by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n In just 20 months, President Obama\u2019s polls have crashed. From near 70 percent approval, they have fallen to well below 50 percent. Over 70 percent of the public disapproves of the Democratically controlled Congress. Hundreds of thousands of angry voters flocked to hear Glenn Beck & Co. on the Washington Mall. Indeed, things have gotten so bad that the cherubic Mormon\u00a0Beck might outdraw Barack Obama himself on any given Sunday.<\/p>\n All this was not supposed to be \u2014 and it has evoked a lot of anger.<\/p>\n Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0columnist Eugene Robinson thunders, \u201cThe American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats.\u201d<\/p>\n You see,\u00a0hoi polloi<\/em>\u00a0want \u201ceasy solutions\u201d \u2014 like trying to close an open border, cut federal spending, and balance the budget. Instead, they should be manning up to pay more for gas, more in taxes, and more for entitlements for more to come across the border.<\/p>\n Worse still, the uninformed voter cannot seem to appreciate the brilliance of Barack Obama, who has deigned to suffer on our behalf, in offering only unpopular but necessary solutions. Obama has tried his best to prepare an immature nation for amnesty, borrowing at record levels, cap and trade, and additional trillions of national debt \u2014 the castor oil that the obese and now constipated public for some reason just won\u2019t swallow.<\/p>\n Cynthia Tucker of the\u00a0Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/em>\u00a0chimes in with the thought that Neanderthal Americans can\u2019t really distinguish between cause and effect. So in clueless fashion, they blame big deficits, big spending, and high unemployment on Obama, when what they\u2019re really afraid of is the \u201cbrowning of America.\u201d In other words, we remain a nation of primitives resisting the future. \u201cSuccessful black and brown professionals have had to learn to be comfortable in a sea of white faces, but most white Americans have not experienced the reverse. And many are not eager to have that experience. While some prognosticators were na\u00efve enough to believe that Obama\u2019s election signaled the beginning of a post-racial era, it prompted something altogether different: a backlash against the browning of America.\u201d<\/p>\n Vanity Fair<\/em>\u00a0just ran yet another hit piece on the now-worn subject of the ogre Sarah Palin. Uppity Sarah, you see, is still on her hind legs \u2014 even after the 2008 swat from the Katie Couric set, the jogging-suit photos, and the true-story revelations from the philosopher Levi Johnston.<\/p>\n Worse still, Sarah is no longer quite the white-trash yokel with the snowmobiling husband and pregnant teenage daughter that so appealed to Cynthia Tucker\u2019s backlash America. Instead, Palin has had the gall to have devolved into a fake yokel, with Michelle Obama\u2013like fashion pretensions. SoVanity Fair<\/em>\u00a0shocks us with the dirt that the now-clothes-hungry former mayor of Wasilla is making some money speaking. She is not the sandwich-making mom of five that she used to be. And she doesn\u2019t really do the moose-and-fish thing any more.<\/p>\n Still, in reading\u00a0Vanity Fair\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0bill of particulars, we wonder, \u201cCompared to what?\u201d Is Ms. Palin making any more money than the aggregate $100 million collected by good ol\u2019 boy Bill Clinton \u2014 as he jetted his way around the globe between 2001 and 2009, offering his \u201caw shucks\u201d global initiatives to any creepy foreign thug who would pony up the near-million-dollar fee? Are the now-orphaned Palin children missing their careerist mother more than, say, the Obama children missed their absentee father huckstering on the campaign trail for two years in 2007\u20132008? And is Ms. Palin really less of a game-eating shooter than the duck-hunting camouflaged John Kerry was in 2004?<\/p>\n The\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0is just as let down with the volatile American mob that has stormed out in the middle of the sermon on the mount \u2014 after once so bravely thronging to the \u201cgod\u201d who assured us that he would stop the flooding and cool the planet.\u00a0Vero possumus<\/em>\u00a0indeed.<\/p>\n Americans, and even liberal New Yorkers, poll over 70 percent opposed to the so-called Ground Zero mosque \u2014 even after our president gave a courageous standing-ovation pep talk to a group of anguished Muslims at a White House Ramadan dinner. \u201cNew Yorkers,\u201d the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0scoffed, \u201clike other Americans, have a way to go.\u201d My god, you would have thought that we had given a discount to moveon.org to run a slanderous \u201cGeneral Betray Us\u201d ad, as an American general came back from the front to Washington to save a war.<\/p>\n The president himself is grieved by these polls and the Beck-led protests. Indeed, he derides it all as the \u201csilly season.\u201d He does not mean \u201csilly\u201d as in Michelle Obama\u2019s Marbella\u2013to\u2013Martha\u2019s Vineyard odyssey, or his own mini-recession summits on the golf links. Instead, like Robinson and Tucker, he is bewildered that millions don\u2019t appreciate that our godhead is \u201cmaking decisions that are not necessarily good for the nightly news and not good for the next election, but for the next generations.\u201d I suppose here the president means that he is on schedule to add more debt than all previous presidents combined \u2014 just the sort of bravery that the \u201cnext generations\u201d who will pay for it will appreciate.<\/p>\n In the case of Obama worship, the tone is always set at the top. So we are back to 2008, when candidate Obama likewise attributed any rejection to the inability of yokel America to appreciate his inspired leadership \u2014 \u201cit\u2019s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren\u2019t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.\u201d<\/p>\n In short, a frustrated America has let the liberal elite down. And it is all the more disheartening when you think that just two years ago we proved sort of redeemable by electing Barack Obama \u2014 amid the hysteria following the financial panic of September 2008, the lackluster campaign of John McCain, Obama\u2019s own faux-centrist veneer, the glow of electing America\u2019s first African-American president, and the first orphaned election since 1952 when no incumbent of either party was running.<\/p>\n Apparently the liberal elite did not consider that perfect storm of events that elected a northern liberal in a way that had been impossible with George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry. Instead, they really believed that Obama\u2019s election was proof that at last America had shed its odious -isms and -ologies. America was now ready for an updated FDR New Deal \u2014 as if, after seven decades, America had never tasted Social Security, unemployment and disability insurance, a 40-hour work week, and trillions in unfunded pensions and entitlements. In this \u201cnever let a crisis go to waste\u201d teachable moment, the cognitive elite was convinced that America had at last crossed the liberal threshold and so evolved from the pass\u00e9 equality of opportunity to the promised equality of result.<\/p>\n But now a grouchy elite and petulant president see that they were sorely mistaken about us, and Mr. Obama\u2019s election was more flukish than predestined. Americans were given government takeovers of business, multi-trillion-dollar deficits, promised higher taxes, a path to socialized medicine, and an end to building the odious border fence \u2014 with, to top it all off, accusations from the likes of Van Jones and Eric Holder, apologies and bows abroad, and the beer summit. And yet the rustic ingrates are rejecting both the benefactor and his munificence.<\/p>\n Forgive us, Barack Obama,\u00a0for we know not what we do.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We Americans know not what we do. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In just 20 months, President Obama\u2019s polls have crashed. From near 70 percent approval, they have fallen to well below 50 percent. Over 70 percent of the public disapproves of the Democratically controlled Congress.<\/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":[515],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-kx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":720,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-hypocritic-oath\/","url_meta":{"origin":1273,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Hypocritic Oath","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Barack Obama has a habit of identifying a supposed crisis in collective morality, damning straw men \u201cthem\u201d who engage in such ethical lapses, soaring with rhetorical bromides \u2014 and then, to national quiet, doing more or less the exact things he once swore\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Second Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"Second Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/second-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":742,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-face-of-things-to-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":1273,"position":1},"title":"The Face of Things to Come","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Campaign Rhetoric The campaign contour is pretty clear: The Obama reelection team will not make the case for the advantages and popularity of Obamacare, for the Chuian advantages of $4-a-gallon gas, for the dynamism of a 1.7 percent GDP growth rate, for the stimulatory\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3059,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/alligators-moats-and-other-such-nonsense\/","url_meta":{"origin":1273,"position":2},"title":"Alligators, Moats and Other Such Nonsense","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama gave what was billed as an important speech on immigration last week near the border in El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately, it was one of the most demagogic moments in recent presidential history. Nearly everything Obama said was either factually incorrect or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Immigration"","block_context":{"text":"Immigration","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/immigration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1751,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/chicago-does-socialism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1273,"position":3},"title":"Chicago Does Socialism","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Connect the dots of Obama's first year--an ugly picture emerges. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online We can have a rational debate on any one item on President Obama\u2019s vast progressive agenda, arguing whether adjectives like \u201cstatist\u201d or \u201csocialist\u201d fairly describe his legislative intent. But connect all the dots\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2010"","block_context":{"text":"March 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/march-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":173,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-kingdom-of-fairness\/","url_meta":{"origin":1273,"position":4},"title":"The Kingdom of Fairness","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services We are still borrowing more than $1 trillion a year. Barack Obama has added more than $5 trillion to the national debt in just his first term alone. Such massive borrowing is unsustainable. Someone somehow at some time has to pay it back.\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":2055,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-war-against-the-wannabe-rich\/","url_meta":{"origin":1273,"position":5},"title":"The War Against the Wannabe Rich","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services There is class warfare going on in this country \u2014 but it's not against the established rich. It's against those who are trying to become wealthy. President Obama has declared that those who make over $200,000 will pay higher income taxes. Caps on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2009"","block_context":{"text":"December 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/december-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273"}],"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=1273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1273\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}