Obama, Right-Winger
So alleges Paul Krugman. Obama is in cahoots with Republicans to sabotage everything Democrats hold dear.
As a person, Obama could be thought of as a conservative. He's in a traditional marriage, raising two young, apparently virtuous, children. He's never been much of a rebel (like, say, John Kerry was). His foray into community organizing seems to have been rather half-hearted, and seems to have preferred the life of an upstanding citizen to that of the gadfly.
I think the real problem with Obama is that he has no real over-arching ideology. His expectation on embarking on his presidential campaign was that he would, through his unique heritage, be able to redistribute some of that huge economic pie that was baking at the time and, following on the known truth that the problems of black-folk were simply the result of the deprivation brought on by income inequality, bring about the much heralded-yet-elusive revolution in American society that would equalize the races.
Krugman notes that his administration has been effectively purged of competent economic counsel. Surely the realization that this economy is showing no signs of real improvement has disabused Obama of any notion that there is any surplus "pie" to divvy up. But he has also been dealing with many minority "leaders" looking for some gravy - is there any chance that he has been disillusioned by their fecklessness as well, and finds himself nowhere else to turn, but to Republicans offering some way out of the cave?
As a person, Obama could be thought of as a conservative. He's in a traditional marriage, raising two young, apparently virtuous, children. He's never been much of a rebel (like, say, John Kerry was). His foray into community organizing seems to have been rather half-hearted, and seems to have preferred the life of an upstanding citizen to that of the gadfly.
I think the real problem with Obama is that he has no real over-arching ideology. His expectation on embarking on his presidential campaign was that he would, through his unique heritage, be able to redistribute some of that huge economic pie that was baking at the time and, following on the known truth that the problems of black-folk were simply the result of the deprivation brought on by income inequality, bring about the much heralded-yet-elusive revolution in American society that would equalize the races.
Krugman notes that his administration has been effectively purged of competent economic counsel. Surely the realization that this economy is showing no signs of real improvement has disabused Obama of any notion that there is any surplus "pie" to divvy up. But he has also been dealing with many minority "leaders" looking for some gravy - is there any chance that he has been disillusioned by their fecklessness as well, and finds himself nowhere else to turn, but to Republicans offering some way out of the cave?
posted by ziel | 7/09/2011 12:14:00 AM
4 Comments:
The two essential books on the topic of Obama's inner ideology are Steve Sailer's "America's Half-Blood Prince" and Stanley Kurtz's "Radical in Chief".
The main point is that Obama was not raised "black" - he does not share the common cultural experience and outlook of the descendants of American slaves at all. Both his parents were geniuses, and he was mainly brought up by his white grandparents.
For a long period as an adolescent in Hawaii, his disposition would have been indistinguishable from any other smart teenager raised by well-to-do intelligent liberals with a few extra copies of the melanin gene. He's always been a strong leftist, but also in that way friendly the the leftist elites. He's also always been very politically ambitious.
He dabbled, for a while in his young 20's, with a much harder doctrinaire leftism, and while he's still very fond and sympathetic to that worldview - he's much more pragmatic about it these days in terms of not scaring people away and coming off as a 1960's-style radical. He's a incrementalist - accomplish as much of the larger agenda as you can - but in baby steps that don't give the game away.
At some point he had an epiphany and / or crisis of racial identity where he desperately wanted to embrace his "blackness" both for the affirmative-action leg-up and to follow the "leader of the black community" script to American electoral politics.
And it turned out that despite his best efforts at being a "community organizer" and trying to become popular and get the Chicago blacks to like him and recognize how smart he way - he just didn't fit in, didn't generate much appeal or trust or credibility in his street-cred (largely because he acts and speaks like an elite liberal white guy), and wasn't very successful at playing the lawsuit-gravy-train game for them, and he lost his election badly.
And then he discovered that he actually really fit in with other white elite leftists who loved him for having extra copies of the melanin gene, but in all other respects being just like them. Axelrod, in particular, realized the political exploitation potential of this - and designed a completely different strategy for Obama - which was essentially to run as the "Soul Man" candidate - a guy whose really a strongly-left elite white liberal, but who looks black, and so pushes all those special race-obsessed mental-pathologies so delightfully and tenaciously ubiquitous in American society.
So, when you say he's a "conservative" you're just noticing that, in fact, a lot of wealthy, intelligent, and highly-educated Liberals, even very-strong leftists, and even the "cultural Marxists" - actually live their own personal family lives like 1950's Squares enjoying their wealth.
I think you've stated it well.
Quite worthwhile info, much thanks for the post.
Little doubt, the dude is completely fair.
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