But will Democrats?
I love the Wile E. Coyote cartoons. It’s nice to see the country finally coming to its senses.
[Update a while later]
Related thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson:
Obama — egged on by obsequious advisers, an out-of-touch, hard-left base, and a toady media — decided that he had done what other Northern liberals had not, either because (a) the country was at last ready for European-style socialism, or (b) his singular charisma and talents could convince it that it was even when it was clearly not.
The result was that our Oedipus/Pentheus rushed headlong into socialized medicine, mega-deficits, needlessly polarizing appointments of the Van Jones type, and various federal takeovers, coupled with quite unnecessary editorializing about largely local matters — from the Skip Gates mess to the Arizona immigration law and Ground Zero mosque.
In each case, the supposed uniter deliberately weighed in on these controversies to quite unfairly demonize his opponents — “stupidly” acting police, Arizona xenophobes picking up children on the way to buy ice cream, Islamophobes wanting to deny religious liberty, etc. A thousand other nicks, from Eric Holder’s “nation of cowards” to Obama’s musings that at some point one needs no more income, ensured continual bleeding as his poll numbers fell by nearly 30 points in just 20 months.
The result was that the president soon lost the moral capital to push through an unpopular agenda — to such a degree that his out-of-the-mainstream views and his polarizing style of governance might well destroy Democratic congressional majorities for a decade.
A decade, if they’re lucky.
I never bought the conventional wisdom that the Obama campaign was brilliantly run. He was just the right guy in the right place at the right time. With the right skin color.
Sounds familiar. Oh, yeah. This is what the left were saying after the 08 election.
It’s going to be remarkably difficult to repeal Obama care in the face of MSM attacks about Republicans destroying “health care”. It’s going to be difficult to cut spending while the MSM whines about how the Republicans are costing (government funded) jobs.
I don’t see a 2/3 majority in the senate and possibly not the house either. So at best we’ll likely get some horrifying compromise that the Democrats will attack as what the Republicans could of had in the first place – if they had “played ball”. This, of course would be a lie, but the memory of your average voter is about 3 months.
I wouldn’t bet against the survival of a Party that has lasted over two centuries.
Although I do admit to a certain nostalgia for their original platform. From Wikipedia: “The party favored states’ rights and strict adherence to the Constitution; it opposed a national bank and wealthy, moneyed interests.”
They’ll survive as long as we use our current “Plurality Wins” electoral system which (according to game theory) is only stable with two parties. It’s more a question of what they’ll stand for.
He was just the right guy in the right place at the right time.
With the right opponent. Twice.
“A decade, if they’re lucky. ”
More, if the citizenry is lucky.
To Whom It May Concern:
I’m really offended by the several dozen emails I received after I posted a simple request to get off this mailing list. I simply don’t want to read stories about guppies and I merely replied to get off the list. Some people are claiming that I shouldn’t have “replied to all”, but I have no idea what that means and frankly, I don’t care. Also, people I know what a mailing list looks like and this isn’t just some email sent to 500 people. It’s a mailing list! Because I say so!
If you keep calling me an idiot, I’ll have my lawyer tell your ISP! Now take me off of your mailing list and stop bothering me!
Oooo, classy, I posted this in the wrong thread.
A thousand other nicks, from Eric Holder’s “nation of cowards” to Obama’s musings that at some point one needs no more income, ensured continual bleeding as his poll numbers fell by nearly 30 points in just 20 months.
And yet Obama’s numbers are better than Reagan and Clinton’s were at equivalent points in their presidencies, even though the economy is doing worse.
A lot can happen in 2 years and K pretty much nailed it.
In chess, one strives for an advantage, say to get a pawn up, and then trades blows (swaps pieces) until only that advantage remains and the game can be won – through mutual destruction.
In a zero sum game, it is not necessary for the Democrats or Republicans to win the popular support of the American people, only that their opponent get one less vote than they do.
It almost seems no one is particularly interested in growing the economy, they only seem interested in flighting over the scraps so as to buy more votes off the opposition. Destroying both parties and the country in the process.
Karl, great metajoke there!
Well…in the first place, a poll is not an election. I agree things look remarkably good for the R’s right now, but we shall see what happens in November, when the actual polling takes place. My feeling is that there will be a substantial gain in the House, enough to ensure control, but that the Senate will remain barely in D hands. That will more or less guarantee paralyzed government for the next two years, as I don’t see Team Obama triangulating like Clinton; they lack both the competence and the ideological flexibility to do so. (In this respect, I think it’s significant that the most competent of them are fleeing S. S. Obama right now. Those left are going to be the ideologues and idiots.) And, as has been pointed out, without a majority in the Senate there is no way the R’s can prevail over a D President committed to using his veto pen.
What that implies about 2012 depends greatly on what happens over the next two years. Let the economy pick up a lot, plus an overreaching R majority do something amazingly partisan and stupid — and you know they’re capable of such suicide — and we could see a mild reversal in 2012, Obama re-elected, and control of Congress in the balance. On the other hand, if the D’s become still shriller and more rigid, and government failures can be reasonably blamed on them digging in their heels, or let some foreign policy disaster unfold, a la Jimmy Carter, and 2012 could be another 1980, with the Democrats in the wilderness for 20 years afterward.
But I disagree this is just about liberal overreach and Americans coming to their senses, so to speak. Some of it no doubt is liberal overreach. The ivory tower community organizers mistook American disgust with failure in Iraq for their own disgust with the war per se, and they mistook American anger at Wall Street for their own hostility towards free enterprise, and they mistook American anxiety about health care prices for a desire to have Wise Leaders (i.e. themselves) tell everyone what pills to take. They always do that, because they’re starry-eyed dreamers: they specialize in over-interpreting signs, and in loving their theories more than any amount of grubby fact.
But some of it is just operational arrogance and stupidity, the plain executive incompetence of these folks. The Democratic Party has become increasingly elitist over the past 30 years, and you succeed in it these days largely by pleasing the small number of tenrued been here since forever people above you — not by being able to sell ideas widely in the brawling marketplace. There is no equivalent among Democrats of the raging half out of control populist movements like the Tea Party or Rush’s dittoheads, and no equivalent of a young populist leader like Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh, people who are good at understanding what large groups of people want and feel. (Note: Obama himself doesn’t qualify, as he came to prominence through the Democratic Establishment, not by his own efforts. He’s like a “rock star” that is entirely the creation of a massive PR effort by a major label, as opposed to one who struggled his way up playing coffeehouses and college frat parties.) Democrats have become aristocrats, and aristocrats are always poor at selling their ideas to the peasants. I mean, why should they have to, is how they feel.
And, finally, a great deal of it is just profound American dissatisfaction with the lack of results. Team Obama has been in firm command for 20 months, and they’ve gotten essentially everything they’ve asked for from Congress — and the results are, somewhat remarkably, zip, zero, nada, zilch, bupkis. Obama’s apologists are reduced to such laughable defenses as saying yeah but if we HADN’T thrown $1 trillion down the drain, things would be much, much worse. What kind of doofus swallows that line?
Arguably, it’s the rather remarkable fact — which I think surprised both Obama and his opposition — that nothing whatsoever came out of their vast spending spree which is fueling a very large part of the hostility we now see. It’s one thing to spend big bucks and get a a second-rate product, something not quite what you expected. It’s another to get absolutely nothing, a box of rocks, trash.
It’s this fact that probably makes even the opposition nervous at this point. Something seems to be sufficiently wrong with the American economy that it may take lots of time, or some real political genius, to fix it — and the voters are not inclined to grant the former, and the latter is by definition in short supply. You couldn’t pay me enough to run for President, honestly.
The Democrats will survive, because in a few election cycles there will be a large segment of the electorate that wasn’t around yet in 2010.
After all, just look at who’s in danger of getting another term as Governor in California. Only an electorate that doesn’t remember the years 1975-83 could even consider doing that.
Ah yes, Governor Moonbeam returns. Ak, I can only attribute this to the fact that, as you say, large swathes of Calfornians have never lived in a nondysfunctional state, and secondarily to the fact that Meg Whitman isn’t a great candidate, probably because no one truly competent would want the job of Governor of California after they saw what happened to Arnie, who got so thoroughly and humiliatingly deballed by the unions in 2005. I think there does come a point when the Titanic simply can’t hire a new captain because no one relishes the role of going down with the ship.
Indeed, Jim, and I must admit that I see no chance that Barry Dunham will be voted out of office in November.
“And yet Obama’s numbers are better than Reagan and Clinton’s were at equivalent points in their presidencies, even though the economy is doing worse.”
I’d say the teachers unions have earned their money. They have dumbed down enough kids over the years to make a difference. Of course Reagan had to deal with a hostile press that Obama will NEVER see. The Clinton hive mind was stupid enough to try Hillarycare. Also he won a plurality, a pox on Perot, which meant his numbers weren’t that high at the start.
and no equivalent of a young populist leader like Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh, people who are good at understanding what large groups of people want and feel.
That sounds like a shot at Palin. Her “understanding of what large groups of people want and feel” is related to her direct experiences.
Obama’s apologists are reduced to such laughable defenses as saying yeah but if we HADN’T thrown $1 trillion down the drain, things would be much, much worse. What kind of doofus swallows that line?
A third to nearly a half of America… that scares the hell out of me. What happened to critical thinking? Oh I know, self interest trumps thought and too many are at the trough.
What kind of doofus swallows that line?
Here’s one such doofus talking about the stimulus:
[That’s the doofus Reagan picked to be his top economic adviser.]
Very good, Jim. That same doofus is also arguing to extend all the Bush tax cuts:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/04/conservative-economist-urges-obama-to-extend-all-tax-cuts/
You agree with that, too? Or is your sudden admiration for Reagan administration officials a bit… selective?
I wouldn’t bet against the survival of a Party that has lasted over two centuries.
Yep. The party of the “trail of tears” and of slavery and secession and Jim Crow and segregation and union thugs and urban machine politics and progressivism and eugenics and Prohibition and now environmentalism and out-and-out Leftism will continue to survive. Probably by embracing Sharia next since they are running out of evils to embrace.
Jeez, Jim, how many times do we have to go around before this penetrates?
I, Carl, am unimpressed by arguments based solely on pedigree, PhD degrees or Nobel prizes in pocket, class origin, or political label.
Do I give a damn if a Harvard-trained economist thinks the problem with the stimulus was it wasn’t big enough? No, not unless he gives reasons for that belief, backed up by empirical data, and I find them convincing. His degrees alone leave me unimpressed. If nothing else, I’ve got a degree from MIT so I’m a priori unimpressed with Harvard degrees. Plus I know plenty of people with PhDs and faculty appointments who are complete buffoons.
Now if you (or Ezra Klein, that fathead) want to trot out Feldstein’s actual argument (which does not appear in his Op-Ed, by the way), I’ll consider it. But I should warn you ahead of time I find Hayek generally more convincing than Keynes, and I no longer believe the Holy Gospel That Aggregate Demand Rules All which seemed convincing in my youth.
And do I care if he served Reagan? Again, of course not. Reagan appointed plenty of fools and tools. All Presidents do, and besides that, I don’t think everything Reagan did was sensible just because he did it. Slavish idol worship is the provenance of the Left, Jim. On the right, we know very well our leaders have feet of clay, and we do not expect them to do all our thinking for us.
Hey Carl, when were you at the ‘tute? I graduated Course 2 in ’79, master’s in Course 2 in ’82, and PhD in Course 8 in ’96….
You agree with that, too?
No.
Or is your sudden admiration for Reagan administration officials a bit… selective?
I think it’s pretty clear that Feldstein is not a doofus. That doesn’t mean I agree with him about anything. It’s actually possible to have regard for people you don’t agree with.
I think it’s pretty clear that Feldstein is not a doofus.
Because he superficially agrees with the argument of the moment? Because you want him to be so?
As I see it, we’ll never know for sure, if $800 billion of Keynesian spending would have worked, that is, been “enough”, in the economic environment of 2009. That’s because it wasn’t tried. Saying that we should have tossed more than $800 billion in, when we tossed in maybe $200 billion over two years plus some fairly inefficient tax breaks of similar size, seems a very dubious claim to me.
It’s actually possible to have regard for people you don’t agree with.
That would be low regard as apposed to high regard. People are multifaceted, so an atheist might have high regard for a religious persons view of economics or what a good family person they are. But if you have no area of agreement, it’s difficult to hold someone in high regard.
In your case, I don’t see any regard at all. You’re just using statements made by someone as a tool for your argument, and as Carl pointed out, a really weak tool. You can never get away from the fact that all government spending comes from money taken out of the private sector.
This is why the government buying up it’s own bonds/debt with debt sounds reasonable to leftards when in fact it’s an act of awesome stupidity and desperation.