Friday, March 23, 2012

Obama's Doppelgänger

Ere Babylon was dust, The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,
Met his own image walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
For know there are two worlds of life and death:
One that which thou beholdest; but the other
Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live
Till death unite them and they part no more

- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Promethius Unbound

A Doppelgänger is a spiritual double of a living person, a mirror image.  Often interpreted as a sinister omen, Shelley's poem anticipated his own death, and indeed he claimed in a letter shortly before his death to have met his own doppelgänger.

Consider the current day, and the current political campaign.   You could fairly describe Barack Obama's 2008 campaign thusly:
  • He represented himself as holding positions other than his core beliefs (running as a moderate and governing as a radical).
  • His view of "flyover" Americans was characterized by unknowing elitism ("clinging to their guns and religion").
  • He made campaign statements that he later contradicted (he could no more renounce Jeremiah Wright than his own family, until he did).
  • His supporters convinced themselves that the most important thing was replacing the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and so wrote their own hopes and dreams onto the blank slate that was the Candidate's very carefully crafted blank image.
It worked, spectacularly well.  Instapundit has coined a term to describe the buyer's remorse afflicting former Obama cheerleaders: hey, rube!

I'm struck by the similarity between the Obama/2008 and Romney/2012 campaigns.  Consider Romney:
  • He represents himself as holding positions other than his core beliefs (running as a conservative after governing Massachusetts as a moderate).  Nobody believes his current positions on Obamacare or Gun Control, not even his supporters.
  • His view of "flyover" Americans is characterized by unknowing elitism (cheesy grits, y'all).
  • He made campaign statements that he later contradicted (compare anything he said in Massachusetts to anything he's said this year).
  • His supporters seemingly have convinced themselves that the most important thing is replacing the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and so are writing their own hopes and dreams onto the blank slate that is Romney's very carefully crafted blank image.
Instapundit also is fond of pointing out that every Obama promise comes with an expiration date.  That would explain the entirety of Romney's flip flops:
  • He was firmly Pro-Choice, but the expiration date has passed and now he's firmly Pro-Life.
  • He was firmly against citizens owning dangerous "Assault Weapons", but the expiration date has passed and now he's firmly in favor of a citizen's right to keep and bear arms (and a lifetime member of the NRA, to boot, at least for the last couple years).
  • He was firmly in favor of the State forcing you to buy something that you don't want and maybe can't afford (health care), but the expiration date has passed and now he's firmly going to repeal Obamacare.
I could go on, but you get the point.

Quite frankly, I don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that Romney would be a better president than his Doppelgänger, particularly if the Stupid Republican Party keeps control of the House and gains control of the Senate. Remember, this is still largely the party of George W. Bush and Harriet Myers, and so is presumptively champing at the bit to go back to the glory days of 2005. A GOP President won't restrain them any more than Bush did. They won't restrain a GOP President, any more than they did Bush.

A Republican Congress with Obama in the White House will be continually at war with each other, and so government will grind to a halt. That's the first benefit. The economy is likely to be no better in 4 years, and so the blame for that would not fall on a first term GOP President. That's the second benefit. Obama will resist all oversight into the EPA, DoJ, TSA, etc, and so a continual drip-drip-drip of government overreach and incompetence can be maintained for years, discrediting the Progressive Agenda. That's the third benefit, burying the liberal corpse at a crossroad with a stake through its heart. Oh, and Obamacare can be defunded, along with the portions of HHS that are responsible for implementing it. If Congress simply doesn't appropriate the funds, you have stopped it. Let Obama veto the budget, shutting down Government, all to save a wildly unpopular bill. A Republican Senate can delay SCOTUS nominations for a full-on Bork-style vetting.

Now, it's perfectly reasonable to say that the GOP are a lot of weaklings, who won't do any of this. I'm quite willing to consider this argument, in fact. But that just makes my case, which is to ask why they should be rewarded with even more uncontrolled power when they haven't demonstrated that they've changed their Bad Old Ways? After all, we're told that the Republic will cease to exist if Obama is re-elected, right? And the Congressional GOP still can't be trusted to rein him in?

I don't trust Romney at all, but think I understand him decently well. I don't trust the Congressional GOP much, but think I understand them decently well. I think I understand Obama decently well. I am a student of history; history tells you about today, if you listen. It will keep you from being surprised, if you listen.

I remain convinced that less damage will accrue to the Republic if we maintain divided government and let the Progressive Vision finish its death throes than to make a huge gamble that the same old crew has learned their lesson. Me, I'll take gridlock.

Stated another way, rather than vote for the fascist, I'll vote for the fascist.

8 comments:

  1. I'm not sure that I like either way, and am not convinced of anything. It may come down to who the VP's are (for example, if Obama ditches Biden for someone like Bloomberg, there is no way in hell I don't vote against them). But I'm sure we're screwed either way, and I'm pretty sure that the velocity as we hit the precipice will be the same either way, so my first point probably doesn't matter anyway...

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  2. I voted for the wookie in the primary, and intend to write him in in November. However, if Slick Willard actually did put Rand Paul -- or even DeMint -- on the ticket, I might burn first-class postage on a vote for Mittens.

    Be even better if he promised Ben Bernanke as a chew toy to the wookie, by giving him Treasury. :-)

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  3. I wonder if the repubs are not deliberately throwing the election?

    Obama made political hay on the economy he 'inherited'. Well now it seems the repubs are hellbent on seeing that he inherits his own mess too!

    Is that level of subterfuge possible?

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  4. I'm all for government gridlock, but that presumes a Congress with the onions to oppose Obama, or a media willing to shine a light on any shenanigans. I've no faith in either.

    Regardless of who gets elected to what, our leaders will happily fly us right into the side of the mountain, throw up their hands and proclaim, "no way anybody could have seen that coming! Re-elect us and we'll fix it!"

    The only remaining question is how much of our liberty we will lose in the process.

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  5. Anon, I lean toward "Congress is stupid", but you make a really interesting point.

    David, that is the risk. But if that's the case, they won't restrain a President Romney. I'd rather be boiled fast than slow.

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  6. Dead wrong.

    Four EXTREMELY important reasons why:

    1. Supreme court justices

    2. Other federal court judges

    3. Executive branch appointees

    4. Executive orders

    Remember, lots of people said the exact same thing about Bush the Elder, and Bob Dole; and so we got 8 years of the Clinton adminstration reshaping the federal administrative and judicial regimes.

    We are now, almost twenty years later, STILL dealing with the problems caused by Clinton appointees.

    We'll be cleaning out Obama appointees for years as it is; we can't afford to give him the chance to screw things up even more.

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  7. Chris, I don't disagree that each of those will be worse under Obama (although the Judges and Justices will be manageable to some degree if the GOP takes the Senate).

    However, I have no confidence that Mittens will be much better. I see him as the second coming of George H. W. Bush - who we can thank for David Souter, who we can thank for Kelo.

    Having watched Romney in Massachusetts, I have no confidence that he will stand up to the media, and so will end up dancing to his tune. This will not only continue the drip-drip-drip attack on our freedoms, but will demoralize conservatives - and possibly split the GOP, giving Democrats another cut at the apple.

    As I've said before, it's better for the frog to boil fast than slow, because we're already seeing a reaction. Until the GOP establishment cares about more than their committee chairmanships, it's simply irresponsible to put them in the White House.

    And BTW (for what it's worth), I don't think that the GOP establishment thinks they can beat Obama.

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