The Opposition

It's been less than two weeks since Obama was inaugurated, and already I'm sensing a change in the national attitude. Like I've been saying for a long time, people expected Obama to raise his hand, speak the Words of Power, and fix everything that's wrong with America by the power of the Divine Executive within moments of assuming the office.

I have a feeling that over the next year, he's going to reap the fruits he and his allies in the legislature have been sowing for the last eight years. By attenuating a substantial portion of the American people to magical thinking, they've laid the foundation for their own downfall. Obama can't just "change" things, but that was his message for the last year: that once he was elected, things would just get better. He was never asked how that was to happen, and thus never had to defend the ideas that he never had to have.

What does this mean to us as the Loyal Opposition? In many ways, it is exactly what we've needed for a long time. For the last eight years, we have been subject to the (barely) lesser of two evils. Before that, we had a Republican congress mostly preventing Clinton from being anything other than a moderate-to-left compromiser. Now, finally, we have What We're Talking About. As in, we can point to the Democrat juggernaut currently occupying Washington DC and say "See! This is what we're talking about!"

In our country and in our culture, subtlety just doesn't play all that well with enough people to matter on the grand scale. That's why we now have the advantage. Before, explaining why government just isn't effective at solving the nation's problems was always a laborious case-by-case process and there were always arguments that implicated "the Republicans" or whatever as the actual "bad guys." Now, what is happening is clear as day. And people are paying attention. Really, I doubt that any administration has ever been subject to the sort of public scrutiny that this administration is, because no other political figure in American history has been burdened with such massive expectations without any substantial reason other than he appeared as though he might do something different. His hardcore supporters are watching him, believing that he will enact their every socialist fantasy (he won't, at least not every one of them.) The people who voted for him without really thinking about what they were doing are watching to see just exactly what it is that this guy does (and since most of them are just normal Americans, they are getting pissed just like the rest of us.) And of course, the Loyal Opposition is watching with smug smiles pasted on our faces, because this is What We're Talking About!

Enron has made a point time and time again about the power of prediction to persuade. Let's be prophets in our own time so that when the time comes for people to decide whether they want to keep trying Government or if they finally are prepared to trust each other, they'll make the right choice. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose here. Let's take this whole mess as the opportunity for change that it really truly is!

Oh wow.

http://stimuluswatch.org/

For your every day "shaking with barely-contained rage" needs.

Seriously, I can't read that site for more than a minute at a time without getting all stabby and resentful.

One of the things that is unfortunate is the fact that so many people sort of know that these things are a bad idea in principle (spending money you don't have, infringing on people's rights, etc.) but to them it isn't ever a thought that it will affect them in the short run. Reading some of the comments on the stimuluswatch website, people are saying things like "oh we're spending money that our grandchildren are going to have to pay back." Spending money we don't have is a real issue that will tank us, our grandchildren will have it way better than we will in the next decade.
If people would actually look into what motivates these hunches, they would realize that it is only logic. We are all built with some of that, but some choose to stifle that due to seemingly overwhelming circumstances.

I agree with both of you. Another slant on the same point: Obama is going to eff things up royally. He will give us many examples of why you shouldn't mess with the markets. He will pass a stimulus plan, go for price controls, take on massive gov't spending projects, etc. Each step along the way, the details of the consequences will tell the story.

He's already fomenting a trade war with his "American Goods Only" rule for stimulus spending.

Damn, Hoover!

B-Ran wrote:He's already fomenting a trade war with his "American Goods Only" rule for stimulus spending.

Damn, Hoover!

He also wants to limit what bank CEOs make. Whaddaretard.