Some thoughts on why they were surprised yesterday.
President Obama is as insular as any president we’ve had. It is laughable to imagine Obama as the liberal Ronald Reagan, because Reagan himself was a Hollywood liberal and union head until the 1950s. Reagan knew how the other side lived and thought. He even liked some of them. Obama has had no such experience. He has had almost no personal relationships or consequential political dealings with conservatives during his whole life. In Obama’s mental map, conservatives are space aliens.
This puts Obama and insular liberals like him at a substantial political disadvantage. But even after Tuesday’s Brown Revolt, do they know it?
I think that when it comes to understanding small-government types, the left is don’t know squared. They don’t know what they don’t know. And it’s easy to defeat them in argument, because they’ve never really had to defend their positions, taking them morally and intellectually for granted in their hot-house environs.
What you say is certainly true. It’s one of the reasons why the insularity of academia has always struck me as so obviously self-defeating that it is almost a mystery. Conservatives graduate from American universities knowing a lot about leftist thought, leftist thinkers, and leftist tactics–particularly those of student activitists and heavy-handed faculty members and administrators. But liberals graduate from the same institutions blissfully unaware of any other traditions or ways of thinking, except of those further to the left than themselves.
Unfortunately, the flip side of this is that unfamiliarity also makes it very easy for the left to demonize their opponents in terrible ways without any feelings of guilt or remorse.
FWIW, I keep showing up here, in part to avoid that sort of insularity.
I think the author is wrong when he writes:
He has had almost no personal relationships or consequential political dealings with conservatives during his whole life.
Obama got elected president of the Harvard Law Review by winning votes from conservatives. He got his job out of law school based on a recommendation from a conservative judge. He worked with various conservative law professors at U. Chicago.
Deficits and unemployment started rising way before Obama went to office. Unfortunately the opposition is not more credible. Occupying Iraq was a pointless exercise, as were fiscal policies, health care policy, etc.
Then there were more peripheral questions. Cutting long term research in DARPA. Corn ethanol subsidies. Cutting research in battery powered vehicles in favor of hydrogen powered vehicles.
Had the US actually pursued alternatives to petroleum properly instead of laughing it off, perhaps the US would be exporting oil from shale today, instead of importing oil from tar sands from Canada.
Had anti-monopoly, and bank separation regulations remained, there would not be corporations too big to fail.
The claims about Obama’s supposed lifelong insularity are incorrect. I’ll pick up where Jim left off:
Read the Audacity of Hope, but if you don’t have time, I suggest these two links:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/02/23/statehouse-yields-clues-to-obama/
(About Obama’s personal relationships and consequential political dealings with conservatives in the IL statehouse.)
and
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.larson.html
(About Obama’s personal relationships and consequential political dealings with Republican Senator Richard Lugar (whether he is a “conservative” or not is a matter of perspective – but consider Lugar from Obama’s perspective.))
Obama got elected president of the Harvard Law Review by winning votes from conservatives. He got his job out of law school based on a recommendation from a conservative judge. He worked with various conservative law professors at U. Chicago.
Jim, a vote or recommendation doesn’t automatically imply a personal relationship. Such support might be lent for a myriad of other reasons. Did Obama consider such relationships with conservatives to worthy of mention in his autobiographies? If so, I haven’t heard about it.
Also, I’m not familiar with the specifics of U. Chicago Law School, but in general law schools are considered bastions of liberalism. A professor you or Obama might describe as “conservative” could very well be very left leaning by other measures. For instance, you might describe Ben Nelson as a “conservative” Senator, but actual conservatives would beg to differ.
Well in fairness it must be observed that one of the more famous former University of Chicago law professors is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, rather an icon of conservatism.
If what little I’ve observed is any indication, the Democrats are stuck in spin mode and have not reacted to the lessons of the Brown election. In fact the most common reactions I’ve seen by commenters at washingtonmonthly.com is glee over kicking Lieberman to the curb and claiming the the heart of the problem is too much moderation! They want Obama to double down and go hard left.
The lemming Democrats at the rear of the pack are shouting, “Faster! Faster!”
Yeah, Jim, I’m sure some of his best friends are black — I mean conservative.
Godzilla Says:
January 20th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
“Deficits and unemployment started rising way before Obama went to office.
So what? That does not excuse him from making matters worse. This recession is now far longer than the average post-war recession. And, the rest of the world is recovering while we lag behind. That is what you get when your President is a radical redistributionist who demonizes business and threatens to tax and regulate it into oblivion.
Occupying Iraq was a pointless exercise…
A view I emphatically do not share. War with Saddam or his sons was inevitable sooner or later. Better to get it over with sooner.
Cutting long term research in DARPA.
DARPA had it pretty good during the Bush years.
Corn ethanol subsidies.
Like there’s anyone in Washington willing to take on the Farm Lobby.
Cutting research in battery powered vehicles in favor of hydrogen powered vehicles.
Why are either of these the sole responsibility of the government? Oh, yeah, because Americans don’t buy American cars and US automakers are strapped. So, we’ll have the government research vehicle technologies, then give the knowledge acquired to… who?
Had the US actually pursued alternatives to petroleum properly instead of laughing it off, perhaps the US would be exporting oil from shale today, instead of importing oil from tar sands from Canada.
In what universe? You think Bush was standing in the way of developing oil shale?
Had anti-monopoly, and bank separation regulations remained, there would not be corporations too big to fail.
You mean like the repeal of Glass-Steagall, signed by President William Jefferson Clinton, without which Merrill Lynch and others couldn’t have been rescued by the likes of BOA?
I would say Obama wrote in his recent, best-selling memoir that it was in Springfield that he learned “how the game had come to be played” between Democrats and Republicans: “I understood politics as a full-contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows nor the occasional blindside hit.” The Obama campaign’s tangle this week with that of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton shows a willingness to engage in intraparty spats, as well.
Click on my name for the funniest Daily show bit I’ve seen in a long time.
If you want the best part skip ahead to 8:45 and see what the democrats are doing while the republicans play chess…..
Paul
The Democrats play fizzbin.
@Godzilla: “Cutting research in battery powered vehicles in favor of hydrogen powered vehicles.”
Where are you going to get the energy to charge the batteries or extract the hydrogen?
“A view I emphatically do not share. War with Saddam or his sons was inevitable sooner or later. Better to get it over with sooner.”
Agreed. But in that case, why didn’t Shrub Snr. finish the job the first time?
Obama got elected president of the Harvard Law Review by winning votes from conservatives. He got his job out of law school based on a recommendation from a conservative judge. He worked with various conservative law professors at U. Chicago.
Ah, yes, that was because Obama’s brilliance allowed him to understand the nuance involved in bipartisan dialogue and the sense of fraternity which comes from the mutual respect of ideological opponents — a la Reagan and Tip O’Neil — not because said conservatives got all mushy over his cleanness and articulateness and saw an opportunity to promote a politically palatable young man of color and score points for themselves among their predominantly liberal colleagues. The creeping draconian political correctness of the previous decades had no influence whatsoever on those conservatives. It was all Barack and his in-depth understanding of the give-and-take of political machinations. That’s why negotiating a healthcare bill has been such a bipartisan effort with Republican involvement every step of the way.
Then there were more peripheral questions. Cutting long term research in DARPA.
Huh? As Bart points out, DARPA spending went up. Note, it peaked just prior to a certain party taking over Congress. Further, Rumsfeld, by direction of Bush, began his clash with the Pentagon culture when he cut the Crusader project in the interest of longer term weapons development. That money was shifted over to DARPA and the Army for the Future Combat Systems.
I’ll give you corn subsidies, but I think the battery vs hydrogen argument is noise, as both are just methods of energy storage, not production. Then you go off on another piece of nonsense that it was Bush standing in the way of petroleum development. No surprise, Democrats always acted like there is some nefarious plan to give money to big oil, while they trumpted EPA and NGO efforts to cut Carbon Emissions, and demonize the ICE. I’m not calling you a Democrat, just pointing out you are hearing and restating what they want you to hear and say.
Sorry, but the people standing in the way of alternative means of power are the ones pretending they want alternative means of power. If you don’t believe me, we can start providing you links about Ted Kennedy and his NIMBY reaction to wind mills. And while mush minds keep believing Bush is just another Texas Oil Barron, Texas has managed to become the nations leading producer of wind energy.
Another symptom of liberal insularity is their habit of changing the subject to completely unrelated topics (like DARPA funding and the war in Iraq) when anyone calls them on it.
Yeah, the same thing’s happening in the original article comments as well.
Another symptom of liberal insularity is their habit of changing the subject to completely unrelated topics (like DARPA funding and the war in Iraq) when anyone calls them on it.
Yeah, well, Chimpy McBu$hitler on you!
Racist!
Bart:
There was a decline in basic research funding. Remember when Bussard got Polywell funding cut to redirect R&D into more near term research? That is one visible example of many. Instead money was redirected into airport scanners and things like that.
Yeah Clinton signed Glass-Steagall (proposed by two Republicans during a Republican majority). I did not agree with him 100% of the time. I was against the Serbian bombing campaigns, or Somalia. Was against canceling X-33 as well. I was in favor of military action versus North Korea at the time. Not that anything was done since.
Leland:
Yeah Future Combat Systems were interesting and filled a useful gap in light tracked vehicles. Things like MULE were a waste of money however.
It was not Bush standing in the way of synthetic petroleum development. The oil shale development program (as well as coal-to-liquids) were canceled by Reagan. After all, oil was cheap then, so who cares right?
Battery vs hydrogen is not noise. The economic and safety issues of hydrogen are terrible.
Agreed. But in that case, why didn’t Shrub Snr. finish the job the first time?
Geez, doesn’t anyone remember even recent history? Bush 41 didn’t invade Iraq in 1991 because the agreement with the UN and coalition nations was to simply liberate Kuwait, nothing more.
Geez, doesn’t anyone remember even recent history?
Not if they never got it right in the first place. In Fletcher’s defense, you need some distance to get an unbiased view of past events.
Yes, I’m still trying to figure out MULE. I get the advertisement. But the actual deployment doesn’t make sense.
Battery vs hydrogen is not noise. The economic and safety issues of hydrogen are terrible.
I think the economic and safety issues of both are terrible. Certainly, I think neither solution really addresses the problems of energy production, because again, neither solution involves energy production.
Geez, doesn’t anyone remember even recent history?
Nor did people remember the history of the Korean War, which 41 did remember, when he made his decision to halt the war. Certainly, the Korean armistice situation that exists today is counterproductive to all sides. However, there was a point in the original conflict when the US had liberated South Korea, and they didn’t stop. Then they took over Pyongyang, and didn’t stop. At either point, a more reasonable peace could have been brokered from a US position of dominance. But the war continued to the Chinese border, at which point it escalated, and things were pushed into the stalemate that exists today.
“Another symptom of liberal insularity is their habit of changing the subject to completely unrelated topics (like DARPA funding and the war in Iraq) when anyone calls them on it.”
It’s called the “Shifting Sands Argument.” It’s a favorite of “liberals” posting comments on pro-freedom blogs; possibly even more than the straw-man argument, the ad hominem, or the argument from pity. (“If you don’t force Smith to pay for Jones’ health care, do you know what will happen to Jones? Well, let me tell you, Scrooge . . .”) I’m not naming names, but you can see several examples of what I’m talking about in the comments boxes of this blog.
Bob-1 Says:
January 20th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
“Read the Audacity of Hope”
Yep, and if you read the same book you’ll also see that Obama advises to, “choose your friends carefully”. So, he sought out the Marxists, the Chicanos, and the Feminists. So in his world he most closely identified with socialists, racists, and genderists. Mind you, these were friends he sought out to interact with. People generally speak their honest mind with friends. Yet, with professional contacts one most often remains guarded to unabashed political and religious opinion.
I think you’re being unfair to BO Josh. I’m sure whether he was community-organizing, hanging with Ayers and that crowd, hobnobbing with Zinn and the others in that socialist third-party he belonged, or shouting “Amen!” and “Tell it, Rev!” whenever Rev. Wright said something anti-American, anti-Caucasian or anti-Jewish, there was always a significant minorirty of individualists around representing the pro-libertry point-of-view. Obama has even said he’s read Friedman and Hayek, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned about “Il Dufe,” is that he never lmisrepresents! Heck, he went to Harvard! We all know what a hotbed of reactionaries that is.
I’ll believe someone is serious about “alternative energy” when they propose (and if they have power, work for) replacing every watt of coal-generated power in the US with nuclear-generated power.
Until they do that, they’re amateur-hour posers who can be completely ignored as ignorant of the basic issues and scale of the matter.
I’m with Sigivald. Although, I wouldn’t go so far as to demand 100% wattage replacement with nukes. I’d be happy with nukes for baseline/solar for peak usage if that’s what the market determined should be the solution. Problem now is this: the market is not allowed to function.
UC’s law school isn’t conservative at all. It’s the Department of Economics that has been, and even that isn’t as true as it once was.
As for Harvard, it is, of course, a bastion of liberal thinking. Particularly the law school. And the likelihood of Obama’s politics being anything the other kids (much less the professors) knew much about is close to zero. We’re talking about twenty-somethings that are hiding books from each other and otherwise obsessing over grades and jobs. Besides, I imagine Harvard is like most schools, with the editor-in-chief being selected by faculty.
I rather suspect that Obama does have limited exposure to non-progressive voices, but it certainly is not in his interest to say so. If he’d ran for president ignoring the center-right, he’d never even have gotten nominated.
Titus,
Once you decide to get serious about the nukes you don’t have to worry about the other uneconomic energy generation methods like solar, wind, pixie dust, unicorn farts etc.
Just use pumped storage for peak load where possible or build enough nukes for peak load included and find something else for the excess power off peak – water desalination, process heat for coal or gas to liquid fuels etc.
Fletcher Christian Says:
January 21st, 2010 at 1:41 am
“Agreed. But in that case, why didn’t Shrub Snr. finish the job the first time?”
If you are expecting me to defend Bush I, you are going to be waiting a long time. I’m curious, though. How many others with your apparent political leanings, and with whom you associate regularly, still consider the bon mot “Shrub” to be the apogee of incisive political wit and hilarity? I ask merely for information.
Mike, desalination is a big one — CA is always on the brink wrt water supply. Nukes solve both problems.