Some people blame Obama’s failures on being “too ideological.” This is equivalent to saying: “Obama is failing because he has ideas.” Ridiculous. Nobody in politics — or anything else — fails for having ideas. People fail for having BAD ideas. Obama, like Democrats more generally, has bad ideas. What makes him different from other Democrats — Bill Clinton, for example — is that he adheres to these bad ideas with firmness and consistency. He doesn’t want a little bit of socialism; he wants full-fledged socialism. He doesn’t moderately Big Government; he wants all-encompassing government. These and many other bad ideas get him into trouble. These ideas are unpopular with most people, and they don’t work in practice — because they’re bad.
The lesson of Obama is not to abandon ideas. The lesson of Obama is to replace bad ideas with good ones, with ones that are right and that work. Anyone who tells you, “Ideology is bad” is saying, in essence, “I have no ideas.” Historically, those with no ideas have defaulted to the bad ideas of the Democratic Party. That’s why Republicans have been Democratic-lite for years, and have really offered nothing but a scaled-down version of the Democratic tax-and-spend welfare/regulatory state. Only a Republican Party with completely opposite ideas of the Democrats qualifies as a competing or second party.
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What will Obama do now that he’s lost much of his power in Congress? The premise of this question is wrong. The premise of this question is that he cares about whether or not he has power in Congress. He doesn’t. Even in the last Congress, with an overwhelming majority of his own party, Obama threatened to simply implement “cap and trade” through the EPA if Congress didn’t pass it. He’ll do it because he can. This is what Republicans in Congress — not to mention American citizens — must understand. Obama is no ordinary President. Any ends justify any means, so long as they’re HIS means. When Nancy Pelosi threatened to “deem and pass” the health care bill, whether they had a majority or not, she was speaking for Obama as much as herself. Pelosi may be gone, but Obama is not.
When Obama promised “change,” he meant change to a different form of government. Sure, when he had massive majorities in Congress, he was happy to go through the motions and act like he should legislate things before implementing them as law. But now the pretense is dropped. Republicans have a clear majority in the House, and possibly a working majority in the Senate. Obama now stands alone. And, my sense of the situation is: He doesn’t mind a bit.
Humbled? You’ve got to be kidding. I would love to have a candidate for capitalism and individual rights who’s as unyielding and unbending as this man is for socialism. This is a man who encouraged citizens to report opposition to his plan for socialized medicine to a special White House email address. What is this — a totalitarian state? Not yet, but if we did things Obama’s way, it would be. Watch and see. He will use the regulatory agencies of the federal government to ram through whatever he wishes in the coming two years. Who’s going to stop him? Republicans? Republicans have never stood on principle before, and have never stood up to a liberal Democratic President before. If they do this time, it will be different. I’m waiting and watching to see how they respond to this President’s forthcoming abuse of executive power. America is about to meet the real Obama. Fasten your seatbelts, because it’s not going to be pretty.
