The Disillusioned Center-Left’s Case Against Obama: He’s Just Not Living Up To All That Stuff We Made Up About Him In Our Heads
January 23, 2010 9 Comments
I suppose it’s only natural that we’re starting to see a few public changes of heart, come-to-Jesus moments, regarding President Obama coming from the left part of the spectrum. Theatrical statements of disapproval, of regret, of disappointment, of how he has “let them down” in this or that regard. Call it strategic distance-putting, call it sincere, call it what you will – but inevitably stuff like this does seem to happen anytime a formerly-beloved public figure dips in the polls. Here’s a typical example from Mort Zuckerman (“He’s Done Everything Wrong”).
I am certainly not a fan of President Obama (and indeed have become a bit less of one over the past year). But I do find myself wondering: what on earth are these lefties talking about? There is nothing that President Obama has done that wasn’t completely and entirely predictable. Exactly what is he doing that wasn’t expected of him? Packing his administration with no-private-experience ideologues? Expected. Antagonizing Wall Street and playing the populist? Expected. Trying to shove through a monstrous, opaque, intrusive ‘healthcare’ bill? Totally expected.
On all these things and more, I think President Obama, and his supporters, could just respond just by saying: “Um, we’re doing exactly what we wanted to do, and planned to do, and said we would do, and then you voted us into office by a landslide. So what the heck is the problem?” And you know what? They’d have a freaking point.
When folks on the left or center-left express disillusionment and dismay that President Obama hasn’t governed as some sort of pragmatic non-ideologue who unites the country, takes the middle road, and keeps the pork and yuck out of government, it seems to me that the fault lies not with Obama. It lies with the people who bizarrely believed Obama would do otherwise in the first place.
There was never any objective, factual basis for believing that President Obama would be any other way than what we are seeing. Apparently, a large chunk of Obama’s voting base consisted of people who invented some sort of counterfactual, reality-immune fantasy in their head and then voted for that fantasy when ticking ‘Obama’ on their ballots. I’m sure there are plenty of valid criticisms to be made of President Obama, but the fact that the real President Obama doesn’t correspond to naive, irrational voters’ fantasies doesn’t strike me as one of them.
Well, if you’re busy with a job, kids, after school activities and weekends fixing things around the house and just trying to keep up with what’s going on by watching TV “news” and scanning the NYT or Chicago Trib or LAT or whatever local rag that’s available you might be excused for missing the obvious. The obvious wasn’t/isn’t reported. It takes time and effort to find even “obvious” truths. Maybe people are beginning to realize this, like say, in Massachusetts. One can hope.
I understand that explanation, and yet, I don’t find myself all that sympathetic to people whose explanation for a Presidential vote was ‘I was so busy with my job/kids/etc that I voted for U.S. President based on a media fantasy’.
That is not a defense of a voter in a democracy IMHO. It is closer to being a scathing rebuke against the underpinnings of democracy.
If people just really did want the things that Obama is doing, that would have been one thing. What we’re hearing in these cases now, though, is apparently buyer’s remorse from people who wanted (or at least now say they wanted) a whole bunch of stuff Obama was predictably never going to deliver in the first place. I’m sure they had their reasons like you say, but nevertheless, the only thing this is really a critique of is their own original vote in November ’08. And the only question it really raises is “Why did you ever vote for him in the first place”.
best,
Charmer,
I think many heartland Americans in 2008 simply believed that Obama’s statist campaign rhetoric was just that – rhetoric – and not a literal socialist manifesto. Even the demagogic Clintons have been stunned by Obama’s brazen assault on the Republic, free enterprise, and constitutional rule of law. Who amongst us can honestly say that they were absolutely certain Obama and the Democrat Congress would unleash such an anti-American onslaught?
As you rightly express, folks on the left or center-left are expressing disillusionment and dismay. But I think it is because the political crisis we Americans are now facing is unprecedented. Never before have we experienced (not even with Roosevelt, Johnson, or Clinton) a calculated, preconceived statist usurpation that is barren of reverence for American heritage and bereft of spirituality, responsibility, truth, and moral values.
Great article and keep them coming.
I’m not exactly sure which thought is more troubling: the idea of my post that many of Obama’s voters were stunningly naive and voting a fantasy, or your idea that they were fully informed/cognizant of Obama’s rhetoric but thought it was “just rhetoric”, i.e. a bunch of puffy talk and lies that signified nothing – yet proceeded to vote for guy they thought was spouting lies.
You do have a point, I was not “absolutely certain” that the Obama Presidency would be like this. Let’s call it 92% certain but with a twinkling 8% glimmer of hope that he would be more pragmatic and non-ideological. That said, one didn’t need to be absolutely certain of anything to make a reasonable guess as to the likely direction he would take. And anyone who had made such a guess would not now be “disillusioned”: they would be, like me, shrugging and saying Well, what did you expect?
best,
How can anyone be surprised? Seriously. You would have to have been a *complete* idiot – someone who buys coastal property in Kansas – to have believed him. Too busy? Throwing away your vote is worse than throwing away your money. The people who voted for him now expressing regret are no different some womean who sleeps with a man on the first date and is surprised the next week that he didn’t call.
He had no history of leadership. He had no record of high office. He had done absolutely nothing in his life. I wouldn’t have hired him for a mid-level marketing manager, but people went out and voted for him as Leader of the Free World. The under 21 crowd I can forgive – idealistic and naive, they are still supported by their parents and don’t live in the real world. Everyone else gets my contempt.
At the time he was elected I said America gets what it deserved. I also wrote that his fall off the pedestal would be huge – and it isn’t done yet.
In one of his books he did write “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
But, it’s kinda sad to see people find out that their God on Earth is not the man they thought he was and for them to realize that their Heaven on Earth won’t be here by the end of his Reign.
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