My Problems With Obama And His Socialism

For someone who is likely to be opposed to the vast majority of policies implemented and decisions made by President Obama, I feel like I’ve been pretty easy on him. I’m goin’ soft! Well, let’s correct that. Here are some problems I have with the guy and with his rise to electoral success; they are things to keep an eye on.

• The cult of personality. This cult of personality that has been built around Barack Obama is very creepy. From the socialist-art one-word-slogan posters, to the black charter-school kids singing songs about him (do those kids learn any, like, actual school stuff in those schools? math, etc? or is it just songs and dancing?), to the hip Youtube videos, it seems that the “cool” opinion movers and shakers have decided to throw all their artistic weight behind promoting Obama’s coolness and glory.
  

  
  There is nothing wrong with people liking and supporting their Presidential candidate, but there is something wrong and indeed unmistakably Orwellian with the way Obama has been sold to us. The problem is simple: Obama, it seems, can do no wrong. Even if he does serious wrong. Let’s hope this never comes up, but what if it does?
  

• The neediness of his supporters. This is a related point, but the truth touched on by the Onion video I linked a few posts ago is that Obama rode to power on a faction of people which appears to be very needy. And I don’t mean needy in the sense of needing money, physical things, food, shelter, etc. I mean emotionally needy.
  

  
  I dunno about you but who the President is doesn’t actually play a huge role in my life. I don’t derive a huge amount of happiness from having the President be “my” guy (or sadness if vice versa). Luckily, I seem to have other things going on. Not so, for much of the left, it seems. Why exactly were all these people so depressed and angrily obsessed in 2000 and 2004? Because: A guy they didn’t want to be President was President, instead of the guy they wanted to be President being President. Hmm.
  

  
  Ever ask yourself why it is so all-fired important to such people that their guy be President? Can this be explained rationally, objectively? What exactly is the tangible effect on the lives of all those now-ecstatic Bush-hating Obama-idolators of which dude sits in the Oval Office? I’ll be damned if I know. More to the point, I’ll bet they don’t know either.
  

  
  Look at what has just happened with Obama’s victory: Obama supporters celebrated in the streets as if utopia is now here. Did conservatives do that in 2000? 2004? Meanwhile, have large numbers of conservatives, upon losing, threatened to “move to Canada”? do large #s go around whining that Obama is “not my President”? Are there news stories of conservatives seeking therapy over post-election depression? Are there huge #s of conservatives refusing to accept the outcome, insisting the election was “stolen”, filing lawsuits, crying ‘impeach’?
  

  
  This is not to say that conservatives aren’t unhappy, or aren’t saying bad things about Obama. Of course that is going on. But there is a world of difference here and IMHO the President-obsession we are seeing mostly on the left in recent (decades? more?) is just not very healthy. Obama has come to power largely on the backs of people who (apparently) have a giant hole in their lives that is filled by party politics in Washington. For many of these people, politics plays the role of religion. For some, it may even play the role of family. Whatever the case, this political neediness is clearly more common on the left than on the right. And to my mind, that’s a problem. Aside from just being sad and pathetic, it’s not healthy and it’s a bit dangerous.
  

• Obama is a socialist rooted in radical ideology with no real respect for the enduring insitutions of the U.S. Yeah, there’s that too. Hopefully this will be tempered by a pragmatism as he grows into the office. We’ll see.

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