the brim with anti-Palin talking points, all fed by the unrelenting production of shallow objections to a stunning range of topics spanning from tanning beds to her personal faith.
Governor Palin was blackballed for being a normal, imperfect American woman living a normal, imperfect American life with a normal, imperfect American family. Everything from her daughter’s pregnancy to her sister’s (all too common) ugly divorce became a distraction from genuine issues. Republicans and Democrats alike rightly criticized Palin’s poor performances in her post-nomination interviews, but the malice directed at her by Obama voters would have been more appropriately reserved for pedophiles and slave owners. This behavior wasn’t limited to anonymous internet trolls, but professors, generally likeable actors, and even the occasional figurehead of an entire movement (Gloria Steinem). Given the Obama campaign’s ambivalence for free speech, the prospect of such intolerant citizens having a representative in the White House is understandably creepy. Bald partisanship, not judicious compromise, will be the hallmark of Obama’s America.
Case in point: When Barack Obama chose the moderately conservative Christian Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, a substantial part of his base lost their emotional bowels. Gay activists felt “betrayed” by his selection, which only makes sense if fidelity means refusing to associate with social conservatives. The gay community’s political fringe feels disrespected by Obama’s choice, which suggests they believe the world revolves around them—what else can one to make of their insistence that Obama stop talking to Rick Warren so they can feel more secure about his affection for them? Predictably, some LGBT activists have angrily pleaded for Warren to step down. Surely the Stonewall Reenactment Club will stage at least one small protest at today’s massive inauguration.
It’s gotten to the point where entertainers have been forced to become more sane and even-tempered than the masses who worship them. But Obama never promised to blacklist everyone to the right of him. In fact, he campaigned as a pragmatic centrist and talked endlessly about reaching across the aisle. Surely his supporters were aware of this. Obama has pleasantly surprised me by living up to his word (Don’t jump to conclusions, it’s only his first day), but somehow this has disgusted much of his base. Did they think he was lying? Are they mad now that it appears he wasn’t cynically mouthing platitudes to the rubes just to get elected?
Yet President Obama is not completely innocent in this matter. In his two-year tour for the Presidency, Obama implicitly encouraged the same self-righteous crusading he’s now bedeviled by. In September, he told his followers “I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.” No report on whether or not he expects them to dress in white shirts, black slacks, and black ties while traveling door to door, carrying copies of A People’s History of the United States.
If President Obama keeps living up to his word, he will only create more extremists on his side. Consider the President’s roundabout plan for mandating 50 hours of community service for middle and high school students (100 for college students). There’s nothing wrong with community service, but anyone familiar with the way activism works knows that non-profit organizations are vulnerable to politicization. Non-profit groups such as Campaign for America’s Future are so plainly anti-conservative that the prospect of a student being compelled to serve time under one of their “community leaders” is essentially an engine for turning students into left-wing activists. Obama’s plan risks mandating young Americans to participate in partisan politics before they’re mature enough to resist emotional appeals and other types of indoctrination.
Obviously one must take into account the predictable counter-argument that conservatives aren’t all winners, either. Certainly some small-minded nutballs on the right are fixated with Barack Hussein Obama’s middle name, or strangely insistent that he’s not an indigenous American, but they don’t set the tone for the right like the MSNBC crowd does for the left. Part of this is because Republicans don’t generally call on their supporters to be more obnoxious.
In the end, the most disturbing part of Obama’s rise is that it indirectly affirms a worldview shared by the left’s most extreme voices. It gives credence to the idea that America is fundamentally unjust and needs to be remade, not merely reformed. It confirms the thoughtless assumptions of young neophytes, who seem to imagine that all conservatives are irredeemable liars, hypocrites, and dopes. It gives more seasoned liberal lawyers and judges a green light from the highest office in the land to contort the Constitution around the myth of modern American oppression. It rewards the hateful mob who went out of their way to call Sarah Palin “stupid” in their collective attempt to sway the election. Perhaps worst of all, Obama’s rise to power sends the message to aspiring community organizers that harassing complete strangers with unsolicited political commentary is something commendable, rather than juvenile. Make no mistake; Obama’s America will never be as bad as Obama’s Americans. Maybe he’ll learn that the more he contends with them.
Parce parce precor.
-Afghan Whig