by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n Obama and Populism<\/strong><\/p>\n I could believe President Obama\u2019s postmortem take that the same populist sentiment that propelled Scott Brown to office also earlier sent him to the White House \u2014 if we saw fresh liberal Democrats winning seats in places like Alabama against entrenched Washington Republican insiders. But I don\u2019t think that is happening quite yet.<\/p>\n The populist anger that, in sequential fashion, accounted for Bush\u2019s drop in the polls, Republicans\u2019 loss of majority status in Congress, and Obama\u2019s winning the presidency, was predicated on unhappiness with the war, out-of-control federal spending and deficits, congressional corruption, and Wall Street.<\/p>\n Obama & Co., however, have trumped Bush on most of those counts: They have quadrupled the deficit; Geithner, Dodd, and Rangel have shown an even more cavalier attitude toward the law than certain congressional Republicans did; and Obama has surpassed Bush in bailouts and guarantees to the big banks.<\/p>\n In short, I don\u2019t think those who are angry about out-of-control federal spending and the proposed government takeover of healthcare see Obama as a fellow traveler.<\/p>\n Reality Check<\/strong><\/p>\n It was fanciful for the president on the eve of this week’s election to warn that the direction of his agenda would be predicated on the outcome in Massachusetts \u2014 and then, roughly 24 hours later, send his operatives out to assure everyone that Scott Brown’s victory had not much to do with anything in Washington.<\/p>\n When the most interviewed, photographed, and talkative president in recent history insists that his problems are a result of neglecting to communicate with the American people (“We lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people”), something seems unhinged.<\/p>\n All that deception and contradiction do nothing to mitigate the popular outrage against Obama’s broken promises on everything from airing the healthcare debate on C-Span to closing down Guantanamo this week. The growing denial of reality is really hard to juxtapose with the effectiveness of Obama’s 2008 campaign; it almost reminds one of Nixon’s slick 1972 CREEP campaign followed by his descent into “Let me be perfectly clear” denials during much of 1973. Perhaps, in a way, it all makes perfect sense: The arrogance instilled by a successful campaign leads to excess that finishes in nemesis.<\/p>\n Obama and Campaign Financing<\/strong><\/p>\n It was rather incredible for Barack Obama to express outrage over the Supreme Court’s pruning of McCain-Feingold’s regulation of public financing and corporate campaign donations, since in June 2008 Obama became the first presidential candidate to forgo public financing in the general election, expecting that by doing so he could raise several millions more, much of it from the Wall Street and big-money interests that he now serially demonizes.<\/p>\n The problem with Obama’s hypocrisy is not just that, like most politicians, he does not do what he says, but that he fudges so vehemently and loudly and, to be candid, shamelessly. It was not enough just to say he would air the healthcare debate on C-Span; he had to repeat that mythology\u00a0ad nauseam<\/em>, and use it as proof of his new hope-and-change politics \u2014 even as Democratic insiders soon crafted strategies behind closed doors and bought votes with multimillion-dollar public bribes. Guantanamo was to be closed this week, and tribunals and renditions were to be ended \u2014 we heard those boasts constantly over the past three years, as proof that Obama was not George Bush.<\/p>\n Now, stung by the Massachusetts rebuke, Obama apparently has begun his makeover with a rhetorical assault against the Court’s campaign-donation decision, as if he were a sort of “Fighting Bob” Lafollette in hot pursuit of “fat cat” bankers.<\/p>\n Sorry, this is transparently manufactured. Let me repeat: No presidential candidate did more to destroy the idea of public campaign financing than Barack Obama, who set a record in private donations from Wall Street, ended a three-decade-long bipartisan tradition of curbing presidential campaign expenditures, and, once elected, proceeded to nominate a number of Wall Street insiders.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner Obama and Populism I could believe President Obama\u2019s postmortem take that the same populist sentiment that propelled Scott Brown to office also earlier sent him to the White House \u2014 if we saw fresh liberal Democrats winning seats in places like Alabama against entrenched Washington Republican insiders. But I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","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":[610],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-uh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1482,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/pampered-populists\/","url_meta":{"origin":1877,"position":0},"title":"Pampered Populists","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner It's surreal to see President Obama play the class-warfare card against the Republicans while on his way to vacation on the tony Maine coast, and even more interesting to note that now gone are the days when the media used to caricature Bush I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2010"","block_context":{"text":"July 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/july-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7939,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/republican-populism-or-republican-destruction\/","url_meta":{"origin":1877,"position":1},"title":"Republican Populism\u2014or Republican Destruction","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media Nothing much the Republicans have done explains why they are on the verge of taking back the Senate and making gains in the House. Not since the summer of 1974 or October 1980 have we see a presidency in a total meltdown. Abroad,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "America's Future"","block_context":{"text":"America's Future","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/americas-future\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/download-13.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1888,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-the-great-and-growing-backlash\/","url_meta":{"origin":1877,"position":2},"title":"Why the Great and Growing Backlash?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What Scott Brown's election portends for the Obama Agenda by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Dream up a gargantuan backlash against Barack Obama\u2019s left-wing gospel, and you still could not invent the notion of a relatively unknown, conservative Scott Brown knocking off an Obama-endorsed, liberal, female attorney in liberal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2010"","block_context":{"text":"January 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/january-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2850,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-politics-of-blame\/","url_meta":{"origin":1877,"position":3},"title":"The Politics of Blame","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services It should have been easy for Democrats to connect depleted 401(k) accounts and lost home equity with the buccaneers of Wall Street who supposedly prompted the panic. The public, after all, has been whipped up in furor at the masters of the universe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2009"","block_context":{"text":"April 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/april-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7960,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/plutocratic-populism-pays\/","url_meta":{"origin":1877,"position":4},"title":"Plutocratic Populism Pays","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"What\u2019s with rich liberals who blast other people for being rich? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online In early October, Barack Obama went to a $32,000-a-head fundraiser at the 20-acre estate of the aptly named billionaire Richie Richman. The day before he charmed his paying audience of liberal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hillary Clinton is center stage at a fundraiser for the UNLV Foundation, October 13, 2014. (Ethan Miller\/Getty)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/pic_giant_newsite_102814_hillary_920-500x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9450,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-legacies-of-barack-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":1877,"position":5},"title":"The Legacies of Barack Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Without policy achievements to hang his hat on, Obama\u2019s rhetoric will be how he\u2019s remembered \u2013 and the results have been ugly. By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online On his recent Asian tour, President Obama characterized his fellow Americans (the most productive workers in the world) as \u201clazy.\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2016"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2016","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/campaign-2016\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877"}],"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=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1878,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/1878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}