Everything you believe is an Okey Doke invented by Russia, flyover man! The scotch-irish Black man with a funny name and calm Hawaiian exterior is about to persuade you.
This is a great piece and the most damning analysis of Obama I’ve read. It is made so much more so by your restraint in the argument. Thank you for writing and the shout out!
Re: the conclusion on what the right lacks — isn’t trumpism the answer? The flip side of us saying “no” to the “inevitable” effects of globalism is positive, happy outcomes, on which we can base our case! (E.g, No immigration + mass deportation = more affordable housing, space at school, and cheaper medical care; tariffs and scrapping internal regs = more jobs at regional biz and more small biz)
This was the most obnoxious and ever-present Obama-ism: "it's ok to disagree about minutiae, but arguing about facts* is a distraction from doing 'THE WORK'."
That last long quote from Obama demonstrates the fundamental lack of seriousness of the political class on both sides. The president is merely a spokesman in the present arrangement, a slick product of advertising firms meant to assuage the public (which is always and forever merely acted upon). In the same breath that he discusses fundamental changes—the destruction of communities from outsourcing or technological advancement, the demographic replacement of America's heritage population—he offers up as "solutions" things like tax credits or increased spending on (to borrow a phrase) dem programz. Of course, the suggestion that we, e.g., re-industrialize America's heartland, severely curtail immigration . . . these things are beyond the pale of his so-called acceptable discourse. Of course, a great mass of people do not want these things, so perhaps this is democracy manifest, as an eminent scholar once said.
In the final analysis, Obama is probably a Democrat Reagan in that he exemplifies the American, not that sees himself as a foil to the USSR, but rather as a temporarily embarrassed European.
"For Obama, the civil religion is the mechanistic materialism of Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu and not the idealism of national chosenness by a deistic god. It’s Athens and not Israel."
De l'esprit des loix is materialistic? I mean it could be, but I'd check on this. Likewise Athens/Jerusalem is the allusion and maintains the parallelism (as well as the suggestive anglophile undertone via Blake).
This is a great piece and the most damning analysis of Obama I’ve read. It is made so much more so by your restraint in the argument. Thank you for writing and the shout out!
Re: the conclusion on what the right lacks — isn’t trumpism the answer? The flip side of us saying “no” to the “inevitable” effects of globalism is positive, happy outcomes, on which we can base our case! (E.g, No immigration + mass deportation = more affordable housing, space at school, and cheaper medical care; tariffs and scrapping internal regs = more jobs at regional biz and more small biz)
“Trump voters are not being properly conditioned to agree with Obama”. Well said
This was the most obnoxious and ever-present Obama-ism: "it's ok to disagree about minutiae, but arguing about facts* is a distraction from doing 'THE WORK'."
*By the way, I get to decide the facts
That last long quote from Obama demonstrates the fundamental lack of seriousness of the political class on both sides. The president is merely a spokesman in the present arrangement, a slick product of advertising firms meant to assuage the public (which is always and forever merely acted upon). In the same breath that he discusses fundamental changes—the destruction of communities from outsourcing or technological advancement, the demographic replacement of America's heritage population—he offers up as "solutions" things like tax credits or increased spending on (to borrow a phrase) dem programz. Of course, the suggestion that we, e.g., re-industrialize America's heartland, severely curtail immigration . . . these things are beyond the pale of his so-called acceptable discourse. Of course, a great mass of people do not want these things, so perhaps this is democracy manifest, as an eminent scholar once said.
In the final analysis, Obama is probably a Democrat Reagan in that he exemplifies the American, not that sees himself as a foil to the USSR, but rather as a temporarily embarrassed European.
"For Obama, the civil religion is the mechanistic materialism of Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu and not the idealism of national chosenness by a deistic god. It’s Athens and not Israel."
De l'esprit des loix is materialistic? I mean it could be, but I'd check on this. Likewise Athens/Jerusalem is the allusion and maintains the parallelism (as well as the suggestive anglophile undertone via Blake).