Soon Barack Obama will be inaugurated as our president. His victory was a major happening and had coattails. Indeed, the Republican Party was handed a massive defeat. Their fall provided the Democrats with a stranglehold position in both chambers of Congress. Despite not reaching the coveted 60 filibuster-proof Senate seats, the highly evident malleability of some GOP politicians and their susceptibility to the RINO (Republican in Name Only) impulse suggest that some moderates — such as Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe — will assist leftist politicians in their plans anyway. The exact nature of these plans is unknown assuming one takes the president-elect’s campaign promises seriously. However, if one judges Mr. Obama by his deeds and his history, America is in store for a siege engine of leftism. That the impending avalanche will be followed by a liberal crack-up is of little consolation.
What is most perturbing about the election carnage is that, while their victory assures that the political left can forget about the minority party entirely, they continue to be obsessed with their opposition. That few conservatives will have much of a say over what transpires during the next four years is irrelevant. The eyes of Democrats remain affixed to the starboard side of the political spectrum. Obama expects conservatives to get religion, specifically his Change.gov religion, and guarantee that their own beliefs do not venture into the samizdat-place of ideas. We must reserve spots at The One’s pride parade, learn to stop worrying, and love the left. If it takes a lobotomy for us to get with the program then so be it. No doubt Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will assist us with public funding should we require such an operation.
On his night of yore, the president-elect reminded his serfs that it was time to move beyond judging him critically: “Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.”
His partisan statement was devoid of ambiguity. When one is pole-vaulted to the top of a status hierarchy and then defines all correction as being petty and immature, then the only conceivable alternative is for us to express fealty to the leader — who, in this case, conveniently happens to be Barack Obama. I wonder if he felt the same way in 2000 and 2004 when George W. Bush sat in the position he now occupies. Ah, but to ask the question is to answer it. Sorry to disappoint the now undisputed pal of William Ayers, but his promotion will neither change water into wine nor make conservatives embrace socialism.
Several associates of mine, aware of my red-state predilections, approached me after the black day that was November 4 and demanded my allegiance — I’m serious — proclaiming, “He’s your president so you should stand behind him.” I thanked them but rebuffed their suggestion. As mentioned above, none of these individuals ever saw fit to do the same for our 40th, 41st, and 43rd presidents, so by what precedent should they expect special treatment for their Barackstar? None of which I am aware. Their hypocrisy is hardly surprising. The left’s approach to their opposition lacks consistency, honor, and responsibility as they see those traits as being anachronistic and possibly even Eurocentric (the horror!). To hardened Obamabots, all questions regarding their savior’s goals are illegitimate. Those who battle them either possess false consciousnesses or are evil, and should this dichotomy not be immediately evident, then all heretics will be dismissed as rednecks, evangelists, racists, or whatever ism is on the menu.
Again, for what reason should conservatives rally round Obama? Will his policies benefit us or the “citizens of the world”? Furthermore, the man has accomplished nothing over the course of his entire career, but some fanatics now propose creating a national holiday in his honor. This is ludicrous and the hysteria that surrounds this unaccomplished man is baffling. Two hundred thousand souls congregated in downtown Chicago to cheer as their messiah became law. Yet the president-elect is merely a strutting, status-emitting alpha male who got lucky enough to discover an electorate in estrus during his run for power.
Of course, except to the shallow and deluded — for whom race is an indicator of character — there was nothing unusual about Barack Obama’s campaign. Leftists have successfully fooled the electorate by posing as moderates for time immemorial. Our 44th president will be but a stylistically superior version of Jimmy Carter. Yet now we are asked to bow before him.
For their part, the media have no reservations. Like a schnauzer toggling behind its hobo master, the press will weld itself to Obama and lick his hand whenever he sees fit to acknowledge them. Chris Matthews came out of his red-brown closet and declared that he will do everything in his power to make sure that Obama’s presidency works. Yet how could his new labors surpass his old verbalizations? Other media sources have deliberately buried evidence concerning their hero’s most (more?) alarming associations. Their machinations ensured that the electorate backed a man for whom not only they, but a couple of prominent journalists as well, know little about. Already, the press covers Obama’s flank. Manufactured stories about the alleged anger of “right-wingers” and polls documenting the president-elect’s soaring favorability ratings have appeared, even though he has yet to complete a day of work.
Should we neglect to rally round the sound bite dispenser, the left will use political correctness as a means to invalidate our concerns. PC mandates that there is only one way to look at the world and this Manichean form of thinking is the root of their pervasive intolerance. James Bowman elucidated the mental gulag to which their perceptions lead: “If something is properly political, then there is no correct view of it. There are those two (at least) sides of the debate that I mentioned earlier. If there is only one side — i.e., the ‘correct’ one — then the matter has stopped being political and started being moral.” And what could be more immoral than standing athwart The One?
What Democrats propose is not politics but submission. Their only acceptable vision for the next four years is of conservatives carrying them triumphantly through the streets on their backs. Obeying their desires becomes less savory with each passing day as Obama’s statism has become increasingly prominent. His expressed desire to bail out the auto industry suggests that he no longer merely wants to be on a slippery slope to socialism. His notion of a “Classroom Corps” implies that every American student can soon become his own Comsomol.
If my (current) senator wishes peace and an improvement in the civility of debate, he must first discontinue mislabeling critiques as smears and desist in taking legal action against those who illuminate his history. Should Obama make good on his vow — “I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it’s there” — and cuts the size of government, I will duly applaud him. Unfortunately, all too many Democratic politicians have made the same sensible pronouncements on the campaign trail and promptly abandoned them thereafter.
What is essential is for conservatives to rise above this domination disguised as unity nonsense and oppose leftism wherever it rears its sclerotic head. We must do this out of principle, but, unlike what the left has done to us for the last eight years, our defiance will be honorable and loyal. Yes, right or wrong, Barack Obama will be our president, but we must ensure that his decision-making represents the nation as a whole as opposed to the fantasies of radicals alone.
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