"Hope and Change" or "What Brung Them, Part IV."

I was drinking with Darryl of Hominid Views two nights ago when Darryl asked why there was so much complaining about the Obama administration. He pointed out that the administration had made good on all that Obama had promised.

I think it's buyer's remorse. The public had seen their own hopes for change in Obama's "hope and change" campaign rhetoric. Obama does not seem to realize that the public would see Obama as embodying their own hopes for change. This, Obama has not delivered. Hasn't even tried to find out how the public interpreted the message, as far as I can tell. Once Obama was in power, it was same-old same-old, even as the economy tanked, the USA lost in Afghanistan, oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, and torture became a norm of policing practice.

I am reminded of Clark Clifford's account of the Truman administration (Clifford was Truman's solicitor general), when authoritarian policies became the rule for the next decade. The liberals were right, but they were silenced for 10 years, as the USA went through one of its authoritarian periods and--unprecedented in US history--the military did not stand down. 70 years later, the military has not stood down, though a huge standing army tempts our militarists into expensive, pointless wars, and the concentration on military production hollows out our civilian economy, just as it did in the Soviet Union.

The Democrats may or may not do well in the next election. Midterm elections are usually bad for the party in power and right now the Democrats are polling abysmally. Darryl (a demographer) and I suspect that the Dems will pick up quite a few votes before the elections: despite huge infusions of cash from the far right, the Tea Party Republicans aren't very popular. But whether or not they do, remember: whatever hope and change comes from the Democrats will come from their despised and marginalized left.

Croak of the Day: Brad Delong on Labor and Labor Day

Here.

WtF, Obama?

As a result of Ian Welsh's discussion of Obama's failings on Virtually Speaking (you can hear it here, and read the article it was based on here) and further discussions with an SL friend, I ended up wondering how it is that Obama can make excellent cabinet and judicial appointments like Stephen Chu and Sonia Sotomayor, and yet make such awful decisions on the economy, civil rights, and war and peace. I came to a couple of tentative conclusions. First, is that Obama is better at picking people than he is at understanding policy. At some level it is as if he thinks that the jaw-jaw of politics is more real than the tangible results in the lives of the public. Second, It seems that he cares more about the Supreme Court and the Department of Energy than he does about the economy, the military, and whether or not people who want jobs can get them, and what those jobs consist of. I have rather the impression that Obama is paying his best attention to things he cares the most about, and letting the Democratic Party's conservative leadership make the rest of the decisions.

I don't think this is a effective way to be President. It is much more typical of successful Senators. Whether or not November is going to be a disaster for the Democrats, as some polling says (for instance, here), it is a deeply unpopular and undemocratic way to govern.

Obama: Reviving Conservatism

I think that Obama is working to revive moderate conservatism. But conservatism was intellectually bankrupt by the time of the Reagan administration. Even its economics, formerly its intellectually strongest area, has been discredited. There is no way to do to revive conservatism--it is dead. Obama has brought something to life, but it is a zombie. As the moderate conservative policies have failed, which they have consistently done, the Democrats prove unable to abandon the failed policies, and align themselves more and more with the radical reactionaries, and cause more and more pain.

Barack H.H. Obama. Who knew?

[Revised for clarity 2010.09.07]

"The hope that I saw is a prince of Hed?"

One source of hope seems to me likely to be the South. In ten years time, the BP oil disaster, and perhaps other environmental failures, will probably radicalize the South. A green South? How surreal!

Deadlock

[based on my comment on Brad Delong's journal]

I think US national policy has returned to its habitual deadlock. It's not clear to me that this deadlock will be broken in less than a decade. Obama is not likely to be succeeded by someone more liberal, after all, and, while there are some promising new liberal Senators, it will take years before they develop real power.

I am trying to imagine a ten-year depression. It is hard even to think about it. And yet--what will prevent it?

Blogging has been sparse lately. I have started a new job and have far less time to spend on amateur political science. I have several longer pieces I am interested in writing, but I have little heart for it. If we are, as seems to me likely, entering a ten-year period of political deadlock and economic stagnation, then I am writing for the long-term, and it seems to me I can make more difference doing other things.

Croak on the New Aristocrats

It is not enough, seemingly, to be rich and powerful beyond the wildest dreams of any wealthy class in previous history: the new aristocrats must reduce all who are not members of their class to abject poverty.