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jack3566What if Obama wins in November?
A reader (Norm) posed the question to us at the Political Inquirer, “What if Obama gets elected? What will the impact of the country be?” It will be hard to say for certain, none of us on the staff are prophets (though some might claim to be).
I think the first thing that we will see if Obama was elected president is a general sigh of relief from the black community. Many have fought tooth and nail in the Democrat party for nothing all these years. The tactic of the Democrat party to keep the black vote has been fear: as long as Republicans are “evil white racists” then there is only one logical alternative–the Democrat party. The sigh of relief will prove that their efforts were not fully wasted all these years.
The next impact we would see is likely to be in the media. Endless reports of how “Is America finally over racism?” would dominate the news reporting for weeks on end. I’m sure there will be images on the cable news channels of small white racist groups throwing eggs on President-Elect Obama’s limousine as he heads to the steps of the Capitol building to be inaugurated. Commentators would be on the screen and in the newspapers proclaiming the “death of White Man Rule” and other rhetorical nonsense that will be used to fill “news” time.
All in all, I think the cultural impact would be little–at least at the beginning of his term. Christian Republicans who voted for Mike Huckabee in the primary will surely be screaming “woe is us” and filling their magazines and websites with articles on the coming rampage of gay marriage, homosexuals adopting children, and the liberal judges who will keep abortion from being banned federally. These kinds of issues may or may not show up through the course of his term, especially with the economy and the war in Iraq being the major problems that a President Obama would have to deal with.
Next is the Iraq war. On this issue, Obama has been more consistent than rival Hillary Clinton and his former rival John Edwards, leading him to be a favorite among antiwar groups. I do not, however, believe Obama is antiwar, nor do I believe he will pull us out of Iraq. I am more or less convinced that in 2013, at the end of Obama’s first term, there will still be well over 70,000 troops in Iraq, perhaps even our current levels will be maintained through his entire term (150,000 or so). We never pulled out of Korea after we established a “peace”. The only reason we withdrew from Vietnam was because we did not want to start an all-out war with the Soviet Union. Anti-capitalist economic forces work with government to keep us in these situations. Entire businesses have begun soley to stay in Iraq–Blackwater comes to mind. Billions of state-tax-dollars to serve the State as a war-protection agency. Interest groups and lobbyists for big business will keep us in Iraq whether Obama wants to pull out or not–he is too much of a politician to be “unshakeable” on this issue. Expect to see cries of “traitor!” from some antiwar groups, while others will suddenly become more tolerant of the war because their “messiah” has said that we just cannot realistically pull out.
Lastly, I think an issue that is going to come up whether Obama wants it to or not will be reparations for slavery. I am not going to get involved in the discussion of the issue because there really is no way to predict how this will come about. I am convinced that some black leaders of the Jesse Jackson or Jeremiah Wright strain might argue for reparations, seeing it as a possibility now that there is a black president who can “sympathize” with them. I doubt Obama will damage his political career with such measures, or that Congress would even bring it up for debate, but it will get brought up and it will be in the media, probably spawning many wasted words typed in long debates on the Internet about whether they are legal or not.
The most difficult reason for predicting what we will see in an Obama presidency is that we just don’t know enough about him! His career was low profile until he emerged to the national scene–the Chicago machine more or less gave him his Senate seat without any real competition–and he has not done anything outside of the ordainary to make him stand out, aside from the election. Of his three years in the Senate, two have been spent running for president.
Barack Obama may or may not be qualified to be president, but it is difficult to predict what we will see for certain.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Commentary, Culture, Democrats, Economics, Election 2008, Iraq, Media, News, Politics
Is he running on a race issue, or as a president for all people? Are we supposed to elect him just to prove we’re not racists?
You make no prediction of what he would do about the energy situation, or the mortgage problems, or the overall economy? Foreign relations (other than Iraq)? The multiple African crises? The China issues? Global Warming (oops, ‘climate change’ since we could well be in for a decade of cooling.)? Health care?
Do you not think he will attempt to massively expand government into each of these areas, with the help of a very left-leaning Congress? Especially since his record, as thin as it is, is the most liberal in the Senate?
If I had anything against skin tone, I wouldn’t have been the Draft Colin Powell online state chairman in my neck of the woods many years ago. And I’ll help my Ugandan daughter run for any elected office she chooses to when the time is right. But policy matters, and some of his stated ideas seem to be a lot closer to Chavez than our Founding Fathers.
Feel free to address them — I just hit on some topics that came to the top of my head ;)
President Obama will be surprisingly conservative and extremely cautious. Any radicalism will be reserved for a second term. Rev Al will be outraged, but Jesse will be a bootlicker (Ambassador to the Court of St. James, maybe?), and reaction throughout the black community, as well as the democratic party itself, will run the gamut from “a new George Washington” to “a twenty-first century Benedict Arnold.”
Our military empire and foreign policy will be “tweaked” but fundamentally unchanged. Expect some draw-down of troops and a retreat into the Green Zone bunker, with mercenaries (Blackwater, et al) doing the heavy lifting. If full-blown civil war (meaning massed armies — not guerilla/terrorist activities) busts out, I think O will abandon Iraq, but it will have to engulf the country first (if they attack our troops, we can’t cut and run, if they’re killing each other, like what has been happening on and off down south, we can say, “it ain’t our job.”) The decision to stay or go will be completely political and in reaction to events, not reasoned foreign policy.
On the economy and trade, expect incompetence, with contradictory policies pandering to the left and the right. The middle class will take it in the neck.
A triumphant, and meaningless, world tour will make him the John Paul II of presidents — the most widely travelled in history. He will be mobbed in Paris, his watch and cufflinks pulled off in a scrum with adoring fans. His visits to Africa will become legendary.
For the history books, Obama will provide us with the greatest inaugual address since JFK; he will be compared to Ronald Reagan (The Great Communicator), and at some point in his presidency will deliver a speech that will be put into the canon of American Letters with Washington’s Farewell and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
- thus spake Zarathustra
“I am convinced that some black leaders of the Jesse Jackson or Jeremiah Wright strain might argue for reparations ….”
No need to speculate. The chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, has a bill pending now (H.R. 40) which calls for a commission to study reparations proposals.
“I doubt … that Congress would even bring it up for debate ….”
No need to doubt. The matter has already been the subject of a congressional hearing, back in December, and should result in more hearings before long.
“… it will get brought up and it will be in the media, probably spawning many wasted words typed in long debates on the Internet about whether they are legal or not.”
Those would truly be wasted words. Reparations lawsuits do raise the issue of whether or not reparations are legally required, but those lawsuits have all been dismissed.
What Congress is currently considering is legislation to provide reparations (in one form or another), and while this raises vital political and public policy questions, it doesn’t raise any legal issues.
Wait until the Native American join in the fray of reparations and end up owning the entire country. :))
I agree that we do not know much about Obama. From a liberal point of view, his voting record as Senator has been very good. However the realities of presidency can hardly compare with the safer and easier conduct of a politican in the Congress. I expect him in the White House to prove much more conservative and compromised. More poetry than prose, more show than substance. And his “blackness” will play only a symbolic role.
On the other hand I believe that he deserves a chance. I am not a US citizen thus not able to vote for him. But I see Clinton and McCain as too predictable in serving an establishment of which the US and the entire world has already had enough.
As you say, Yannis, not your country. The U.N. doesn’t run this nation yet (thankfully).
If the world has had enough of this, why have the latest elections been showing otherwise? Germany, France, Italy, Canada, etc. have all elected essentially ‘neo-cons’, and Great Britain’s new leader has turned into one (British troops staying in Basra for the duration). South America has to some degree gone the other way (all except Columbia), but they’re starting to regret it big time with Chavez trying his best to become a dictator and Equador’s president caught being funded by narco-Marxist money. On balance, the ‘right’ is winning at the global polls these days.
I’d be careful with an assessment like that. Most countries aren’t happy about the US’s involvement in Iraq, no matter who Italy elected. I’m sure there’s been a world wide poll conducted, and I get the feeling most, but not all, people don’t like us.
Because, jslef, it has been ingrained that there is little cost in expressing a dislike of America. But ask those same people if they’d like to come here. Must be something the world likes about us, since so much of it wants to be here.
Of course, they don’t like our involvement is Iraq; that’s certainly obvious. They also detest the typical American tourist (except the money, of course). Fortunately, out in the world, those are not the ONLY things that sets an opinion of America; if it was, we’d be one large smoking hole in the ground.
To Mike O:
Did my comment imply that UN “should run this nation”? Sorry, I see a fallacy here.
Moreover, claiming that Germany has elected a neo-con government (with socialists part of it) indicates a rather superficial knowledge of international affairs.
Finally, the same people who vote for right-wing governments (like in Russia, Italy, France) also strongly oppose the US war in Iraq or its policy on global warming. Polls in most of European and Asian countries show continuous disapproval of these policies; and people there have indeed had enough.
So, voting right at national elections does not mean voting pro-US. That was a quite naive simplification.
You mean all those countries who signed Kyoto (and those governments have been voted out) who pollute more than ever before? When ocean currents and solar cycles now indicate that we’re likely inf for anywhere from 10-50 years of global cooling? The same countries who profited from the Oil-for-Food rakeoffs and the Rwandan genocide (and threw those governments out)? Who constantly advocate UN ‘Peacekeeping’, when all those troops do (without U.S. or British support) is add to the atrocies through rape, smuggling and arms dealing?
If only there as right about Iraq as they are about other things, it all may turn out OK.
Mike: Could it be that Eurpeans are voting for the conservatives because they are anti-socialist (or at least more moderate than the “left” candidates) and pro-nationalist? As for Kyoto, Brown staying in Iraq, and other international agreements, alliances, and trade deals, aren’t the politicians around the globe just like here in America, i.e., corrupted, purchased, and/or duped by the powerful few that are working behind the scenes to create a single, world-wide authority above all elected governments?
Yannis - relax, Mike sees a snake under every rock he turns over, and while he appears to characterize himself as a curmudgeonly conservative, I see him more all over the map. I’ve yet to identify a cohesive philosophical underpinning, but that may be due to innattention on my part.
Big surprise - the huge, major sea change in American politics in the wake of a possible Obama victory will be: NOTHING. We’ll go about our business pretty much as before. The differences with the current adminstration will be primarily an increase in competence and a decrease in paranoia, but I think that will be the case no matter which of the 3 gets the nod.
I expect that he will be the most likely to move our foreign policy out of DoD and back into State. He strikes me as the sort of person The Dragon Lady raised me to be. “Use the brains God gave you” as the first alternative, but don’t be afraid to fight if you have to. (She also taught me to keep my hands up and how to follow a left feint with a straight right hand.) Clinton and McCain both seem too willing to commit other people’s children (aka our new Warrior Class) to die rather than sort it out at the table when we can. McCain, navy brat, brutalized POW, seems wired that way. Clintons seems to think the Thatcher model is required to a woman to become POTUS.
None of the 3 will begin the important work of dismantling the Empire. I just think that under Obama imperial growth will go the slowest, and maybe even stop. Another good thing I’ve heard about him is that he’s a cheapskate. Look here (http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm) and you’ll see that both the Red Team and the Blue Team love to spend money we don’t have. We could use a skinflint in office. (Here comes the blather about costly social programs - while I’d rather see less of them, social entitlement programs serve the Republic far better than the MIC. Both could use to go on a diet. Again, of the 3 I see Obama as most likely to run a tight fiscal ship.)
Lamont, experience with the way the world is rather than the way the world should be puts me ‘all over the map’. I’d love a ’skinflint’ in office; I don’t see Obama being one, simply because he would be relying very heavily on advisers who are just another set of monetary drunken sailors, but with different priorities. And he would have a Congress helping him shovel dollars and regulations out the door.
I believe in the balance of power. Neither party, at this point, should be trusted with both full legislative and executive branches. Give me a healthy GOP majority in the Senate, and Obama would be a lot more acceptable to me. The sea change would be there, but not due to Obama’s abilities; it would be due to opposition-free governance.
And that would be one of the biggest differences between Clinton and McCain; a Congress helping the executive screw us over, or the legislative branch fighting it because of Party.
As for ’sorting it out at the table’, for every instance that you can name where that really worked, I can name many more where it didn’t. That’s the way the world really is, not the way it should be; failing to recognize it only makes things worse. Ask the Zimbabweans or the Congolese at the moment.
OK Mike, granted granted that negotiation doesn’t always work, but it has a better record than both agressive war and interventionism. But then, I’m not as eager to shoot bad guys as you seem to be.
Sorry, I’ve yet to see “the way the world is rather than the way the world should be” reflected in your writing. I see a lot of cherry-picking. In my job that’s called “selective use of data”. I’d be fired for it.
There are no Zimbabweans or Congolese, just as there are no Iraqis. These are all residue of the mess that was created by European colonialism for which we use the collective shorthand “the 3rd World”, a bunch of countries, but no nations.
The most humane thing we can do might be to let them all sort it out for themselves. It will be bloody either way. I doubt that imposing a slightly different Western viewpoint will be any more a panacea than granting independence to fractious political entities, filled with parts of tribes that have never gotten along, designed to be ruled from the top down. Of course, allowing that to happen might interfere with our mineral extraction…
I’d like to see spending come down, too. It probably won’t, though the Blue Team has a much better record of controlling that than the Red Team, reputations notwithstanding. (You’d think a guy who has so much experience with “the way the world is…” would know that.) If we have to have excessive spending, the overall economy is better served by infrastructure work and social programs than by pouring it into the MIC.
Simple Lamont: name one specific example where negotiation has worked in somewhat recent times.
Those ‘residues’ in Afrrica of specific examples I gave were waging brutal war on each other across tribal lines thousands of years before the first European took interest in the area. A study the Zulus alone indicates that. Only difference is Europeans are better documentors of barbarity than they were. Western influence there has always had more impact on stopping the conflicts than making them any worse.
And you think you’d realize that Congress has control of expenditures and, mapping it against the Blue team’s control of that body across the decades, you’d find they have the ultimate responsibility for uncontrolled spending (though the recent red team did little better).
I can imagine much of American history would (finally) be re-examined.
We’ve deluded ourselves for long enough over the Revolution - crying tyranny at the hands of the British and making heroes of slave owners via myth making propaganda.
For white Americans that was fine - it deflected from our more unsavory moments - but the people who suffered as a result of our nation’s birth are obviously going to recognize that far from being the birth of freedom, it merely signaled a different suffering (let us not forget that our ending of slavery came a long time after - gulp - the British). Quite simply, our mythologizing school text books are not fit for purpose and a more vocal black, Hispanic and native population will make sure their story is told.
Whether or not it would eventually lead to fireworks on “Emancipation Day” - a far better milestone in American freedom - I don’t know, but I, a white American, would certainly think some welcome changes are on their way.