This President doesn’t see it clearly yet, but he is no longer in charge of the country’s agenda. The truth is no President ever is. It is the People who are in charge. This was the Founding Fathers’ vision. Indeed they foresaw and warned us of the dangers of Presidents and Congresses who would usurp these powers.
The President and his supporters, deaf to the People and drunk with their vision of the New America, actually think they see light at the end of the tunnel: when in fact the light they see is the head lamp of a freight train : the American People intent on taking back what is rightly their constitutional birthright –liberty from a tyrannical government.
Obama’s recent State of the Union address, falling so closely on the heels of the Massachusetts Miracle, provided an opportunity for him to demonstrate some understanding that his agenda is failing everywhere. Yet instead, he insisted loudly and drearily that it was the People who were not getting it. So like a man in a strange country not knowing the local language, he yelled louder believing that volume makes for better translation and comprehension.
How is it possible he and his supporters can be this tone deaf? The simplest explanation is that they do not share the same experiences of the MAJORITY of the people they were elected to represent. Really, how could he? This President rose to his place through Affirmative Action and working the wards of Chicago to shake money from the government entitlement tree for targeted voting blocs. He has never run a business, and perhaps has never even balanced a checkbook. He has had few days without a guaranteed government paycheck.
This is not the experience of the vast majority of Americans. With much of America unemployed or underemployed and reeling from the triple shocks of the 2008 stock market, devastated home prices and reduced incomes, they are in no mood for a bloated bureaucracy telling them to sign up for every idiotic stimulus, entitlement, cap/trade and health care program that serves only to further weaken their financial well being.
The problem for the President is that he thinks the differences he has with the People are a matter of policy that can be worked out with a little political legerdemain and horse trading. The truth is they lie far deeper: they are cultural and the economy is making this ever clearer. When times were good, the American People were happy and dumb enough to go along with every entitlement giveaway. Reason? They had deep pockets.
Though Americans are by nature generous, they are also keenly attuned to the idea of fairness and personal responsibility. With the economy showing no signs of making any new jobs or increasing asset prices, Americans are running out of money and becoming angrier at the largess bestowed on government employees and those living on entitlement programs.
Whether it is fact or perception, Americans know that for every truly needy person there are ten more who abuse their taxpayer-financed entitlements, salaries and pensions. In bad economic times, this is a recipe for revolution and change. This is the message the American People are sending and the President is missing. While Bill Clinton didn’t really feel your pain, he at least recognized it existed. This President and his people are clueless. He and his supporters believe that the kind of thinking this writer embraces here is racist and selfish when it is in fact fundamental to something as simple as – fair play.
Barack Obama was right when he said he would remake America. The country is changing, but not in the way he envisioned. The American people, catalyzed by this man, are organizing to move the country 180 degrees in the other direction. They are not interested in policy, they are interested in a culture of fair play. This President is incapable of understanding this and representing this agenda. As a result, he will end up as the President who made history by inciting the Second American Revolution. He is indeed the agent of Hope and Change.