by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n I. More Debt, Please?<\/strong><\/p>\n Please explain this: Barack Obama entered office; nationalized healthcare; ran up record $1 trillion deficits; promised to hike taxes on the rich; pushed cap and trade through the House; took over large chunks of banks, insurance companies, and auto corporations; made hard-left appointments from Van Jones to Sonia Sotomayor \u2014 and in 21 months saw his positives crash from near 70% in January 2009 to little above 40%, with the specter of near record Democratic losses in the Congress just two years after the anti-Bush\/anti-Iraq sweep of 2008.<\/p>\n All the polls of independents and moderates show radical shifts and express unhappiness with higher taxes, larger deficits, a poor economy, and too much government. In other words, the electorate is not angry that Obama has moved too far to the right or stayed in the center or borrowed too little money. A Barney Frank or Dennis Kucinich is looking at an unusually tight race in a very liberal district not because liberals have had it with them, but because large numbers of moderates and independents most surely have.<\/p>\n Yet if one were to read mainstream Democratic analysis, there is almost no acknowledgment that the party has become far too liberal. Indeed, they fault Obama for not being liberal enough, or, in the case of the Paul Krugman school, for not borrowing another trillion dollars for even more stimulus, despite the failure of the earlier borrowing. In fact, Obamaites offer three unhinged exegeses for the looming defeat: a) there is no looming defeat: the Democrats will still keep the House; or b) Obama did not prove to be the radical as promised; or c) the American people are clueless and can\u2019t follow science and logic and therefore do not know what is good for them.<\/p>\n Do liberals really believe that had they rammed down cap and trade, borrowed $6 trillion instead of $3 trillion the last 21 months, and obtained blanket amnesty their candidates would be posed to ward off Republican attacks this election year? The problem right now with Greece is that it borrows too little, hires too few, and spends not enough?<\/p>\n II. Perpetual Campaigning<\/strong><\/p>\n What is it with former Democratic presidents? Cannot they let it be and recede into retirement in the manner of a Nixon, Ford, or Reagan? His multimillion overseas speaking junkets to oil rich dictatorships now nullified by Hillary\u2019s tenure as Secretary of State, a restless Bill Clinton is once more still shaking his finger, haranguing the electorate, knee deep in partisan politics, and now caught in intrigue trying to oust the African-American Democratic candidate for US Senate in Florida.<\/p>\n Meanwhile our other Democratic president emeritus, Jimmy Carter, is still hawking yet another take on his failed presidency of some thirty years past. Not content with trying to undermine United Nations support for the US during the 1991 Gulf War, or intriguing against the US during the debate over the Iraq war as requisite for a long coveted Nobel Peace Prize, or calling George Bush, Sr. \u201ceffeminate,\u201d or slurring George W. Bush as the \u201cworst\u201d president in history, or smearing Tony Blair, Carter now complains that we simply did not understand his magnificent tenure that ended in January 1981 with 21% interest rates, unemployment over 7%, inflation running at almost 14%, gas lines, and little growth \u2014 with Iran still holding hostages and the Soviets on the move in Afghanistan and Central America.<\/p>\n Why, in other words, cannot a Carter and Clinton, like Bush I and II, simply fade into the shadows without perpetually campaigning to remake their images? Why is not George H.W. Bush as angry as Carter at a lost second term? Does not George W. Bush feel the media demonized him over Iraq as much as they did Clinton during Monicagate? Apparently, they refuse to admit that the country is center-right and both do not understand that they were elected despite rather than because of that fact.<\/p>\n III. The People\u2019s Yacht<\/strong><\/p>\n What is it with John Kerry? He is now pontificating again and once more furious with us, the idiots in his royal presence \u2014 \u201cIt\u2019s absurd. We\u2019ve lost our minds. We\u2019re in a period of Know-Nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don\u2019t weigh in. It\u2019s all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap-seat politics.\u201d<\/p>\n Has he simply channeled the president\u2019s earlier anger at our unscientific minds? But the yokels\u2019 skepticism that man-made global warming was still controversial was born out by revelations of forged and inexact research, and human embryos proved not the only pathway to conduct stem-cell research, and Keynesian massive borrowing has little record of creating permanent wealth and employment.<\/p>\n This follows the more recent, \u201cWe have an electorate that doesn\u2019t always pay that much attention to what\u2019s going on, so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what\u2019s happening.\u201d (Translation = like in 2004, the sick voters are once again stupidly rejecting their medicine.)<\/p>\n Both outbursts remind us of the 2004 blurt-out about George Bush, \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m losing to this idiot.\u201d That was itself a prelude to the later 2006 put-down, \u201cYou know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don\u2019t, you get stuck in Iraq.\u201d (Translation = George Bush really did not, really, really did not have higher SAT scores than I did, and I have no idea that education levels in the US military exceed those of the general population.)<\/p>\n (P.S. The Tea Party would answer that its members at least know that it is not smart to buy a $7 million sailing yacht in the midst of a recession while trying to avoid $500,000 in assorted property and excise taxes, while advocating higher taxes on the upper-middle class.)<\/p>\n Kerryism \u2014 like Obama\u2019s recent lamentations and expansions on his \u201cclingers\u201d speech \u2014 is simply a reflection of the angst of modern elite liberalism, and shared by everyone from Barack Obama to Al Gore. Its tenets are familiar: a) an anointed technocratic class, without much first-hand knowledge of the lives of its constituencies, is the self-appointed protector of the federally subsidized underclass against the ravages of the demonic private-sector robber classes; b) requisite knowledge to oversee us is adjudicated by certificates from Ivy League schools and soaring rhetorical tropes, never by a record of creating capital or jobs; to the degree one can make a clever argument, the economy is supposed to rebound, jobs follow, and peace spreads abroad; c) to the degree one demonizes the supposedly unthinking middle class, its lifestyle, its culture, and its worldview, the more one can enjoy without guilt the aristocratic good life \u2014 think of the penance that allows Al Gore\u2019s jetting or mansions, John Edwards\u2019s big house, or the Kerry playthings.<\/p>\n In other words, the thinking is \u201cI care for \u201cthem,\u201d even when they don\u2019t fathom it. So my yacht provides necessary downtime for me to recharge before reentering the fray to fight for more redistributive largess for those who know not what I do.<\/p>\n IV. What\u2019s the Matter with California?<\/strong><\/p>\n Many have written to me along the following lines, \u201cHow can a bankrupt state like California vote for two figures like Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer so closely associated, fairly or not, with the ideology of massive government, higher taxes, unionized public employees, and hostility to private enterprise?\u201d<\/p>\n Well, they have not won yet, and we never quite know what fickle Californians will do in the privacy of the voting booth. Yet why not? Lots of people like the present redistributive state, and want even more from government, not less. They are not worried that roughly 3,000 plus are leaving California each week, most of them higher income earners, or that we are creating third-generation families dependent on the dole, or that the highest paid teachers in the United States either cannot prevent, or are in some cases connected to, the fact that Californian youth earn among the lowest reading and math scores on standardized tests in the nation, or that almost half of the nation\u2019s 11-14 million illegal aliens are (wisely) in California.<\/p>\n California may still have 1 billion recoverable, but untapped, barrels of oil, over a half-million acres of productive farmland taken out of production to help the three-inch delta smelt, and a great deal of natural mineral wealth and timber, but we deem ourselves wealthy enough not to need any of that, so smart are our professors, politicians, journalists, and community organizers in figuring out ways to redistribute the ill-gotten gains of agriculture, Silicon Valley, the Napa wine industry, and what manufacturing is left in California. The state has assumed that 101, 99, and I-5 will never be modern three-lane freeways in their entireties, and that our schools cannot turn out literate students, and that our government bureaus, from the DMV to emergency rooms, are Dantesque. It reminds of Greece. When I visited and lived there over the last 30 years, everyone shrugged that in theory the system could not go on, but the new EU would save it, and so enjoy it while it lasted. Californians suspect you cannot shut down industry and drive out wealth, but our EU salvation is the US government.<\/p>\n V. Why Are The Yanks So Crazy?<\/strong><\/p>\n Why would Europe, and France especially, be so hurt about Obama\u2019s freefall? A series of articles has expressed shock that the American voter after just 21 months is sobering up and turning on their prince. How could they? Hmmm, let us count the ways.<\/p>\n Start with the model of Europe itself \u2014 as in we do not wish to end up broke like Greece, or shut down with rioting employees as we see in France. We see in Europe tax-cheating refined to an art form, as the VAT has created an entire black market in \u201cpay in cash and we give you 20% off\u201d sales.<\/p>\n We really do have primaries; our candidates are not pre-selected by party hacks or conniving parliamentarians, so a Sharron Angle or Rand Paul can appear out of nowhere, not relegated to the waiting line of party dignitaries to connive for a turn after twenty years of loyal service.<\/p>\n We are, it is true, in some sense a rejection of Europe\u2019s class system that predetermines one\u2019s slot in life, inasmuch as status is predicated there, even in a socialist state, on birth, parentage, accent, family tribal connections, and education \u2014 not mostly on money that is a far more fluid way of bestowing influence and rank.<\/p>\n We have no real tradition of the impoverished baron in his crumbling estate strutting on the parapets of society; we do see nobodies appear out of nowhere with millions in self-generated cash, who want to turn that capital into exposure, influence, and political and social status. I prefer the latter, as do most Americans.<\/p>\n So it is no wonder that we are quickly tiring of Obama\u2019s European experiment, and no wonder Europeans are shocked that we are. They should be hurt; Tuesday\u2019s election should be a loud, \u201cplease do not turn us into those folks\u201d message. Expect after the election even more European outrage stories about Tea Party \u201czealots,\u201d \u201cracists,\u201d and \u201cfanatics\u201d who questioned our first and only chance to embrace the European socialist\/technocratic model.<\/p>\n Vote on Tuesday with a passion as if you have never voted before.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media I. More Debt, Please? Please explain this: Barack Obama entered office; nationalized healthcare; ran up record $1 trillion deficits; promised to hike taxes on the rich; pushed cap and trade through the House; took over large chunks of banks, insurance companies, and auto corporations; made hard-left appointments from Van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[504],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-iB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-big-deficits-became-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":0},"title":"When Big Deficits Became Good","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama said that he detested budget deficits. In 2006, when the aggregate national debt was almost $8 trillion less than today, he blasted George W. Bush's chronic borrowing and refused to vote for upping the debt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2590,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-psychology-of-debt-obamas-rendezvous-with-political-reality\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":1},"title":"The Psychology of Debt: Obama’s Rendezvous with Political Reality","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Debt Matters Over the last two decades it became an article of popular faith that budget deficits did not matter that much. Conservatives began to talk of annual red-ink in vague terms of percentages of the gross domestic product rather than in real billions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2009"","block_context":{"text":"July 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/july-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2488,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-president-in-recovery\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":2},"title":"Is the President in Recovery?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama does not care much about deficits \u2014 other than worrying that big debt might matter in his re-election campaign. In his first three budgets, Obama borrowed nearly $5 trillion. Currently, the government is borrowing about 45 percent of everything that it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":144,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":3},"title":"Angry Reader #5","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers Angry Reader #5 wrote: Don't mean to troll here, but for the nth time, what is it about Obama or his agenda that wasn't conservative mainstream thought even a few years ago?? He's lowered taxes, been tough on defense, adopted a healthcare plan proposed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6638,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-heed-thyself\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":4},"title":"Obama, Heed Thyself","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He used to know some important things. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Republicans and Democrats are still name-calling in their arguments over the government shutdown, out-of-control federal spending, and the implementation of Obamacare. Yet if both sides would agree to just follow the earlier advice of President Obama,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/3544735027_8a0ac7b28a-201x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2542,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-1-0-2-0-3-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":5},"title":"Obama 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner One of the reasons the president did not sound convincing in his press conference yesterday is that he has taken so many positions on the debt andtaxes\u00a0that it is hard know what his current one is, or whether to take it seriously, much less\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Debt and Deficits"","block_context":{"text":"Debt and Deficits","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/politics\/debt-and-deficits\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1154,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions\/1154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}