Victor Davis Hanson has responded to the Obama press conference yesterday, rising above the neener-neener-neener of most of the Right to provide a conservative response to what the election meant … rather, to what the Democrats are saying the election meant.
Except, rather than an analysis, Hanson’s decided that Obama’s a disingenous liar who’s spent the last two years race-baiting and trying to turn the United States into France. Hanson seems filled with righteous anger at the suggestion that there might be reasons — any reasons — to blame the Democratic “shellacking” on anything other than an informed and profound repudiation of the President, the Democrats, the Pelosi/Reid cabal, liberalism, progressivism, socialism, and, probably, Woodrow Wilson.
He starts right off with his list of “What the Election Was Not About” …
1. Communication—As If You Would Have Liked My Agenda Had You Just Been More Informed
President Obama’s postmortem press conference was a near disaster. He seemed subdued, but also sometimes petulant—still convinced that we, in fear and distrust, “lashed out” in anger at the doctor rather than the disease. In fact, the same voter furor that turned on him is, he thinks, what earlier elected him: only his failure to channel it properly explains the setback.
Note the clever way Hanson frames it all as “furor.” Obama only won in the first place, it seems, because his supporters were “angry” — and now that they’ve turned on him, well, Obama is “petulant” about it.
Finally he did admit that he was “shellacked,” but he believes that partisanship confused us voters into shellacking him.
This common complaint that he failed to communicate just how wonderfully he had done is quite an unhinged Carteresque/Kerryesque exegesis. The problem was not that the American voter did not know about the second stimulus, ObamaCare, the efforts to push cap and trade, card check, and $3 trillion more in debt, but that he knew them all too well. When framed by 10% unemployment, slow growth, record food stamp usage, and home foreclosures, the problem was, again, too much, rather than too little, information. Obama was overexposed, not underexposed.
Lovely. Hanson practically proves the point. No, it’s not that what the Administration and Congress managed to accomplish was completely hidden. It’s that everything that was done that was publicly known was tarred, feathered, and flogged by the Right — be it in Congress or the punditry — as evil, un-American, tyrannical, sinful, dangerous, and deranged, usually with a healthy dose of ad hominem attacks on the principals involved — e.g., “petulant,” “Carteresque/Kerryesque,” “ObamaCare” …
Were there achievements that were simply overlooked, hidden, masked, unknown by the electorate? Absolutely. Look at polling data. Most people thought their federal income taxes had gone up (they went down), that bailouts were costing trillions (most of the money has been recovered), that the stimulus hadn’t created a single job (um, yes it has), that unemployment is up (it’s down), that all the stimulus and bail-outs started with Obama (it started with Dubya), etc. Those misapprehensions haven’t come from overexposure, they’ve come from the GOP and its propagandists beating the drum in the opposite direction, and the Dems not trying to take the narrative back.
The more he communicated on the campaign trail—“back seat,” “enemies,”“they” don’t want you to vote—the more the jaded voter turned from his cause. I fear very few will now listen to the new Obama in extremis calling for a new civility of the sort he helped destroy with his offensive and polarizing slurs and smears the last month.
Yes, heaven forbid that the President actually call out on the campaign trail the Republicans for what they’ve been saying and doing. That’s “offensive” and “polarizing” and “slurs and smears.” It’s the bully crying in outrage when someone finally punches him back in the nose. Look at the rhetoric from GOP candidates and pols over the last two years, as abetted by Fox “News” and folks like Beck and Limbaugh.
In point of fact, Obama has been too reticent to burn a few bridges, to stop seeking consensus and bipartisanship and GOP buy-in in every single legislative conflict since January 2009. He’s only stepped into the fray in extremis, at the last moment, when all nearly seemed lost, and then only to offer a mild chiding and a few more compromises.
The idea that his campaigning over the last month has destroyed his bipartisan “credibility” (as if he’s managed to get any significant bipartisan support over the last two years) is laughable. And, of course, has nothing to do with the effect of the Right-wing Noise Machine on people’s perceptions of what’s been happening the last few years, and the Democrats not addressing that effect dead on and constantly.
2. We Spent Too Little?
Given what we know of the models of Spain, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and California, we should not take seriously another lunatic explanation that we did not borrow enough. Supposedly Obama followed the conservative Japanese route of the 1990s and thus was too fiscally restrained. This is more than insane. Increasing government spending on the way to a planned 40% of the economy, while borrowing $3 trillion was not timid.
First off, those states were largely borrowing over time to support major social programs that couldn’t be sustained. Stimulus spending — spending to generate jobs and further private investment — is a very different thing. It’s the difference between borrowing for a vacation and borrowing for an education. And even that wildly oversimplifies the roots of the economic problems of the countries described; in short, they, and certainly not California, did not face economic crises because they spent to much trying to get out of an economic crisis; they were in trouble because they were already hocked to the gills and had no track record to indicate that they could get out of that debt.
And that spending by the US actually helped stimulate the economy — not enough because the amount got cut before it ever got to the President’s desk, but employment is up, tax receipts are up, and that growth is part of what’s getting the US going whereas places like Greece are going to be suffering mightily for the foreseeable future.
The real reason Obama turned a recession into a near depression?
He did? Really? Everything I’ve seen indicates that within a few months of his getting into office, things began turning around … too slowly, to be sure, but definitely not a further plunge from recession to depression. Granted, Hanson is a historian, but I think maybe he needs to check his sources.
Let us count the ways: a) He trash-talked business (from the Chrysler creditor mess to the “at some point I do think you’ve made enough money” toss-off) into stasis, and the private sector now sits on the sidelines hoarding trillions of dollars in fear of ObamaCare, more regulation, and government confiscation.
b) His team talked non-stop about raising taxes—income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, health care taxes, even VAT taxes. Psychologically that frightened off investors and entrepreneurs.
Ah. The mean old president scared away the all the big businessmen and venture capitalists. The crap economy and high unemployment had nothing to do with it.
Now, if you told me they were “hoarding trillions of dollars” in anticipation of being able to spend a fraction of it on the midterm elections (thanks, SCOTUS) and get a Congress in that would seek to kill health care reform, financial regulatory reform, and any taxes it could get its hands on … I’d believe you.
And non-stop talk about taxes? Really? Aside from the idea of any taxation seems anathema to the Right, and thus stands out as a red cape to them, any tax proposals seriously made by the Administration have been modest, at best, and hardly some sort of mighty crusade.
c) The government wasted the borrowed stimulus money on pork-barrel projects and spread-the-wealth social programs that produced no real wealth.
Bosh. (Yes, that’s not much of an answer, but it’s as coherent and defensible as Hanson’s characterization.)
d) His advisory team simply quit and left town—Emanuel, Romer, Summers, Orszag—more or less confirming that they did not ever know quite what they were doing.
They’re not just quitters, they’re clueless quitters who are fleeing before the righteous mobs arrive with torches and pitchforks. Because presidential advisory team members never leave an administration. Even if they have compelling personal reasons for doing so. Especially when they can see that the president’s power is going to be more circumscribed the next term because of electoral losses.
e) He wasted millions of legislative hours on health care that terrified employers, and very little on incentives to businesses to create jobs.
Yes. It was all about terrifying employers. And it was an intentional plan to “waste millions of legislative hours” (cunningly roping the GOP into that very move), because he’d never talked about health care reform during the campaign, but sprang it on everyone, complete with death panels, just when the crisis demand he spend everything on giving businesses incentives (i.e., tax breaks) which they would then automatically translate into jobs.
I could go on, but you get the point that Obama supposedly not following the Greek mega-borrowing model was not our problem. (By the way, for all its innate crises, Japan still is in far better shape today than Italy, Spain, and Greece).
And Italy, Spain, and Greece are hardly models for the structure and robust nature of the American economy.
3. Obstructionist Republicans
A third explanation often aired is that Republicans are good at destroying noble things like Obamism, but not good at governing.
When their stated goal is not to govern but to deny the president any wins, and in fact work to ensure his loss in 2012 — yeah, I’d say that’s a fair explanation.
Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News and the usual partisan suspects deluded the gullible public.
Well, how many people (esp. among their audience) still think Obama is a Muslim, or a socialist, or a Kenyan?
The result is that we still do not appreciate the wonders of ObamaCare (check those rising premiums), …
Clearly HCR’s biggest mistake is that it was not implemented instantly, no matter the cost and disruption, rather than being phased in over time.
… and will soon choke without cap and trade, …
A policy that had widespread GOP support (including with Obama’s GOP opponent in 2008), but which suddenly became anathema when Obama floated the concept. Great governing, GOP!
and will applaud Obama for the trivial things like the Government Motors Volt.
And a nice trivializing of both some fine R&D investment and mischaracterization of the highly successful auto manufacturer bail-out. Far from being “Government Motors,” GM is coming back, buying back its stock, and doing well. As opposed to simply letting it (and its suppliers, and dealers) fail.
Yet Obama and the left seem oblivious to the fact that they gave as good as they got. Here in California Jerry Brown’s commercials, as well as Boxer’s, were as vicious as their opponents’, more so in fact.
In the eye of the beholder, perhaps. But vitriolic campaign ads (and I despise them regardless of the parties) have nothing to do with obstructionism. Indeed, the point of noting that Republicans in Congress (particularly the Senate) were obstructionist, was not that they were mean and nasty (they were), but that they stopped government where they could and slowed it down where they couldn’t. Between unconscionable stalling on approvals, constant filibuster threats, and refusals to close even to just have debate … the GOP obstructed the function of government, and did it more to keep the Obama Administration from succeeding than because of philosophical differences (witness the array of appointees who were approved on a bipartisan basis in committee, languished for months because of holds by GOP senators, then were eventually approved with large or unanimous bipartisan votes).
My only surprises are, one, that dozens of Republicans survived the smearing and character destruction, …
Oh, dear. Those poor little hothouse flowers of the party of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater are being smeared, I tell you! Smeared!
… and, two, Obama et al. are now calling for a time-out and “can’t we all get along” brotherhood. Ask yourself this: had Obama enjoyed a 60-seat gain after his “enemies” talk, would he now have called for a new era of political healing and harmony?
Actually, he probably would have. He did after the 2008 elections, even as the Right was talking about how they hoped that Obama would fail, and resolving to do all they could to make it happen. I assert Obama’s error was in not realizing until too late (and perhaps not even now) that this sort of talk, in the face of an intransigent opposition, is not only futile, but it wastes time and encourages further opposition and extortion of concessions.
The notion that stonewalling conservatives derailed a successful president is adolescent.
Which you’ve proven, Victor, by not talking about it.
4. Race
Oh yes, race. I mention that because on election day Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post has already played that preemptory card to explain the repudiation of the Obama agenda.
I am not aware of anyone saying this is a primary motive for everyone opposed to the Obama presidency. To claim it is not a factor among some voters and some opponents is not only disingenuous, but demonstrably false (as a casual browse at various Tea Party demonstrations and some select quotes from the right-wing punditry can demonstrate).
Here’s why that is also crazy:
a) The anger is against the Obama agenda and those who promote it. A Nancy Pelosi is as unpopular, or more unpopular, than Barack Obama.
And certainly the idea there might be any connection between racism and misogyny is unheard of.
I don’t question that a lot of folks are largely unhappy over what they see as policy, or the policy results, or what they are told the policy is all about. Again, that some carry along with them racial and/or misogynistic sentiments alongside that, or as a contributing factor for their unhappiness, doesn’t contradict that.
Lots of white-male entrenched incumbents lost not because they supported a black man, but because they oversaw the government takeover of health care,
Hanson blows any credibility by retreading this old canard. The idea that a regulated private insurance industry providing universal private health insurance policies is somehow a “government takeover” is … well, I’ll call it a lie, and be generous in doing so.
… borrowed $3 trillion in 21 months, …
Not surprising in a major economic downturn (which started well before he was in office) and in the middle of two wars (also started before he was in office). All of which is a lovely bookend to the $5 trillion in debt racked up (in “good times”!) by the GOP and Dubya Administration, with nary a peep.
perpetuated the “culture of corruption,”
Defined? Examples? As opposed to?
… and saw unemployment rise to 10%.
The peak of unemployment (10.6%) was in January 2009, the very month Obama took office. It has declined since then. Not fast enough, but attributing the rise in unemployment to the “Obama agenda” is simply dishonest.
b) The Tea Party zealots backed all sorts of candidates, women like Sharron Angle, Hispanics like Marco Rubio, blacks like Allen West, and Asians like Van Tran. Contrary to Robinson’s charges, race or gender was incidental — not essential — to their support.
Certainly there were very prominent TP candidates who were not white males (though most who weren’t were white females). And, again, being a True Believer from a policy perspective does seem to be the primary prerequisite for TP candidacy. That doesn’t invalidate the demonstrable supposition that racism doesn’t play a role in some TPers dislike of the President (and, thus, his allies).
c) Barack Obama has encountered no more venom—and in fact much less—than what George Bush or Bill Clinton endured.
Oh, please.
As of yet, thank God, we have not seen an Alfred Knopf novel like Checkpoint aimed at Obama, or anything like the 2006 Toronto prize-winning film Death of a President, which imagined the shooting of George Bush. I don’t recall Robinson at the time suggesting that such sick, unhinged hatred of Bush was either untoward or motivated by nefarious forces.
I’d suggest that, in part, that’s because overt racism is generally frowned upon.
Death of a President, from what I’ve read, is less a “sick, unhinged hatred of Bush” by a fictionalized assassination, than a story of politics and civil liberties and the state of the US with the assassination of Bush as the trigger point, so to speak. It’s a political thriller, not a wish fantasy. Unlike, say, the huge spike in death threats toward Obama even as he started being a serious candidate, vs. other, um, non-black candidates.
d) By 2001 the two highest foreign policy officials of the U.S. government—Secretary of State and National Security Advisor—were both African-Americans—and appointed by George Bush. There was some racism directed at them, but it came mostly from the anti-war Left (cf. the despicable comments of a Harry Belafonte)— and especially from abroad, as in the case of the sick, anti-Rice cartoons that appeared in the Palestinian papers. Again, I don’t recall outrage from Robinson over that overt racism.
Hanson seems to feel that by disparaging Eugene Robinson, he can defuse the racism charge. This is known in the profession as an ad hominem attack.
e) To the degree racial divisiveness is more apparent after 2008, it is largely due to the Obama administration.
So we blame the victim.
The president himself called for Latinos to see Republicans as “enemies.” He appealed to racial groups to vote on the basis that the Republicans did not wish them to. He used racially loaded imagery to suggest that the Republicans should sit in the back of the car. He suggested that the Cambridge police, on no evidence, had engaged in stereotyping and had acted stupidly. His attorney general called Americans “cowards” for not wishing to talk about race on his terms. No need to repeat the past racist rants of Van Jones. His Supreme Court nominee gave reasons why a “wise Latina” intrinsically would make a better judge than a white counterpart. And all this came after the 2008 mess with the overt racist Rev. Wright, the “typical white person” slur, and the condescending put-down of the white clingers of Pennsylvania. To the degree racial polarization has surfaced, it has been due entirely to Barack Obama’s modus operandi, saying different things to different audiences, predicated on their race — and whether the comments are thought to remain private and not for public dissemination.
Right. Racist messages have been out there, but to point them out is racist. Prominent Republican candidates and office-holders demonize killer hordes of Mexicans crossing the border to lop off our heads (and steal our jobs), but to suggest that the GOP might not be as Latino-friendly as they claim to be is racist. Suggestions of diversity of life experience as something that might be worthwhile are obviously racist.
And calling the President racist — or a race-baiter, or responsible for any racism that has surfaced — certainly couldn’t be racist.
f) One thing has changed, however. The near obsessive use of the slur “racist” in lieu of an argument has now so inflated the currency of that charge that it has been rendered meaningless — and, in fact, tells us far more about the character of the accuser than of the intended target.
Sort of like “liberal” or “Nazi” or “socialist.”
So What Was Tuesday?
The truth is always the simplest explanation. Here it goes in simple language from the beginning: Obama was elected largely because of public furor over Bush/Iraq.
Well, certainly over Bush. And Bush’s failed economic policies. And Bush’s wars. And Bush’s civil liberties record. And Bush’s palpable dumbness. And Bush’s cronies. And the “culture of corruption” amongst same.
There was furor, and anger. But there was also a positive message of hope and change. Compare the campaign banners of the Obama 2008 campaign to the signs of the Tea Party. Start your look for real “furor” there.
The fawning media hid his socialist background.
Right. All the Fox horses and all the News Corp. men couldn’t dig up what a die-in-the-pink-wool socialist he was.
He ran as a centrist.
And has presided as one, to the dismay of quite a few on the Left.
The Wall Street meltdown wiped away the small McCain/Palin lead.
Well, that and McCain looking like a buffoon in reacting to it (and in selecting Palin as a running mate).
Obama in his hubris took that flukish set of events and reinvented them into proof that he could deliver to the left a once-in-a-century EU-style socialist makeover of America.
That’s right! He promised mandatory paid holidays of six weeks a year, a national health service, and hiring all the unemployed to build Montessori Schools and arugula farms. Oh, and we’d all go on the Euro and get rid of our flags.
That effort polarized the country, stalled the recovery, and terrified the private sector into stasis.
Right, the private sector was terrified, terrified, of the same-old, same-old Treasury officials he brought in. They were so terrified they stopped any spending or investment, which they’d have been more than happy to make if only their taxes were given a holiday for a year or three.
Obama, who was always himself given something (take your pick—Harvard admission,Harvard Law Review billet, Chicago Law School tenure offer, Noble Peace Prize, etc.) without requisite achievement, …
What a poseur. But a clever one, fooling folks into letting him into Harvard, to edit the Harvard Law Review, to be offered tenure, to win a Nobel (sp.) Peace Prize, all for stuff he hadn’t done yet. (Well, maybe you’ve got me on the Nobel Peace Prize, but …).
… is thus stunned that the economy is not an animate Law dean whom he can hope and change into compliance.
Silly man! He wanted to institute an EU-style socialist makover without actually having any idea how to do it! What a buffoon! He should wear Joker make-up, don’t you think?
So naturally he is angry …
Right. Just like Obama’s the racist, he’s also the angry guy. Got it.
… and has turned to almost everything in the past that worked: the race card, …
Because we know racism is dead in America.
… the get-out-the-minority vote card, …
How dare he!? What a racist!
… the enemy Republican bad actors,
And after the GOP welcomed him to the White House with open and humble arms, and begged, begged to be allowed to offer a few small suggestions in the legislative agenda, despite being a minority in both Houses of Congress.
… the greedy rich takers, etc..
Right! Next thing you know, people will be claiming that shadowy private forces in various industries whose high profit margins are threatened by Obama are now injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into mid-term political campaigns! What a paranoid old saw!
But now none of the old “them” bogeymen work; …
The Democrats have always, as we know, been the party of “Us vs. Them” and “if you’re not for us, you’re against us.”
… the more that tactic is tried, the more the economy stalls and the people get angry.
Yes, the economy’s been in a free-fall since the inauguration! Unemployment is up! GDP is down! And meanwhile, every weekend we have the Hour of Hate broadcast live from the White House to cover up for it. The sight of Obama, ranting and raving from the pulpit, spittle flicking from his lips … no wonder the Koch Brothers are terrified!
It’s that simple. He can talk all he wishes, but until he offers fiscal responsibility, …
… (cut off unemployment, but cut taxes on the richest 1% of Americans) …
… private sector encouragement, …
… (cut taxes on business, and provide them further incentives to boost their stock prices) …
… reassurance of adhering to singular American capitalism, …
… (abolish the minimum wage, abolish health and safety regulations, eliminate taxes on capital gains) …
… and pro-jobs tax policies, …
… (see above) …
… he will continue more of these Orwellian, thinking-out-loud press conferences.
And he’ll start rolling around little steel balls, muttering about how the Republicans stole his strawberries!
Remember, this is Victor Davis Hanson, history academic and fawningly addressed as “Dr. Hanson” and “Professor Hanson” by his commenters. He’s smart, by gum! And he writes history books! So he deals with truth, and history, and truth, and reality! And as such a level, considered, rational analysis as the above demonstrates, who would ever dare think otherwise?