I have come to the conclusion that some people can bring themselves to believe just about anything.
For the sake of reference, President Obama and I were both born in the same year: 1961. Like millions of Americans (yes – millions), many in my age group voted for our current president, employing some incredibly superficial and frivolous criteria. I’m sure that none of them are even remotely aware of this, or what I will detail here.
A cross section of my age group – and I knew a few of these in my youth – who were socially conscious (“socially unconscious,” I liked to call them), had a decidedly romantic overview of the Marxist regimes that were in business during our formative years. They celebrated the exploits of such fellows as Lenin and Castro, who had “liberated the people from imperialist and capitalist oppressors,” and others who were attempting to do likewise in other less well-known nations at that time.
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and Westerners were presently exposed to widespread first-hand accounts of the horrors of communist regimes experienced by those who had once lived in Soviet bloc nations, for some reason the force of these stories – even their reality – never registered with these people. Hence, my assertion that some can bring themselves to believe just about anything; it must have taken a lot of mental gymnastics to put down all of those Russians, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, East Germans, etc., as operatives of imperialist, capitalist oppressors.
A larger group of my peers, while anything but activists, tend (like many of us) to view the era in which they came of age idyllically – in retrospect, much more fun-filled and exciting than it seemed at the time. We’d finally gotten rid of that terrible, horrible Nixon (who was wholly responsible for Vietnam, don’t you know) and his cretinous toady, Ford; Jimmy Carter was president, they’d decriminalized pot in many states, and “Saturday Night Live” was a groundbreaking new hit TV show.
Of course, at that juncture they had no financial responsibilities whatever, no taxes to pay, children to raise, nor pressing health concerns. Then, it was on to college, maybe grad school; during this time, Reagan and Bush the Elder screwed things up again; Clinton brought back good times and an era of light concern, after which Bush the Younger drove us all to the brink of a veritable apocalypse.
In short, a substantial part of their worldview became centered around the sentimental notion that all would be right with the world as long as reassuring, loving liberals were running the show.
Did I mention that most of this group tended to be rather naive and poorly informed?
During an appearance on “Hannity and Colmes” in February of 2007, Alan Colmes asked me if then-Sen. Obama was lying when he denied having been present during any of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s racist, anti-American rants at Trinity United Church in Chicago, despite having been a congregant there for 19 years. When I answered “yes,” the reaction (from activists, Obamanoids and some viewers) was unmitigated outrage. My temerity in so labeling him was perceived as nothing short of blasphemy.
Some have used words such as “surreal” and “creepy” to denote manifestations of the cult of Obama. This incapacity on the part of Americans to ascribe deception or subterfuge to significant statements our president has made and then proved false via subsequent action is decidedly queer. Still, calling him on it – or anything else, for that matter – remains unequivocally objectionable. The reverence with which Obama devotees view him is more akin to that reserved for African tribal chieftains than American presidents; if you diss the latter, his supporters contend that you’re full of crap, whereas if you diss the former, his supporters bash your skull in with large, gnarly hardwood cudgels.
There was a stereotype from the ’60s era that I’ve written about previously: It was the middle-aged, marginally educated white guy who would rail about the “bearded commie faggots” and other undesirables who were poised to “take over America.” No one in their right mind wanted his lot to prevail; he was simply too bigoted. What we neglected, however, while busy disenfranchising those who held his worldview, was the kernel of truth in his ranting.
Those who sought solace in the utopian visions perennially proffered by the left are feeling good again; a hip, new ethnic Democrat dude is in charge, and he is going to take care of everything. Despite unprecedented, worrisome actions on his part and the alarmed reaction of their neighbors – even many who supported Mr. Cool – they’ve not a worry in the world.
Dangerous among romantic notions, to be sure, but not as much so as the ones held by their far-left peers who were politically active back in the day – and who are, incidentally, now running the show for real.
