Both Nazi German and Imperial Japan saw themselves as races of Supermen, destined to rule over lesser breeds. Both underestimated their opponents. Both overreached in their ambitions. Both surrendered unconditionally to their foes.
They surrendered because they both lost the will to fight. While some hardliners wanted to fight to the last bullet and baby, the countries and their leadership were exhausted and packed it in. Seventy years of peace resulted.
This was in great contrast to the Great War. A mere two decades after the November Armistice, Neville Chamberlin flew to Munich in a doomed attempt to avoid a second war. What was the difference between World Wars 1.0 and 2.0?
It's because in 2.0 the losers knew that they had lost. They had had enough of what their leaders had gotten them into.
The Czar of Muscovy muses on a surprising poll of
the American public's opinion on post-war Presidents:
Last week, despite the intense suppression of the main stream media, the
generally pro-liberal Quinnipiac polling team released a poll that
asked folks who the best and worst presidents have been in living memory
(since World War II, which is fair enough). The results were
unexpected, at least by the Czar:
...
This chart is a stunning damnation of Obama. Americans have had it: they
want Reagan back. They want his pro-growth programs, his foreign
policy, his leadership. Not Hope and Change: America has finished with
this. And coming in a mid-term election year, this poll just about punts
the Democrats in the crotch.
The Obama Administration is very like the Imperial Japanese War Cabinet: arrogant, sure of their superiority over "lesser breeds" (for example, the ones that you find in Alabama or Oklahoma), convinced that their plans will result in domination and glory for their cause. Indeed, Obama himself is perhaps the best example of the new Intellectual Class - credentialed but not educated, product of ideological indoctrination, thin skinned, dismissive of his opponents.
His "Hope and Change" mission is now revealed to the American People in its complete folly, just as the corruption of Bushido became revealed to the population of Tokyo. Great damage is being done to this Republic and to its people. The Czar continues:
Another item uncovered in the poll: yes, the country has changed its
mind. 54% (a six-point lead) of the country wants Mitt Romney president.
The Czar is beyond pissed about this, since no doubt that 54% more than
includes the millions of Republicans who decided not to vote in 2012
because they were so sure Obama was done for on his own. You stupid
morons. Stupid, stupid, stupid morons.
Here I must disagree with our Autocrat. The Republic was not certain in 2012 that Romney's vision of the world was superior to Obama's. Had Mittens taken up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the poll would have been much different. The Senate would have stymied Romney just as the House has stymied Obama. The Press would have had 18 months to savage the Romney Administration.
Most importantly of all, Obama's sad sack "Hope and Change" mission would not have been revealed to the American People in its full folly. Indeed, Obama excels at campaigning, and at blaming his opponents for everything. He would have been eligible for a second term. He would at this very moment be gearing up his re-election campaign, and helping Democratic candidates in the mid-term elections. The Press would be working overtime to help him, and them.
Instead, even the Press sees him as a sad sack lame duck, empty of vision or ability to lead. He's no more use to them now, being ineligible to run for office. The Democratic Party hardliners are in despair. And remember, there will be two more years of President Empty Suit to keep that despair sharp.
This country has flirted with what can only be described as fascism, according to Mussolini's definition:
everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. Obama has convinced the people that this was a horrific mistake, by essentially allowing the middle class to be firebombed by terrible policy.
If Romney had won in 2012 this realization never would have dawned and there would be loud calls to implement the rest of the Hope And Change fascist agenda. In two more years this agenda will be so politically toxic that its proponents will have no choice but unconditional surrender. Toxic because of the massive damage to the middle class that is blamed on Obama, not on Romney. Sure, you'll still have the oddball hardliner like Vermont's Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders - but he's the Left's version of Ron Paul, and will have as much impact.
I pointed this out in 2012 when I endorsed Obama for President in a
very unpopular post. But
this is how I called it then:
A RINO President will demoralize the one significant spark of change that we've seen, the only reaction to an out of control Fed.Gov, our only hope
of putting the brakes on before we're as wrecked as Greece. And quite
frankly, a withering of the Tea Party reform movement will be a delight
to a GOP Establishment every bit as corrupt and venal - and power mad -
as Nancy Pelosi.
And so, it is our civic duty to take a hit for our Country. Put Obama
back in office, unfettered. The orgy of Progressive overreach by
Regulation will be sporadically (and mostly ineffectively) resisted by a
corrupt Big Government GOP. The Agencies will rule the land, and the
economy will remain seized up.
And rather than a million Tea Partiers taking to the streets, it will be two million, or three.
I was wrong in that there has not (yet) been a repeat of the massive public demonstrations that we saw in 2010. However, the polls show that the spirit that informed the Tea Party movement is waxing. Because of Obama.
Rebuilding a party that Reagan might actually recognize is what this country needs - and right now, damn it - and Mitt Romney isn't the man to do it.
Barack Obama is.
And he seems to be doing a bang-up job of it.