Does Obama's administration represent the last gasp of progressivism, or a rebirth?

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Tuesday, November 13. 2012

Does Obama's administration represent the last gasp of progressivism, or a rebirth?

Charles Kesler wonders. At Forbes: Barack Obama's Election And The Looming Crisis Of Liberalism:

President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society represents the third great Progressive wave. With the liberal label firmly in place, the goal was now qualitative – to rescue liberalism from the materialism of the New Deal and to empower government to add meaning to the lives of the average person. The Great Society would end poverty and assure abundance for all. But, that was no longer enough. As Johnson explained: “’But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destination where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.’”

What followed was a cultural revolution and a fundamental change in the relationship between the people and the federal government...

As I asked ex-Gov. Mario Cuomo some years ago, "What's next on the liberal agenda after government medical care?"

Posted by The News Junkie in Our Essays, Politics at 15:56 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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"Does Obama's administration represent the last gasp of progressivism, or a rebirth?"

Does it matter? When the Lackwit is done, there won't be any America left to worry about that question.

"What's next on the liberal agenda after government medical care?"

That's easy. An inventory of everything you own or rent, including your living space. If you have more of anything than is "fair," it will be confiscated. If you have less, the government will make up the difference. All will be equal in all possible material ways.

#1 wolfwalker on 2012-11-13 18:30 (Reply)

This is a big subject, and Barack Obama a very small man. I think the project of the Left has as its end point simply being in power — or winning. Giving governmental goodies to people is supposed to make them feel noble about making life better for poor people, while pursuing power for its own sake.

Obama's recent campaign was based entirely on lies— real whoppers — about his own accomplishments, about Mitt Romney, and about his appeal to low-information voters to get them to the polls. His first term was based on his own description of his accomplishments: the financial crisis was Bush's fault, it was the worst crisis since the Great Depression. He created 4.5 million jobs, the economy is recovering, and he just needs more time. Republicans believe in trickle-down economics and that's what got us in this mess in the first place. He bailed out the auto industry, killed bin Laden, decimated al Qaeda, and is some kind of foreign -policy genius.

Can he possibly believe this crap? Every bit of this is false, including killing bin Laden, the SEALS did, he just signed the order after waffling for a year. But he repeated this litany for four years, and the people eventually believed, and perhaps he did too.

I don't know if ObamaCare will survive. As a policy or as law, it is an unworkable mess. It doesn't pay for itself, the exchanges won't work, shoving everyone on Medicaid won't work because there are no doctors who will see Medicaid patients, and too many of them anyway. The UK and Canada are much smaller than the US and less rebellious. The most expense comes in seniors' final years, so they're setting it up to bump them off early. I don't know that Dodd-Frank is much better. These Lefties know so little about economics, unintended consequences, and incentives that they really aren't capable of writing decent law.

I admit it. I'm still uptight about the election, worried about the future, and angry about the messages that conservatives seem to think they have received. We should all go on sabbatical for a month or so, and try to recover our equanimity.

#2 The Elephant's Child (Link) on 2012-11-13 19:02 (Reply)

The cycle always continues. Informal tribal volk moots become formal democracies, which create republics, which decay into corruption, vote buying and voting for goodies, which mutate into fascism or empire, which is conquered or degrades into savagery, which further degrades into tribalism, and eventually one tribe dominates, and, ... here we go again!

Did we in the west really believe that our fates would differ from that of the people of Ozymandias?

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Never mind that bastard Obama, I mean Ozymandias, think of his poor, miserable, people.

#3 Fred Z on 2012-11-13 20:11 (Reply)

Tough to read this article when it distorts an early truth, Wilson was not the first progressive president, TR was. TR held the same beliefs that the author ascribes to Wilson.

TR used the term progressive for himself. He divided the Republican party b/c Taft wasn't "progressive enough".

TR was also a pragmatist, in the same mold as the current GOP. He could break the rules b/c he could keep himself under control. Never any forethought to what the other guys would do once they got into power, and didn't have the same self-restraint.

In contrast, our founding fathers recognized the need for checks-and-balances, and restrictions on government. They knew that every situatio was a "crisis" that just demanded breaking the rules, just this once. They knew better, and made it the rigid law of the land not go that route. TR defied them, and set the US on a downward spiral.

#4 DrTorch on 2012-11-14 08:50 (Reply)

Civil war.

#5 asdf on 2012-11-14 09:42 (Reply)

Recount OR throw out the results and revote, OR impeach.

#6 GoneWithTheWind on 2012-11-14 09:50 (Reply)

"What's next on the liberal agenda after government medical care?"

Further tyranny of the populace, downgrade from Citizen to prole or serf, and the removal of the Great Experiment of 1776 to the ashcan of history (even removal of it entirely).

Its been the goal of the progressive element to enact this, or, more correctly, to take us back (more like retreat) to power held by a select few, and total subservience of the populace\masses to the select few (lords). Providing 'equality' across the board - its more like shared misery to everybody, but the select few.

It was a profound notion that 'all men are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness', and one the power-holders have schemed to subvert, diminish, and remove at every opportunity.

#7 Fred Zeppelin on 2012-11-14 10:52 (Reply)

Just had my hair done in a cheapo place in Queens. There were three immigrants (Colombia, Italy and Middle Eastern) and me there. All four of us horrified by the election. The Colombian lady told me she couldn't sleep since the election. The Turkish guy said maybe he'd move back to Turkey. Etc.

I was really surprised. I don't think these are the kinds of voters who read blogs. But they are hard-working people, and they were horrified. We all agreed that we can't stop thinking about it, that it has upset us like no other election.

#8 Park Slope Pubby on 2012-11-14 13:48 (Reply)

Park Slope - I think they are horrified because they came here for the opportunites that this country used to offer and now they see those opportunities slipping away from their children and grandchildren. The sacrifices they made seem to have been for nothing . . .

#8.1 Charles on 2012-11-14 14:56 (Reply)

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Tuesday, November 13. 2012

Does Obama's administration represent the last gasp of progressivism, or a rebirth?