Wretchard, and most of the commenters here, I think you miss my point, and again misunderstand FDR.
Yes, Wretchard, it is quite true that Obama is open for business, and likely will accommodate the Europeans and Chinese and Russian interests. That large amounts of money will flow into his control.
BUT … this country, according to the 2000 Census, breaks down to 12% Black, 13% Hispanic, and 75% White. While those numbers have changed in 8 years, not that much.
FDR’s coalition, and the reason for his strength, was “Socialism for the Majority” which was then and now, overwhelmingly White Middle/Working class. It’s why he got the vote majority over and over and over again.
HOW does Obama purpose to gain an FDR majority? Entitlement programs? For WHO? Or as Lenin would say, Who? Whom?
Whoever CAN produce the maximum amount of government goodies to the majority of the population wins. Joe the Plumber “works” politically because Whites know that any government benefits DON’T GO TO THEM. They go to … minorities. Blacks and Hispanics. They have since the breakdown of the FDR coalition in 1968.
NO MATTER how much money flows into DC from abroad, it will not be enough for Obama to BUY the loyalty of the majority of the population. By definition, entitlement programs will be for minorities, excluding the White majority, and creating a huge new social conflict. Welfare reform was popular, because the White majority did not get any, it all went to minorities.
Obama and his allies could create a transformational moment, by jettisoning Affirmative Action, and creating all sorts of goodies for the White Majority, with closed borders and all the other attributes of FDR. Of course, his coalition means he cannot do that, or any of those measures.
Thus, the future he holds is that of … Indonesia.
Wretchard you have seen the periodic anti-Chinese riots by the majority population there, angry at being shut out of commercial and governmental power, with the rise of Jihadist Islam as the lever by which the poor majority can pry out the closed-off Chinese Diaspora minority which controls much of Indonesian life.
I would submit to you, that Obama’s “plan” such as it is … resembles that, or perhaps East Africa with it’s Indian diaspora taking the place of the Chinese one. Heck Obama’s helping cousin Raila Odinga impose Sharia on Kenya, with violence the recourse when Odinga lost, is part of that model.
Much of Islam’s political appeal is that of a unifying pry-bar to lever elites out of power. I agree with the poster above that GOP White Populism could turn remarkably ugly, though I am more optimistic that it will be syncretic Jacksonian, if for no other reason that many, many Whites have Asian, Hispanic, Black, and other minority family members, through intermarriage and adoption. Sarah Palin’s husband after all is part Eskimo, and that is fairly common.
But even Jackson had his price.
