The presidency that saved America
Peter Heck - Guest Columnist - 12/6/2010 9:50:00 AM
In 50 years I have little doubt that we will regard the administration of Barack Obama as the presidency that saved America. No, not in the sense that Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and all the other media John the Baptists foretold as they proclaimed the coming of our political messiah just over two years ago. Rather, the history of our time will show that it was the radical nature of Obama's dogged devotion to a liberal progressive philosophy far out of the American mainstream that jolted awake a generation of apathetic and passive citizens just in time to save the republic.
Though that apathy has always been inexcusable, it was at least
understandable. Our politics had become more theater than
substance. In fact, voters reasonably began to view their choices
at the ballot box as something akin to picking between airline food
and hospital food: bland, insipid, uninspiring.
For all their posturing and crowing, the two parties had largely
become mere reflections of one another. Seriously, how different
was Bill Clinton's "triangulation" and George W. Bush's
"compassionate conservatism?" Candidates of either party who
showed convictions contrary to the Washington establishment
and challenged that establishment's control were labeled radical,
and every attempt was made to marginalize them.
But Barack Obama changed all of that. For the last two years,
the president has unleashed the most aggressively left-wing
agenda he could muster. When the electorate began a backlash
against his revolutionary designs at town halls and tea parties, he
ignored them. And when they rejected his ideology by throwing
his party out of power by historic proportions in the midterm
elections, he pretended not to notice.
All this makes little sense to those attempting to view Obama's
presidency through the conventional prism of political leadership.
But Obama is not a conventional politician. He is a radical
ideologue. Obama is not a leader. He is a bitter partisan. And as
odd as it sounds, that is exactly what this country needed.
It has been generations since Americans have been exposed to
a more vivid depiction of the significant differences between the
left's and the right's views of this country and its future. The
delineation between conservative and liberal had grown
hopelessly blurred to a majority of citizens. But Obama and his
leftist cabal have been successful not only in demonstrating the
frightening vision progressive liberals have of making America into
a European-style socialist state, but they have also managed to
animate a vast conservative majority that has laid painfully
dormant since the mid 1980s.
The distinction is glaring, and even for those who normally avoid
politics, impossible to miss.
While Americans watch conservative Republicans like Eric Cantor
explain that raising taxes on any citizens in the midst of a recession
(particularly those who are being relied upon to invest and expand
businesses to create jobs) is foolish, they see President Obama
proclaim that "we can't afford" not to raise taxes on a group of
citizens he determines are too wealthy.
Besides the glaring proof this offers of the left's obsession with
using divisive class warfare to gain power, it also reveals a
notable difference in philosophy. While conservatives like
Cantor believe money belongs first to the citizen and is
confiscated by government, leftists like Obama believe money
belongs first to the government. That government then lets
select citizens keep some of it...if and only if government
"can afford" to be so generous.
Further, when Americans open their newspapers, they are
greeted with the wise counsel of Obamabots like Tom Friedman
and Paul Krugman. Friedman's recent piece in The New York
Times called the tea party movement "narrow and uninspired"
while touting that, "We need to raise gasoline and carbon taxes
to discourage their use and drive the creation of a new clean
energy industry." Krugman, meanwhile, laments that the waste
of nearly one trillion taxpayer dollars on a government spending
bill meant to stimulate a still stagnant economy wasn't enough,
and should be followed up with an even bigger second stimulus.
Everywhere they turn, Americans see that the left is offering
higher taxes, less freedom, more debt and regulation. They
simultaneously see the right offering lower taxes, freer markets
and fiscal sanity.
Voters' first opportunity to choose between those two visions
occurred in the 2010 midterms. Their preference was
unmistakable – to everyone, that is, except Barack Obama. His
recent pronouncement that, "It would be unwise to assume [the
voters] prefer one way of thinking over another," reconfirmed
that the president and his cohorts have no desire whatsoever
to alter course, and instead will spend the next two years
butting heads with the newly elected conservative majority.
This conflict is sure to make the distinction between the left
and the right all the more clear to an engaged American public.
And with a 2012 election cycle that already sees Democrats
poised to face even more devastating Congressional losses
(they are defending far more Senate seats than Republicans,
and could lose upward of 30 House seats due to redistricting),
Obama's persistent, unapologetic left-wing crusade is shaping
up to be the political equivalent to Pickett's Charge.
In the end, the era of Obama will do more damage to the
progressive left than any Republican presidency could have
ever done. For that, posterity will owe him a debt of gratitude.
Peter Heck (peter@peterheck.com) hosts a two-hour, daily call-in radio
program on WIOU (1350 AM) in Kokomo, Indiana. "The Peter Heck Show"
comments on social and political issues -- and doesn't shy away from
recognizing how faith influences politics.