Thoughts from Matt Continetti on Barack Obama’s detachment from reality:
One of the refrains of the Obama presidency was that, yes, America may have let Obama down in the past, and America may let him down still, but America remains worthwhile, so long as it maintains the capacity to become more like Obama. “Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” he says in the book. What was he early for? “Fundamentally transforming America”? “The moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow”? For the death of the olds who stood in his way?
Imagine carrying the burden of Barack Obama, of being too enlightened, sophisticated, mature for his time. In his conceit that historical progress is assured and irreversible, and that challenges to such progress are reducible to irrational prejudice, Obama is a paradigmatic liberal. Yet America’s frequent elections, tendency to rotate offices, decentralization of power, avenues for the expression of popular discontent, and multiple veto points continually frustrated his desires. By the end of his second term, he was expending a great deal of energy working around the constitutional structure established in 1789 and amended 27 times since.
Fortunately, because he did it unconstitutionally, much of the damage is reversible, and being reversed.
[Update a while later]
You’d have to have a heart of stone to watch this and not laugh out loud.
[Monday-morning update]
A clueless final year:
In order to understand the shattering surprise that gripped team Obama, it is necessary to appreciate the sensation of absolute moral superiority that wafted them along. This was no mere election. It was a fight between good and evil. And they were in no doubt that they were the good guys. “Cuba, climate, Iran,” Rhodes says, what will happen to those things now that Donald Trump is in charge? Note that he puts forward those items as if they were triumphs for the Obama administration and not disastrous missteps.
“The irony of the Obama years,” Rhodes mused, “is going to be that he was advocating an inclusive global view rooted in common humanity and international order amidst this roiling ocean of growing nationalism and authoritarianism.” Got that? “Inclusive” and “common humanity” on one side versus “nationalism” and “authoritarianism” on the other.
This is not politics in any ordinary sense. It is a resurgent Manichean dualism in which the elect battle the infidels (despite the irony that the elect in this case are not elected). All is not lost, however, for if Rhodes is right, the rising generation “seems to share a very Obama view of the world.” It’s just that there are “retrenchment forces pushing back from the other direction who have actually gotten their hands on the levers of power now.” Imagine that!
[Bumped]
If had another 10 or 20 years, Barack could have made the US into his own Hugo Chavez like Venezuela.
If the left hadn’t done such a good job of subverting the Dinosaur Media, they’d have realized that it was still too early for them to take off their masks. But since the media kept telling us that everyone else thought the way the SJW left did, they believed it was just a matter of announcing their real goals and cleaning up the last vestiges of resistance.
Instead, the right suddenly realized there was a war on and began fighting back.
I unfortunately agree. We got lucky about them being arrogant and exposing themselves too early. Also lucky that despite her previous failures; the Dem Establishment still thought Hillary was their best candidate. They almost got Bernie Sanders and the freedom to be open socialists with a mandate.
I say unfortunate, because it was too close.
have your Education Department issue orders that led to the campus-assault craze and the deterioration of classroom discipline and that, months before a presidential election, mandated trans-bathrooms in schools
Wonder what old Jim would have to say. Really kind of miss him sometimes.
You know who else was a head of state let down by his country? I’ll give you three hints. He had much in common with Obama: people doubted his citizenship, he promoted the eating of vegetables, and he liked dogs.
#SarcasmSaturday.
I’m making it a thing.
No one values sarcasm more than me (I’m from NYC so it figures); but I would much prefer Olivia Munn’s proposal for Blowjob Friday over Sarcasm Saturday.
Obama would been great if America didn’t need leadership.
The Romans had their Imperial Cult where they deified the Emperor. Are we rubes and ‘bitter clingers’ too *cough* unenlightened to understand the greatness that was in our midst.
…(/sarc)
Sadly so. Better start shedding those single, perfect tears.
I am calling Fake News on this one.
We just have Ben Rhodes’ word that Mr. Obama made these particular remarks. The make the former president out to be Justin Trudeau-visiting-all-the-tourist-attractions-barefoot-in-a-safron-robe-with-a-Hare-Krishna-grin level of politically naïve. Mr. Rhodes may be Justin Trudeau-silly, but that cannot be Mr. Obama saying all of that.
Yah, I’m inclined to agree, but don’t care enough to debunk it. I haven’t read the book, and it’s not on my shortlist…but “Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” seems pretentious and conceited even for Obama…
If the former Community-Organizer-in-Chief didn’t say it, I’m pretty sure He wishes He had, and will never disavow making it.
There’s nothing “liberal” about crypto communists. The term is 30 years out of date when applied to the modern left and is part and parcel with the post modern redefinition of the meaning of words.