I believe, against my hope for a McCain victory, that Obama will win and will win significantly, if not by a landslide, both in the popular vote and in the electoral college. The question to be asked of an Obama presidency is whether Obama would govern from the center or from the Left.
Two factors suggest that he would govern from the Left. First, the progressivist/Left Congressional coalition would dominate the House and perhaps the Senate. Together with the media and the progressivist think tanks, they would compel Obama to govern from the Left, if he wants to get anything done. Second, Obama feels most comfortable, intellectually, culturally, and politically, in the Left. Both his first and second natures are instinctively Left. He will respond positively to pulls from the progressivist/Left coalition.
If he governs from the Left, as I expect he would, if the election goes as I expect it will, there will be a revolution of collectivism in America, with three parts:
1. The Affirmative Action cultural revolution.Obama will lead the consolidation of the Affirmative Action culture and its expansion to all sectors of American life. The purpose of this revolution will be to bring final, explicit legal protection of Affirmative Action groups as privileged groups in American society. They will have unequal, special protection of the law in all sectors of American life. Obama's desire that Federal judges and justices should meet the empathy test is an indication of how seriously he intends to modify traditional equality of status before the law. If you do not remember, he proposed that judges and justices should have special empathy for victims of discrimination, for the disadvantaged, and for members of groups who suffered historic discrimination.
Expect a national service mandate for all youths, in which they will be taught the central ideas of the Affirmative Action culture.
Free speech will be curtailed; it will not be legal to criticize laws that protect this new class of privilege or to espouse certain politically unacceptable positions, such as repeal of affirmative action policies in, e.g., college admissions. It will not be legal to espouse certain ideas, such as that Islam is as a religion tied to violence.
Expect symbolic and real expressions of cultural collectivism. Expect Congress to pass a resolution officially apologizing for America's (historical) slavery. Then expect Congress to appropriate money to compensate the descendents of slaves for the expropriation of wealth their slave ancestors experienced in slavery.
The Affirmative Action revolution will establish America, legally, as a class society, with--of course--the Left in charge (see #2, below).
2. The Left political revolution. Here is political wisdom: "Politics is a contact sport." But that saying, which establishes the brutality of electoral politics, only pertains to the case in which all parties recognise and accept that opposition to the victor and/or the dominant political party is legitimate. The Left does not abide by this wisdom. The Left believes that its political philosophy is the only correct and legitimate philosophy. And when in power, the Left believes that opposition to its power is illegimate. The Left's political wisdom is: "Politics is a death sport." The Left tolerates opposition only as a preliminary procedure in which it permits opponents of Left policies and philosophy to recognize their errors and join the Left and, also, permits rivals and opponents inside the Left to renounce their errors and retire. In the end, the Left destroys its opponents; and, if destruction, political impotence, and ignominy are insufficient, it kills its opponents.
Expect the progressive/Left coalition in Congress to attack and destroy ousted Republican Party politicians and high appointees. Expect hearings, writs of subpoena, bullied testimony, fifth amendment pleadings, criminal prosecutions, convictions, prison sentences. Expect honorable men and women to be driven to suicide by unfair, unjust, and vicious public attacks.
Using hearings, the Democratic Party will legalize its narrative of the crimes of its Republican opponents and the rightness of its ascendency, its legitimacy, and its use of power.
Expect laws to written and re-written to criminalize policies, decisions, and careers; expect efforts to apply such laws retroactively, regardless of the unconstitutionality of such actions.
Expect the Democratic Party to enlarge its voting majority by reforming immigration laws, opening the borders, and offering rapid naturalization to illegal immigrants; and by extending the voting rights to noncitizens.
These efforts will move the US significantly toward a one-party state.
3. The social democracy revolution. The extent of the social democracy revolution depends, most likely, upon two factors. The first is the severity of the coming recession. If it is very deep, with the national unemployment rate above 12 percent, if housing prices don't stop falling, and if the American manufacturing sector is in peril, then support for social democracy revolution will be widespread. The second factor is the electoral strength of the progressivist/Left coalition. If they command a significant minority in the House and Senate, then they will be able to push forward the legislation needed for the revolution. If they have a veto-proof majority in Congress, Obama will have green lights all the way through the revolution.
The progressivist/Left coalition will socialize, or nationalize, if you will, major features of American life. For the Left, "socialism" means social or public ownership of property; in practice, public ownership is governmental ownership. To accomplish such socialism, expect rights of private property and the sanctity of contract to be curtailed. If Obama gets to appoint a few new Supreme Court justices, expect the high court to approve diminution of these constitutional rights.
A single payer health care system will be an objective, for instance, perhaps by extending Medicare to every American and compelling, say within five years, everyone to join. This system would eliminate private medical care, private insurers, and private decisions about how individuals might pursue healthy living (expect more laws similar to laws banning trans-fats). Such a revolution in health care would be unpopular in normal times; the question is, how normal will times be? If half of American families lose their health insurance because of unemployment or inability of employers to continue coverage, expect them to support compulsory, single-payer, national health insurance.
Education will be the second arena of nationalization of American life. Expect all local and state public education--funding, standards, curriculum, teaching--to be nationalized. Major players in education are in favor of such a revolution, in particular, the Gates Foundation, on grounds of improving education for economic competitiveness, i.e., in the name of national security.
Additional support for nationalization of education comes from a deep animus toward local life and rural life in the American Left. The conservatism and custom of local life and rural life are major bulwarks against nationalization. From the perspective of the Left, however, local and rural society have no legitimacy. Rural life is the life of idiots; it was so to Marx, to the Communists, and is to the Left today. Nothing annoys the Left like the obstinacy of a "peasant".
It is not impossible that the Left would try to disallow private education; but my guess is that elites would object too strenuously to nationalization of prestigious prep schools and the ivy league.
Selective industries will be nationalized. The American auto industry will be the first political test case of industrial nationalization. If protectionism gets the upper hand in an Obama administration, then we might see nationalization and expansion of an industry such as steel.
Expect efforts to nationalize private pensions, as means of shoring up Social Security, as is proposed in Argentina. The major industries with heavy pension and health care commitments would favor these burdens be removed from their shoulders. This nationalization can be done without ending private retirement investment by creating national pension security pools, much as we have had national mortgage risk pools.
In conclusion, the progressivist/Left domestic and political agendas will revolutionalize American life. If Obama would govern from the Left. Would he have the capability of resisting this revolution? Why should he? It is the direction in which other Left political parties have taken their nation when in power. It is the direction that holds many of the ideas he espoused and worked for his entire adult life.
Revised.
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