Peter Lawler rightly said:
“But it’s impossible not to admire the ambitious move from “We hold these truths” to “We, the people.”
Or from “We, the people” to his policy agenda. It is interesting how he makes a point to ground himself in “founderism” and to disclaims any interest in centralized government before moving on to an agenda of (inferring from his speech and his first term agenda) subsidies for connected green energy firms, centralized rationing of health care for the elderly, and higher taxes. You don’t think the last tax increase deal was the end do you?
But I do admire Obama’s determination to put his rhetoric in the language of common sense reform and our shared national narrative. Republicans often go in the exact opposite direction as they try to make modest reformism look radical and discontinuous. Remember Rick Perry calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme?” Never mind the history of others calling Social Security by that term. It made him look more radical than he really is and too untrustworthy to reform a program he seems to loathe. Obama’s speech is an example of a man who wants to shift national policy in a country that distrusts major changes if they are not incremental and necessary. Perry was a man preening for the cheers of that minority of the likeminded. And they were a minority of even of his own minority party. He paid the price and, because Perry is not alone in that habit, we are all paying the price. Can anybody imagine Obama calling himself “severely progressive?” Helps explain our predicament.
January 21st, 2013 | 3:01 pm
1. From reading it, it’s another sign that conservative despair is greatly misplaced, since aside from a few silly throwaway comments, it’s a fine, center-right speech overall, with flaws that most any big-government conservative would have made anyway. The fact that he acknowledges and highlights the most important and foundational line from the Declaration belies all the silliness I’m seeing about how radical the speech was. My understanding is that the delivery was something else entirely, but I have no intention of testing whether that’s true or not.
2. Pete’s comments are very well made, that the case the GOP needs to make against big-government, TBTF bailouts, etc., is that THEY are the radical new changes that must be undone, in order to get “back” to sensible governance.
3. The left doesn’t have nearly enough time to radically reshape America’s views towards government, given that the government is completely bankrupt.
January 21st, 2013 | 3:04 pm
[...] Peter Lawler rightly said: “But it’s impossible not to admire the ambitious move from “We hold these truths” to “We, the people.” Or from “We, the people” to his policy agenda. It Source: Postmodern Conservative [...]
January 21st, 2013 | 3:08 pm
Brian, I don’t think the language of going “back” works. It sounds exclusionary. Modest change with a sustainable, limited, and effective government is much better for winning over populations who don’t think that Obama is a break with what made America great, etc.
January 21st, 2013 | 3:25 pm
Pete: The Dems & the MSM love to shriek about how the GOP wants to go “back” to the 1950s, or the 1850s, or whatever. I don’t see why someone with rather basic rhetorical skills can’t turn that around and talk about going “back” to the days of a balanced budget, or “back” to the days when if you drove your company into the ground, you weren’t going to get rescued by taxpayers.
January 21st, 2013 | 3:51 pm
Pete, what you’re pointing out that is that Obama is a talented and shameless con artist. (Perhaps you’re too nice to put it that way.) Fortunately for him and his sycophants, most “persuadable” voters are dim enough, or disengaged enough, to fall for his b.s. My experience in talking with knowledgeable leftwingers is that they are rendered speechless with rage and horror when a conservative points out the fraud Obama is perpetrating. Kind of like the reaction you would expect from a professional magician to some wiseguy explaining to the audience how the “magic” is done.
I agree with your observations about the comically inept Republican opposition. However, I think Republicans are usually equally inept when they aim their rhetoric at swing voters – they almost completely fail to address the problems voters actually face, and come across as smiley-face corporate shills (see Romney, Mitt). The combination of these two approaches was sufficient to maintain rough parity with the Democrats nationally for the quarter century ending around 2005, but it clearly is not working anymore.
January 21st, 2013 | 6:24 pm
Brian,
“I don’t see why someone with rather basic rhetorical skills can’t turn that around and talk about going “back” to the days of a balanced budget, or “back” to the days when if you drove your company into the ground, you weren’t going to get rescued by taxpayers.”
So you mean we have to go back to at least the Nixon administration (and maybe earlier for all I know.) I just don’t want the unreformed welfare system, the higher murder rate and the across-the-board wage and price controls. And I don’t see that premium support Medicare is getting us “back” to anything in particular. Now, I know what you mean, but a lot of people don’t and this doesn’t seem like the kind of issue that we should be spending a lot of precious public attention explaining. And who are you trying to win over with that rhetoric? The one’s who find it appealing are already on our side. Trying to paint Obama as a break with all that is good in US history as opposed to Obama is a guy with some mistaken ideas is a losing fight and it was never even a fight worth having. There is work enough in going after his ideas and policies.
DJF, ” what you’re pointing out that is that Obama is a talented and shameless con artist.”
Maybe a little. Reagan quoted FDR and JFK for his purposes. Maybe someday conservatives should be quoting Obama for theirs. There is a lot of precedent for what Obama is doing among the early Progressives (especially Croly), but I also think there was an element of sincerity to Croly’s writing. Not the respect for the Founders (which was largely feigned), but he sure didn’t think of himself as an ideological statist, and he felt e was working within, rather than against the grain of US history. It is possible that Obama is working within that tradition while sincerely having more respect for the Founding in establishing a republic, etc. Though I agree with you that he is still trying to come across more centrist than he really is and that there is a element of deception in this.
“However, I think Republicans are usually equally inept when they aim their rhetoric at swing voters – they almost completely fail to address the problems voters actually face, and come across as smiley-face corporate shills (see Romney, Mitt).
Yeah, very much, but not all of them. Bob McDonnell came across fine in Virginia and Mitch Daniels did fine in Indiana. [Shake fist at the sky.]
“The combination of these two approaches was sufficient to maintain rough parity with the Democrats nationally for the quarter century ending around 2005, but it clearly is not working anymore.”
Yup.
January 21st, 2013 | 10:19 pm
Pete: So you don’t think a winning political case can be made based on balanced budgets and responsible corporate behavior? If you’re right, it’s hopeless and “game over” anyway. I’ve seen firsthand how the Dems destroyed California while simultaneously strengthening their hold on power until it is absolute, but I still refuse to believe they can pull the same thing off nationally. Call me naive.
January 21st, 2013 | 11:11 pm
Pete,
Is Obama “sincere” when he invokes the founding in support of his leftist agenda? In my opinion, based on what I know about the, um, intellectual “milieu” (to be polite) from which he emerged (see the writings of Stanley Kurtz) – a “milieu” that is not entirely foreign to me, since I was at Columbia around the same time as Obama – the answer is no. You’re entitled to disagree; I have no wish to belabor the point, but I will say that I think we’re entitled to be skeptical of the Left’s sincerity in talking about the founding when they have close to zero practical interest (as opposed to an antiquarian interest affected by some of them) in anything the founders actually said or thought about the principles on which governments should be established (apart from the prohibition on establishment of religion, of course). FWIW, I think the reference to Tom Paine by Rage Against the Machine (don’t remember the name of the song) is more sincere than anything Obama has said about the founding.
In any event, when I called Obama a con artist, I primarily had in mind his attempt to sell as non-ideological pragmatism his plans for radically expanding the power of government in our economy and society – changes that, IMHO, will ultimately make life much harder and bleaker for the children of the foolish swing voters who put him in power, and for the working class men and women who stayed home from the polls. The pious business about the founders was for the benefit of the intelligentsia, I think.
I did not mean to say that all Republicans, without exception, were clueless. Certainly, I wish Daniels had decided to run for president.
January 22nd, 2013 | 12:02 am
[...] Grabbing the CenterFirst Things (blog)From reading it, it's another sign that conservative despair is greatly misplaced, since aside from a few silly throwaway comments, it's a fine, center-right speech overall, with flaws that most any big-government conservative would have made anyway … [...]
January 22nd, 2013 | 6:44 pm
DJF,
“Is Obama “sincere” when he invokes the founding in support of his leftist agenda? In my opinion, based on what I know about the, um, intellectual “milieu” (to be polite) from which he emerged (see the writings of Stanley Kurtz) – a “milieu” that is not entirely foreign to me”
Yeah, but Obama has had several milieu’s including one with Robert Gates and Ben Bernanke. So do I think he is “sincere” when he invokes the Founding? I don’t know. I think it is quite plausible that Obama locates the Founding as part of a story of American progress and looks at the Founders as something other than primarily oppressive villains. That is a kind of sincerity that rejects certain leftist views of American history. John Presnall (in another thread) is right to invoke Rorty’s 1990s book, but I also think there is more going on there.
“In any event, when I called Obama a con artist, I primarily had in mind his attempt to sell as non-ideological pragmatism his plans for radically expanding the power of government in our economy and society”
Well, I think most every successful American politician tries to present his ideas in terms of common sense and pragmatism rather than ideology – at least partly because they probably think of their own ideas as common sense and other people’s ideas as ideology. I don’t think Obama is a lot more “left” than he lets on. Do I think he would repeal welfare reform, ban the death penalty and eliminate any individual right to own firearms if he thought it was politic? Absolutely.
“So you don’t think a winning political case can be made based on balanced budgets and responsible corporate behavior?
Who said anything about avoiding a case for responsible corporate behavior? It is just that certain arguments about going “back” can get in the way. You can convince some Obama voters that particular policies might be a bad idea. That still leaves ways in which they don’t want to go back. I share a lot of context with you and we are participants in the same political coalition more or less, so it is to a big barrier to communication with me. That’s not true of everybody.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact