Barack Obama may go down as one of the greatest political geniuses in history. Sorry; no punch line. This is not a joke.
Many politicians get elected by adroit manipulation of existing voting blocs: black, Hispanic, Jewish, women, etc. Some even originate new and effective ways to rally those voting blocs behind them. Obama is the only one I know of who has literally invented a brand new voting bloc, which, incidentally, he now owns and which lives neatly folded in his back pocket. Obama didn’t invent those aforementioned voting blocs. They were all already there on their bedroom balconies with a rose in their teeth waiting to drop it at the feet of the first politician on bended knee below to pluck the right notes on his guitar.
No, Obama’s invention is not “blacks, Hispanics, Jews, women” or any other familiar group. Obama added one that is vast and highly motivated.
Obama gave us – the Failures!
Failures coalesce behind Obama as if by some electro-magnetic force. Was it Axelrod, George Soros, Van Jones or Obama himself who was smart enough to realize that America’s strong “anti-Communist” insistence was always against the brutalitarian dictatorship, the gulags, the absence of elemental freedoms, the late-night knock on the door – the many ways post-war Communism effectively mimicked Nazism. That’s what we were against. We were never against getting free stuff from the government!
The mask came off early. Think back! Did somebody during that 2008 campaign accuse Obama of wanting to spread the wealth around? And did Obama thereupon angrily deny that vicious right-wing slander? Not at all. Obama didn’t lower his voice at all when he urged Joe the Plumber to get behind his “spread-the-wealth” campaign.
If Karl Marx were alive he could sue Barack Obama for plagiarizing his famous bedrock definition of Marxism. Look at the two quotes side-by-side. Marx said, “From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.” Obama puts it like this (exact quote): “A fair shot for everybody; a fair shake from everybody.”
Yes, there’s a “new” voting bloc called “Failures” – “Losers,” if you prefer – and Obama can pluck that guitar deep into the night without striking a losing chord. “You didn’t build that business. Somebody else made that happen!” “Success is mostly luck.” Luck, that is, well-marinated in the monotonous flavor of big government. That Roanoke-Rebellion text is not long. It’s all there in plain English. And the attempts of Obama supporters to pretend he meant something else are as pathetic as the caught-in-the-act speaker who denies what he just said by screaming, “Who do you believe? Me or a Japanese microphone?” Colleague-columnist Charles Krauthammer’s name is not in the Constitution, but on this argument he’s all nine members of the Supreme Court. Venture forth with your “alternative interpretation” and you will be liquefied and chimpanzified as Krauthammer mashes your denying face into the original.
Without this “Failures” theory, how else can you explain the closeness of this race with the economy sputtering along, and not even sputtering well?; over 8 percent unemployment and second-quarter growth a comic-opera 1.5 percent. And the race is close, tight, too close to call. Why aren’t the ones who want to unleash the hungry dogs of free enterprise so small business will mushroom like the good kind of cloud and turn unemployment-benefit recipients into employed taxpayers – why aren’t they way, way ahead?
I understand all too well. Forgive the imposition of a new word here, particularly a long one and a foreign one: schadenfreude. That’s German for “Joy at the suffering of others”; in this case, the suffering of those economically better off than you are. The wise men, known for the rest of this piece as “The Wise Guys,” smugly tell us all this dreadful economic news is terrible for Obama’s re-election chances. Not so fast. The market’s down? Gross Domestic Product a shadow of what it should be? Europe’s Eurozone caving? European default about to put a huge torpedo into America’s hull? You wise guys think that’s bad for Obama?
You’re thinking as a normal American with a normal stake in the economy in a normal election year and no diseased emotional reason to cheer for failure. All that awful economic news does not translate into anti-Obama, anti-Democratic and pro-Romney votes. The “Failures” hear all that and think it’s the Vienna Boys Choir singing their sweetest. “The giants are getting cut down to my size!” That’s what the Failures hear. And what, they ask, is so bad about that?
When the gods fall, the rest of us can be god-like.
The Wise Guys tell us no incumbent can win with unemployment over 8 percent. They need a lot of love. They don’t know about the Failures yet.
I have a hard time deciding which I deplore more: our America’s economic distress or my fellow Americans’ thinly disguised joy at wealthier Americans’ economic misery. Who can forget the New York sidewalk hotdog pushcart peddler’s lament in 1932? “Rockefeller and I are the same,” he boasted. “We both got wiped out in the crash of 1929!”
Meanwhile, Obama’s obviously right. Success really is mostly luck.
If you don’t believe it, ask any Failure!
