[Peace-discuss] About Obama: Nostradamus bis.

[Brussel Morton K.]

The following rather long article spells out what may lie before us in  
this nation, a painful and perhaps disastrous prospect. Concurring in  
what the author says leads will probably lead to a deep pessimism. One  
aspect not included in this indictment is the deep criminality that  
Obama's been causing to others around the globe.

David Michael Green is a political scientist.

Read it. The many comments  to this article, at

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/05-5

are also interesting.

--mkb
Published on Saturday, September 5, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
After Obama
by CommonDreams.org
by David Michael Green
Eight months into it, it now seems pretty clear that the Obama  
administration is finished.

There were some of us -- indeed, many of us, myself included -- who  
thought there was a possibility that Barack Obama might seize this  
moment of American crisis, twinned with the complete failure for all  
to see of the regressive agenda, to become the second coming of  
Franklin Roosevelt.

Many think that was a naïve position from the get-go.  I disagree.   
Not only do I believe that it was a legitimate possibility, I would  
argue that it was the logical choice even just from the narrow  
perspective of Obama's personal fortunes.  The president is every day  
committing political suicide by a thousand cuts because he chose not  
to take that track.

That's certainly his prerogative, and at this point I wish him all the  
worst of luck in whatever comes next.  Since I never assumed he would  
be a progressive once elected, any bitterness that I feel is not  
rooted in his failure to become the new FDR.  However, I am irate  
that, in domain after domain, President Obama has become the  
personification of the very Bush administration policies that  
Candidate Obama so roundly criticized.  And I feel deep hostility  
toward him about the betrayal of legions of voters -- especially the  
young -- who believed his message of hope and thought they were  
getting a president on their side, not Wall Street's.

More on that in another column.  Right now, the question is what comes  
next?  The Obama presidency is probably already toast, though of  
course anything can happen in three or seven years.  But he is on a  
crash course for a major clock cleaning and, what's worse, he doesn't  
seem to have it remotely within him to seize history by the horns and  
steer that bull in his preferred direction.  Indeed, near as I can  
tell, he doesn't even have a preferred direction.

Obama was complete fool if he ever believed for a moment that his  
campfire kumbaya act was going to bring the right along behind him.   
Even s'mores wouldn't have helped.  These foaming-at-the-mouth  
lunatics have completely lost all sense and proportion, and were bound  
to viscerally hate any president left of Cheney, let alone some black  
guy in their white house.  Meanwhile, centrist voters in this country  
seem pretty much only to care about taxes and spending, and so he's  
lost them, too, without the slightest rhetorical fight in his own  
defense.  And he's blown off a solid progressive base by spitting in  
their eyes at every imaginable opportunity, beginning with the  
formation of his cabinet, ranging through every policy decision from  
civil rights to civil liberties to foreign policy to healthcare, and  
culminating with his choice not to even mobilize his email database in  
support of his policies.

So if he's lost the left, right and center, just who does he think is  
going to be clamoring to give him a second term three years from now,  
especially if the economy remains lousy for most people in the  
country, as it's likely to do regardless of GDP or Dow Jones growth?

There is the possibility that Obama could change course significantly,  
just as Bill Clinton did in 1995, following the mid-term election in  
which his most astute political stewardship managed to turn both  
houses of Congress over to the Republican Party.  But Clinton turned  
to the right and became just a less snarly version of the Republicans,  
while Obama is already there.  I don't really think he could  
conceivably turn further rightward at this point, and I don't think he  
has anywhere near the guts to turn to the left and do what he should  
have done in the first place.

What all this suggests to me is that Obama and his party will manage  
by 2012 to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and return the GOP  
-- and probably an even nastier version of it than the Bush-Cheney  
junta, at that -- to power.  It suggests that the Democrats, who were  
riding high six months ago over an all but destroyed Republican Party,  
will be switching places with them within three years time, if not  
sooner -- and all because of their own cowardice, corruption and  
ineptitude.  This outcome is hardly inevitable, but it is fast  
approaching.  Looking out over the horizon, I see five key factors  
most likely to effect the health and longevity of the Obama  
administration, and not one of them looks positive.

The eight-hundred pound gorilla rummaging around in the kitchen right  
now is the economy.  Indeed, this factor alone could readily swamp the  
combined effect of all the others, particularly if it swings  
dramatically in one direction or another.  My guess, as a non- 
economist (which, of course, only means that I have a better shot at  
an accurate prediction than the economists do), is that the economy  
will exhibit some substantial signs of growth over the next three  
years.  But I suspect the recovery will be tepid, even according to  
establishment measures such as GDP growth or the state of the Dow.   
More importantly, I strongly suspect that this will be another jobless  
recovery, like the last ones we've had, and that the new mean standard  
of living for the middle class will be pretty mean indeed,  
significantly diminished compared to what people were already  
struggling to hold on to when the Great Recession began.  Personally,  
I think if American history teaches us anything at all about  
presidential elections, it is that for an incumbent president this is  
more or less the worst possible scenario imaginable upon which to go  
asking the public to punch his ticket again.  Americans vote their  
pocketbook, and that alone is likely to be the kiss of death for  
Obama's second term aspirations.

Meanwhile, of course, he's also chosen to put healthcare reform on the  
table as the signature legislative initiative probably of his entire  
presidency.  That's fine, but watching him in action I sometimes  
wonder if this clown really and actually wants a second term.  I mean,  
if you had asked me in January, "How could Obama bungle this program  
most thoroughly?", I would have written a prescription that varies  
little from what we've observed over the last eight months:  Don't  
frame the issue, but instead let the radical right backed by greedy  
industry monsters do it, on the worst possible terms for you.  And to  
you.  Don't fight back when they say the most outrageous things about  
your plan.  In fact, don't even have a plan.  Let Congress do it.   
Better yet, let the by-far-and-away-minority party have an equal voice  
in the proceedings, even if they ultimately won't vote for the bill  
under any circumstances, and even while they're running around  
trashing it and you in the most egregious terms.  Have these savages  
negotiate with a small group of right-wing Democrats, all of them  
major recipients of industry campaign donations.  Blow off your base  
completely.  Cut secret sweetheart deals with the Big Pharma and Big  
Insurance corporate vampires.  Build a communications strategy around  
a series of hapless press conferences and town hall meetings, waiting  
until it's too late to give a major speech on the issue.  Set a  
timetable for action and then let it slip.  Indicate what you want in  
the bill but then be completely unclear about whether you necessarily  
require those things.  Travel all over the world doing foreign policy  
meet-and-greets.  Go on vacation in the heat of the battle.  Rinse and  
repeat.

Altogether, it's an astonishingly perfect recipe for getting rolled,  
so much so that I'm not the first person to have wondered out loud if  
that was actually the president's intention all along.  Look at this  
freaking fool.  Now look at the guy who ran a letter-perfect,  
disciplined, textbook, insurgent, victorious campaign for the White  
House.  Can they possibly be the same person?  And, since they  
obviously are, is there possibly another explanation for this disaster  
besides an intentional boot?  I dunno.  But what I do know is this.   
Obama's very best-case scenario for healthcare legislation right now  
represents a ton of lost votes in 2010 and 2012.  And the worse that  
scenario gets, the worse he and his party do.  But even a ‘success' in  
the months ahead will produce a tepid bill, a mistrustful public, an  
inflamed and unanswered radical right, and a mealy-mouthed new  
government program that doesn't even begin to go online until 2013.  A  
real vote-getter that, eh?

Which brings us to a third major electoral liability for Obama.  Human  
beings, by and large, like to be led.  They like their leaders to  
inspire their confidence -- even when doing so takes the form of the  
most fantastically shallow dress-up kind of blowhard buffonery, à la  
George W. Bush -- so that they don't have to think too much about how  
little personal confidence they themselves actually possess.  Obama is  
the complete antithesis of this model of the presidency.  He is Harry  
Reid's incontinent grandmother as president.  He is Neville  
Chamberlain's squirrely little nephew knocking shit over in the Oval  
Office while he plays "Mr. President", in-between episodes of  
SpongeBob SquarePants.  He is a bowl of Jell-O.  That someone forgot  
to put in the fridge.  He exhibits no competence as a chief  
executive.  He inspires no confidence as a national leader.  And,  
increasingly, his credibility is coming into question.  Who wants to  
vote for that?

A related problem is that he loves to flash that big toothy grin of  
his right before his venomous adversaries knock his choppers back into  
his head.  I'm trying to imagine what a wimpier president would look  
like, and having a very hard time coming up with an answer.  I'm  
trying to imagine how the regressive right could possibly bathe their  
country's president in a more acidic pool of vitriol, and I'm having a  
difficult time topping their assertions that he's out to kill the  
elderly while simultaneously indoctrinating grade-schoolers into the  
ranks of the Revolutionary Spartacist League.  I'm trying to conceive  
of how vacant a White House could possibly be of any whiff of push- 
back against these assaults, and I can't quite envision it.  Maybe if  
they went out and did some real scandals and filmed it all as a gift  
for the GOP?  Perhaps they could dig up Vince Foster's body and murder  
him all over again, this time on video?  Or they could hire Ken Starr  
to just run amok in the White House for a few years, looking for  
anything remotely juicy?   But could Obama's Keystone Kops even do a  
scandal properly?  I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confident the public  
is losing trust in this guy as their Big Daddy Protector.  Who in  
America would vote for this eunuch to be in charge of keeping their  
little suburban Happy Meal-stuffed brats safe from tawny evil-doers  
with bad intentions?

As if all that weren't enough, Obama is probably also sitting on  
several national security powder kegs - including Guantánamo, which he  
is unlikely to close;  Iraq, which he is unlikely to leave;  and  
Afghanistan, which he is unlikely to win.  The latter in particular  
has now become his war, and lately it is smelling a lot like Vietnam,  
circa 1964.  An decades-long struggle against a popular nationalist  
adversary.  Endless calls from the Pentagon for more troops.   
Incredibly inhospitable terrain for fighting a war.  An American-made  
puppet government hated for its corruption and for its gross  
incompetence at every task other than raw predation.  Mmmm-mmm.  What  
a yummy stew.  Haven't dined on that fine cuisine since 1975.  And  
what another great vote-getter to add to this sorry list, eh?

Put it all together and it's pretty hard to see how Obama gets a  
second term.  Which can mean only one thing:  We're looking at a  
Romney or a Palin or some sort of similar monster as the next  
president, despite the fact that their party was absolutely loathed  
only a year ago, and actually still is today.  It won't matter.   
People will be voting against the incumbent, not for any candidate,  
and that will leave only one viable choice, especially for centrist  
and right-wing voters.  Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be  
the next president, crushing Obama in the general election (assuming  
he survives the Democratic primaries).  And that's a particularly  
scary notion, since the party's voting base who will make that choice  
in the Republican primaries is the same crowd you've seen featured all  
this summer at town hall meetings.  Olympia Snowe is not going to be  
the Republican nominee in 2012.  Know what I mean?

So the question then becomes, what next?  What happens after Obama?

I see two possible general paths going forth from that point -- one  
bad, and one worse.  The bad path would involve a frustrated but  
essentially beaten-into-submission public oscillating between  
incompetent Republican and Democratic administrations, turning one  
after the other out of office -- not on ideological grounds, but  
instead seeking any change that has the possibility of stanching the  
empire's hemorrhaging wounds.  This would look a fair bit like Japan  
or Britain does today.  The former just replaced its government and  
the latter will likely do so next spring.  But I don't think either of  
these major party shifts are really ideological in nature, and I don't  
think either new government is likely to be hugely different from the  
one it succeeded.

But Americans seem to me especially piggish critters these days, and  
the benign model that is sufficient to placate disgruntled citizens of  
long-lost empires may not suffice to soothe the savage soul of Yanquis  
still deep in the process of watching theirs crumble around their  
feet.  That moves us from the bad path to the worse.  Given what the  
American public is capable of happily countenancing during relatively  
flush times (can you say "Reagan"?  "Bush"?), imagine what could  
happen when spoiled Baby Boomers go to the polls under conditions  
approaching the 1930s.

Such a crisis could conceivably entail a sharp turn to the left, and  
in every rational country certainly would.  But this is America.  We  
pretty much don't go anywhere near socialism, at least not overtly,  
and in any given decade -- especially the recent ones -- we're lucky  
to get away with anything less than creeping fascism.  Moreover,  
elections are almost always reactions to the status quo.  Since Obama  
is ridiculously -- but nevertheless widely -- perceived as a liberal,  
the reaction is all the more likely to involve a sharp turn to the  
right in response.

Under this scenario, anything portside of Torquemada would be buried  
alive if not annihilated, and the next regime would likely be one that  
could make Dick Cheney shudder.  And that's the happy side of the  
equation.  If history is any guide, a nifty (not so) little war could  
only be right around the corner, for the helpful purpose of jump- 
starting the economy, crushing the domestic opposition, and  
distracting the public from that pesky nuisance once affectionately  
referred to as ‘reality'.

I don't want to lay odds on which of these outcomes is the more  
likely, but I feel pretty confident, I'm sad to say, that any happier  
scenario is considerably less likely than either of these.  For a lot  
of reasons, America's near-term future looks bleak to me, and this  
country -- which already has a remarkable tendency to make dangerously  
foolish and sickeningly selfish political choices -- is altogether too  
likely to do something that would make the Bush years look like a  
scene from a Norman Rockwell canvas by comparison.

This tragedy, if it comes, will have many sires who share  
responsibility for driving America from Republican red to fascist  
black.  But on that list must certainly be included the powder blue of  
the effete Obama administration that came in between.

Rahm Emanuel once famously averred that "You never want a serious  
crisis to go to waste.  And what I mean by that is an opportunity to  
do things you think you could not do before."

I don't really believe that corporate-controlled fascism is what he  
had in mind when he said that.

But, who knows?  Maybe that's exactly what he was thinking.

Or -- perhaps most likely of all -- maybe nobody at 1600 Pennsylvania  
Avenue is doing much thinking whatsoever these days.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra  
University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions  
to his articles (mailto:dmg at regressiveantidote.net ), but regrets that  
time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work  
can be found at his website,www.regressiveantidote.net .


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