Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Next Four Years

21 Comments

John Podhoretz:

You cannot beat something with nothing. Obama had a record that was less than nothing but a machine and an approach to victory that were more than enough to add up to something. Romney, in the end, had nothing but Obama’s nothing.

Seen in this light, the notion that the right is dying is ludicrous. Romney called himself “severely conservative,” and that may be true of him personally, but it certainly was never true of him politically. Indeed, it was only when he finally and at long last ran as himself—the confident and well-spoken serious person with leadership skills—that he began making the sale to the American people. Then, when his challenge was to put meat on those bones in the second and third debates, he could not do so. When he needed to convince people not only that he had it in him to be presidential but that he had distinct ideas of what he would do once he became president, he failed. Conservatism could have saved him. He did not understand it, and he rejected it.

How can Romney’s loss invalidate the right when he was not a candidate of the right? It can, perhaps, as a matter of image, but it cannot as a matter of fact.

…The United States will now undergo a four-year stress test of American liberalism, as Obama will get his tax hike and ObamaCare will be implemented. Those who think Obama cared about people like them will now experience the full extent of his caring.

As Mencken said, democracy is about the idea that the common man know what he wants, and should get it good and hard.

21 thoughts on “The Next Four Years”

  1. How can Romney’s loss invalidate the right…

    While it doesn’t invalidate the ideology, it does invalidate the party that never puts up a candidate that supports that ideology. We have had a string of RINOs… Bush Sr, Bush Jr, McCain & Romney. That’s 20 years without a conservative choice.

    In twenty years you would think they could make a conservative starting from scratch? Do we have to wait another 15 years? It’s only a constitutional thing; why, if they’re old enough to fight for our country; aren’t they old enough to be president?

    1. Ken,
      you beat me to this. I think this is a close statement,
      .
      .
      Conservatism could have saved him. He did not understand it, and he rejected it.
      .
      .
      But it’s more to the point to say,
      .
      .
      Conservatism could have saved US. But the RNC does NOT understand it, and they rejected it, AGAIN and AGAIN, and AGAIN and AGAIN, and AGAIN and AGAIN.
      .
      .
      If the RNC had taken ‘their’ collective heads out of their collective butts, and had attacked the attackers over Herman Cain, we would have had a candidate perfectly suited to take on Obama. And certainly, one more conservative leaning than Romney. I don’t think Cain is a Reagan, but he’s better than Romney. And they Left will lose part of their race card deck if they put forward more conservatives blacks can see as successful within the system of jobs, business, and education.

      Beyond that, I personally think and have thought for a while that the RNC / Republican Party as a whole need to go the way of the dodo birds. And at least the dodo served a purpose up to the last one was eaten. The RNC is long past being useful, and we can’t even eat them!

  3. Podhortez? “Conservative”? LO, as they say, L. There isn’t a “conservative” in American politics today. A real conservative would make Pat Buchanan look lie a tie-dyed hippie. What we have today are varieties of State Capitalist liberals.

    There hasn’t been a true “conservative” in American politics since L. Brent Bozell, Jr.

    I don’t use the term “conservative” any more. Nothing of value is left in America to conserve. Nowadays, I use the term “Traditionalist” or “reactionary” to describe the Good Guys.

    As for the pain the slavering masses are about to experience from Obamacare: there won’t be any. As the healing arts become part of the federal entity’s security blanket, Americans will simply sigh and accept the fact that going to the doctor is like going to the Post Office.

    Larry 2020: “Just got a note from the Senior Orthopedics, Internal, Laproscopics, Enterology, and Neurology Treatment Board. Looks like they’re not gonna cover my bypass surgery.”

    Joe 2020: “Didja file an appeal?”

    Larry 2020: “Yeah, but they told me the average wait time for a decision by the Appeal Board is 18 months. I ain’t got 18 months.”

    Joe 2020: “So what are ya gonna do?”

    Larry 2020: “Get it over with. Dr. Feeblestein says that new Eutha-Nice center down in Galveston has casino gamblin’ right up until the injection takes effect. I guess I don’t mind dyin’ with a handle in my hand.”

    Joe 2020: “Sounds great, but… well, I’ll…. I’ll miss ya, Larry. It’s just a shame.”

    Larry 2020: “Yep, but what are you gonna do? It’s the gub’ment.”

    Joe 2020: “Yep.”

    Our countrymen love to complain about bureaucracy, but it’s all talk. Call it the DMV Syndrome. Everybody complains about the service down at the driver license office, but no one does anything about it. Americans just accept degradation at the hands of government employess as a fact of life. You will be amazed at how fast misery, degradation, haphazardness, and inefficiency in medical care become accepted as “just part of life” by freedumb-luvin’ ‘Mur’cans.

    The reason there are no conservatives in America is that Americans love big government. Uncle Sugar is Joe and Jane Sixpack’s favorite relative, especially when he’s handing out free goodies. And they looove big government authority, too. You could stick a badge and sunglasses on a 50-pound sack of cow manure and the average USAer would bow and scrape like a Russian peasant groveling before a commissar. Even today, most of our countrymen have no problem with a TSA goon sticking his finger up a kid’s ass in the name of liberty. If Americans will accept that, they’ll accept anything.

    2. In Alberta, the hospitals are government run and the DMV equivalent is privately run (it handles everything from drivers licenses and registration to fishing and marriage licenses). Up until recently, we could go to the US for top quality medical care in a hurry. The lineups are short and customer service excellent at the local registry office.

  4. I don’t use the term “conservative” any more. Nothing of value is left in America to conserve.

    ‘Progressives’ are the new conservatives, desperately trying to conserve a bloated pile of failing ‘progressive’ policies. Conservatives are the new radicals, trying to replace it with something that works.

  5. Every single analysis of this is all BS.

    In MY opinion, though I voted for him, Romney lost because he has been treated as the “next in line Candidate” He was pushed so hard as the, “If not for McCain, it would be Romney.”

    Next in Line candidates do not fair very well.

  6. There’s a lot of bad-faith analysis of Why Romney Bit It. I won’t add to the pile, but I will make a few points.

    1- Hiring a bunch of advisors whose biggest recommendation is that they helped lose your party’s last Presidential campaign is stupid- don’t do it.

    2- Anyone who recommends that you hire these losers is not your friend- stop lsitening to them.

    3- If your big public relations plan is to allow the Other Guy to set the agenda, pick the debate moderators, and establish how the public views your character and ability- don’t bother showing up for work anymore.

  8. We have to stop feeding the pig. Strategizing how to win the next election isn’t going to solve the problem. Although figuring out how to change things so the next candidate has some balls might be useful in holding back the tide. I’m afraid that gives you Christie which is the worst of the RINO lot.

    They’re already giving Rubio the Palin treatment. I still want Palin/West… not to tweak the left but to tweak the elite right. Having heads explode across the spectrum is just a bonus. Col. West would actually defend his president.

    America is done for now. It may never come back. It’s now like king Arthur in the last battle telling the young page to go home and tell his story. Chivalry has died if you haven’t noticed. Shame has lost its power.

    1. Shame has lost only its power because the people pointing out the shame ONLY point to the right!

      The Obama’s could have boasted on Al Jazeera, about serving white, human baby stuffed with Girl Scout, wrapped in smoked strips of Grandma, Drudge could have shown gun fights at Wal-Mart in Compton, Atlanta and Detroit over the last 70″ TVs and iPhones, with not a white face in sight, every Republican Family could have gone hungry, serving their own turkeys voluntarily at food pantries, to starving inner city non-white children, and the MSM narrative would be about white American greed and racism.

      And as long as NO ONE yells BS long and loud about facts, so long as no one points out that most blacks shot, are shot by other blacks over drugs, gangs or money, so long as no one screams that black babies have TWO black parents, black parents no one FORCED to have sex sans protection even though it’s freely available FOR free, then most white people people will think it’s everybody BUT themselves who IS a rich white racist, and that those ‘other’ white people are the problem.

      So long as that system of not yelling BS about truth and facts exists, the Left will continue to win. Both minds and elections.

          1. Unfortunately for mankind, Bob-1 cannot police every thread for racism. Even the keen eye of the Albino Avenger can only see so far. We must all act as the eyes and ears of Bob-1, ever on the alert for the slightest hint that white people aren’t cringing in guilt, ever seeking out white privilege, white supremacy, and white pride wherever it lurks.

  9. God, you people are a depressing lot. Yes, some of what’s coming will be bad, but we will get through it. Washington can only complicate our lives, we are the only ones who can really screw it up. Against Obamacare and fiscal cliff fallout, I give you SpaceX, tablets, the blogosphere and 3D printing. Time wounds all heals.

    As to RINOs (on the off chance somebody doesn’t know, it means Republican in Name Only), you are all missing the boat. Romney, McCain, Bush’s, Dole, and anyone else in GOP leadership ARE THE REPUBLICANS. They own the party, have for decades. It is people of a conservative/libertarian persuasion who are the interlopers in the party, the outsiders. This will not change – or, at least, it will take a lot more than nominating another Reagan for president to change it. Meanwhile, all the so-called Republican Liberty Caucus does is buy ads telling you to keep trying to change the party from within. Yeah, they’d like that.

    1. John B,
      everything you say about the Republicans and the Party in general is SO true, and that’s why they gotta go.

    2. What you suggest is a third party, selecting a strong candidate without any obvious flaws the media could find or invent might take on both the dems and the dems light?

      Before his meltdown, Perot did have a good shot.

      Call it the “not a dimes difference between the others” party.

      But this last election has strongly suggested it’s almost totally about the ground game.

  10. I will vote for no GOP candidate for president in 2016 who ran for that office in 2012 in the primaries. No. More. My. Turn. Candidates. You lost. You’re done. Next.

  12. Sarah Palin is a frequent guest on Fox News. But I cannot see Romney in that role. That is because one articulates arguments from core beliefs well; the other, well, not so well.

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