by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Why Are People in Revolt?<\/strong><\/p>\n The approval ratings on nearly every one of the President\u2019s key policy initiatives \u2014 cap-and-trade, healthcare overhaul, government takeover of industry and finance, deficit spending, stimulus \u2014 are already less than half of polled voters. Obama\u2019s own popularity has fallen dramatically and hovers near fifty percent. A number of well-publicized town meetings have erupted in shouting, as administration and congressional representatives try, often in condescending fashion, to explain the Obama agenda. The Republicans \u2014 written off just a few weeks ago as an obsolete party headed for oblivion \u2014 are now often polling higher in generic surveys than are Democrats.<\/p>\n Why the sudden uproar?<\/p>\n Bait-and-Switch<\/strong><\/p>\n There is a growing sense of a \u201cwe\u2019ve been had\u201d, bait-and-switch. Millions of moderate Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats \u2014 apparently angry at Bush for Iraq and big deficits, unimpressed by the McCain campaign, intrigued by the revolutionary idea of electing an African-American president \u2014 voted for Obama on the assumption that he was sincere about ending red state\/blue state animosity. They took him at his word that he was going to end out-of-control federal spending. They trusted that he had real plans to get us out of the economic doldrums, and that he was not a radical tax-and-spend liberal of the old sort.<\/p>\n Instead, within days Obama set out plans that would triple the annual deficit, and intends to borrow at a record pace that will double the aggregate debt in just eight years.<\/p>\n He not only took over much of the auto and financial industries, but also did so in a way that privileged unions, politically-correct creditors, and those insider cronies who favor administration initiatives. On matters racial, his administration is shrill and retrograde, not forward-looking. It insists on emphasizing the tired old identify politics that favor a particular sort of racial elite that claims advantage by citing past collective victimization or piggy-backs for advantage on the plight of the minority underclass.<\/p>\n In other words, the Obama swing voter thought he was getting a 21st-century version of pragmatic, triangulating Bill Clinton \u2014 and instead got something to the left of 1970s Jimmy Carter.<\/p>\n Those Who Receive and Those Who Dole Out<\/strong><\/p>\n There is, of course, a growing fear of government \u2014 but a new sort of anxiety that transcends the traditional skepticism of statism. Few Americans younger than 60 can recall the magnitude of the current government take-over of the economy that may reach 40-45% of GDP. Evocation of \u201csocialism\u201d is still considered inflammatory by the Left, but it is now simply an empirical term, not a slur, given that America\u2019s tax codes and entitlement spending may look like the social landscape in France or Scandinavia in short order.<\/p>\n Apprehensive voters dread turning their hard-won and paid-for private health care plans into something like the emergency room on Saturday night, where the care reflects the chaos. The new anti-Obamians do not want industry run like the Department of Motor Vehicles, where most time and money are invested mostly in those who do not follow the rules like registering their cars or getting a driver\u2019s license. And it is not just the waste, inefficiency, and lack of accountability inherent in government-run enterprises that bother the growing cadre of angry voters.<\/p>\n There is, again, a mounting anxiety that the current federal expansion is politically-driven in rather radical ways \u2014 an effort to create a permanent new constituency of millions who either receive expanded federal largess or are gleefully employed in doling it out. The zealotry of expansive bureaucracy and dependency instills fears, rational or not, of a radicalized huge federal work force, a sort of national version of Acorn to the nth degree that in pack-like fashion is mobilized to target potential naysayers.<\/p>\n Bastille Day \u2014 All the Days<\/strong><\/p>\n Voters are beginning to sense a certain edge to the Obama revolution, a meanness in its class-driven rhetoric aimed at the more successful. Even the middling classes do not necessary like this constant bashing of their bosses and lawyers, doctors, dentists, contractors, brokers, and real estate agents. The constant harangue about taxing only those who make over $250,000 (or is it now $200,000?, or $150,000) accentuates the notion that those who run successful businesses, who create profitable medical practices, and who are accomplished professionals are somehow culpable \u2014 greedy, conniving, or worse.<\/p>\n If well over 40% of the population pays no federal income tax, and the demonized 1% pay more federal income tax than does the bottom 95%, and still we are to hear whining about Bush-era greed, what is next? What does the Left ultimately want \u2014 confiscation of 90% of all income? Tax exemptions for 99% of the electorate? Continual Barney Frank show-trial congressional hearings to grandstand the bullying of the now satanic CEOs and investors?<\/p>\n In just six months has arisen a Storming the Bastille anger of \u201cpay-back.\u201d Class envy and anger are unleashed through careless presidential rhetoric about Las Vegas junkets, Wall Street vampires, Super Bowl trips, and all the other slurs and slanders that have nothing to do with the building contractor who makes $250,000 a year by working weekends and twelve hour days \u2014 only to plow back his profits immediately into his business.<\/p>\n Existential questions are now being raised \u2014 isn\u2019t compensation fickle (why should the brain surgeon make more than the auto worker?) and in need of federal readjustment on April 15? Is your income really your own, but not more to be envisioned as something on loan from society at large, to be morally recalled as needed? One senses that a number of the successful are already detaching themselves psychologically from the American scene \u2014 and figuring out how to reduce, shield, and avoid income. They often see themselves, if not in melodramatic fashion, as modern-day Kulaks, targeted for extinction by equality-of-result state, FICA, and federal tax hikes that may result in nearly 70% of their income going for the Obama New Deal. They sense the more they pay, the more they will pay more to come. In Obama world, the fact that you will pay 40% federal tax, a healthcare surcharge, higher state taxes, and FICA on most of your income, is proof that you should have paid those tax rates all along, and will pay even more in the future.<\/p>\n Do As I Say, Not As I Do<\/strong><\/p>\n There is a cascading anger at a new sort of left-wing elitism and hypocrisy as well, one that feeds the rhetoric of class warfare. The rules of the game simply do not apply to this bunch of wannabe Platonic Guardians. Stopping Bush\u2019s private Social Security accounts was patriotic; using the same tactics to stop Obama-care is nearly disloyal; a gross Joker-like image of Obama surfaces on the Internet and is deemed horribly unfair; that\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/em>\u00a0published something identical about Bush was hilariously legitimate criticism. Radio talk show is now deemed radically insurrectionist; Moveon.org\u2019s and Michael Moore\u2019s open hostility to the U.S. military and American society at time of war (remember \u201cGeneral Betray-Us\u201d ads, and Moore\u2019s lament that bin Laden hit a blue-state city?) did not earn them ostracism from the Democratic leadership.<\/p>\n A well educated technocracy \u2014 we see such figures in the emblematic Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, or Barack Obama himself \u2014 have most of their lives served in government, largely regulating, overseeing, organizing, auditing, and sermonizing far more productive and capable others. One of the worst flaws of this species of utopian technocrat is the notion that he wishes to curtail in others the very things he wishes to enjoy without constraint himself. In other words, a great number of people are scared of these new versions of Al Gores and John Edwardses who live one way, and quite shamelessly preach another. I don\u2019t think anyone in this green administration is going to be chauffeured to work in a Civic. Few will put their kids in the DC school system as they oppose vouchers. None would be happy in an environmentally-correct 1200 square foot home, with an ideal carbon-footprint, as they preach cap-and-trade taxes on energy for apartment dwellers.<\/p>\n Al Gore, for example, preached the evils of DC insiderism and the need for a new independent TV network. But when his company foolishly sent two of its employees into modern-day Mordor, he uses his status to convince the spouse of the Secretary of State and former President to grant concessions (by the mere fact of his presence with such a monster) to North Korea, free his workers, and set the precedent that hostage-taking does indeed earn high profile exposure. Some egalitarians.<\/p>\n Epilogue<\/strong><\/p>\n I confess that when I first read\u00a0Dreams From My Father<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Audacity of Hope<\/em>, first learned in depth about Trinity Church and its tirades about \u201cblack middle classness,\u201d first studied the\u00a0modus operandi<\/em>\u00a0of Obama\u2019s state legislative campaigns and the mysterious implosions of both his primary and general election senatorial foes \u2014 all this belatedly in late 2006 and early 2007 \u2014 I had little hope that he would prove to be anything other than the fossilized angry liberal that he is sadly proving to be.<\/p>\n But I erred in one key regard: I assumed his prepped oratory, youth and \u201ccool,\u201d transracial profile, media sycophants, and \u201cBush did it\u201d excuses would ensure that his ratings stayed well above 60% at least through the midterm elections.<\/p>\n In other words, I underestimated the righteous anger of those who are daily deprecated by a utopian class \u2014 one that has neither the ability nor the fortitude to achieve what it now wishes to undo in others.<\/p>\n Post script: I will finish Mediterranean reflections, ancient and modern, next posting \u2014 on thoughts about Rhodes, Bodrum, the Cyclades and Istanbul as well as the Greek mainland.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Why Are People in Revolt? The approval ratings on nearly every one of the President\u2019s key policy initiatives \u2014 cap-and-trade, healthcare overhaul, government takeover of industry and finance, deficit spending, stimulus \u2014 are already less than half of polled voters.<\/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":[653],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-C1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11648,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/progressives-pulling-a-bait-and-switch-with-medicare-for-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":2357,"position":0},"title":"Progressives pulling a bait-and-switch with ‘Medicare for All’","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Please read this piece by my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory in The Hill Politicians are known to misrepresent themselves to get elected, but Sen.\u00a0Bernie Sanders\u00a0(I-Vt.) is supposed to be an exception. It is said that he has remained true to his socialist convictions through thick and thin. Surely, such a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bernie Sanders"","block_context":{"text":"Bernie Sanders","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/bernie-sanders\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2779,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/john-ford-and-the-republicans\/","url_meta":{"origin":2357,"position":1},"title":"John Ford and the Republicans","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner There has been lots of discussion about David Brooks\u2019s suggestion that the John Ford Western was about community and order \u2014 and that this serves as a timely message for the out-in-the-wilderness Republicans to put less emphasis on rugged individualism and more on a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "May 2009"","block_context":{"text":"May 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/may-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6883,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/2014-year-of-decision\/","url_meta":{"origin":2357,"position":2},"title":"2014: Year of Decision","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 This year we will see if America is still a center-right country, or if Obama\u2019s two terms will mark a historic shift to the left. History and recent events give cause for optimism, subject, of course, to unforeseen events. The champions of big government,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10167,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/can-trump-successfully-remodel-the-gop\/","url_meta":{"origin":2357,"position":3},"title":"Can Trump Successfully Remodel the GOP?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review If Trumpism succeeds, it could replace mainstream Republicanism. The Republican-party establishment is caught in an existential paradox. Without Donald Trump\u2019s populist and nationalist 2016 campaign, the GOP probably would not have won the presidency. Nor would Republicans now enjoy such lopsided control of state\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12063,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-happened-to-california-republicans\/","url_meta":{"origin":2357,"position":4},"title":"What Happened to California Republicans?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review From 1967 to 2019, Republicans controlled the California governorship for 31 of 52 years. So why is there currently not a single statewide Republican officeholder? California also has a Democratic governor and Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. Only seven of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10692,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-never-trump-construct\/","url_meta":{"origin":2357,"position":5},"title":"The \u2018Never Trump\u2019 Construct","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 The president\u2019s fiercest critics still do not grasp that Trump is a symptom, not the cause of the GOP\u2019s internal strife. 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\nYet how strange that the highly-compensated, privileged DC technocrat deprecates the manifestation of success of the small businessman while bailing out the Wall Street buccaneers who have so lavishly donated in the past to the Obama cause. In the world of Obama, make $300,000 in household income and you deserve to be in the crosshairs; make $30,000,000 and you are a sensitive fat cat donor, who rises above class and personal interests, and so becomes deserving of a bail-out, insider exemption, honorific federal post or ambassadorship, or dinner at the White House. The grandee talks of Harvard-educated children and Martha\u2019s Vineyard, and so in his\u00a0noblesse oblige<\/em>\u00a0is one of \u2018us\u2019, the grasping plumbing contractor goes to NASCAR and deserves what he gets.<\/p>\n
\nThus we sense that a Geithner does not wish to pay the taxes he hikes on others. A Holder wants to destroy through subpoena and litigation the Bush lawyers, but pleaded once for mercy for his own shenanigans involving the crooked Clinton pardons. And Obama lectures about the inequality of wealth and the burdens of racism while his wife\u2019s salary climbed as his political influence grew. Meanwhile his own rarified tastes translated into a shady transaction with Tony Rezco to help to score a stately home and expansive yard \u2014 while attending a Trinity Church that radiated racial venom from a charlatan preacher who ended up in a mansion on a golf course.<\/p>\n