Obamaphobia
I am seriously puzzled by the terror which arises in some conservatives at the prospect of a second term for Obama. Just peruse the posts at Postmodern Conservative to see what I am talking about. Now, these are intelligent folks, mostly academics, who generally appear to be fairly sane. But they seem to regard a second Obama term as being roughly equivalent to the presidency of a modern Vladimir Lenin.
Now, I am no Obama fanboy. Unlike Daniel Kuehn, I would not eagerly tongue bathe Obama clean. (Just kidding, Daniel: I know you'd use a sponge.) But really, the guy has had a very middle-of-the-road first term. Yes, on some issues, like health care reform and abortion, he has certainly been to the left of where a Republican president would have been. But so would almost any Democrat. And I don't suspect for a moment that the bloggers at PMC are racists, unlike Appalachian Democrats, where I believe their lack of enthusiasm for the man is mostly racial.
So what does explain this fear and trembling?
Now, I am no Obama fanboy. Unlike Daniel Kuehn, I would not eagerly tongue bathe Obama clean. (Just kidding, Daniel: I know you'd use a sponge.) But really, the guy has had a very middle-of-the-road first term. Yes, on some issues, like health care reform and abortion, he has certainly been to the left of where a Republican president would have been. But so would almost any Democrat. And I don't suspect for a moment that the bloggers at PMC are racists, unlike Appalachian Democrats, where I believe their lack of enthusiasm for the man is mostly racial.
So what does explain this fear and trembling?
He did sabotage DOMA and get in the way of Arizona. But what I worry about is the future of the Supreme Court.
ReplyDeleteHilarious comment, by the way.
ReplyDeleteI think what they are all up in arms about is that they think that he'll turn into death incarnate during his second term (the gloves come off). I guess that is pretty standard practice, that most presidents get their agenda done during the second term (because during their first term they are campaigning for their second term). My problem with the guy stems from the wars, people being imprisoned without trial, assassinations, Libya, etc; basically your basic foreign policy and civil liberties stuff.
As for his domestic agenda, I don't worry about it much for two reasons: I know that most of it will fail horribly, and it doesn't really affect me personally. I personally like to give people enough rope to hang themselves, because I think it serves as a good lesson to both the person involved and those who believed in him.
From my personal, cynical point of view, Obama's second term means greater personal safety. Well, until serous shortages and breakdowns start, but that'll happen under Romney too, so the probability of violence against my person is still lower with Obama in.
ReplyDeleteGene, are you getting a Malware warning from your browser when visiting First Things / Postmodern conservative? I ask because now I am getting the Malware warning for their site when I visit your blog (because you have linked to them). Maybe removing links to their site until they have things sorted out will do the trick. No need to approve this comment, I just didn't see your email address listed.
ReplyDeleteMaybe because they 'feel' like they have absolutely no influence over a Democratic president; whereas they 'feel' they have 'some' over a Republican.
ReplyDeleteIt's also something about how Obama was elected; I was surprised at how he seemed to 'bring people together' and his mantra of 'change'. It all seemed like it was out of some horror movie, in which there was a charismatic leader who was really bad, and then got in power, and consolidated everything, etc, etc. Bush made all kinds of statements about being a 'uniter and not a divider', but, he wasn't very charismatic; he didn't have that.
I think others and myself were always disturbed by this seeming charismatic aura around him. George Bush Jr. didn't have that; he wasn't, well, you know...smart. Bill Clinton just seemed like a con man. I think it has some to do with him being black; though, not for the 'racist' reason. If you have a black president, who embrace policies that you are against, and any attack upon him is seen as 'racist' by many (remember the health care debate), then, you feel even more threatened.