Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will
soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in California)
and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third
World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted
immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a
different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that
different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why
he won.
Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective
sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in
such diatribes points to his essential goodness as a person; his
“negative ads” were simple facts, never personal abuse – facts about
high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a loss of American power and
prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc. As a politician, though,
Romney failed because he did not embrace the devil’s bargain of making
unsustainable promises, and by talking as the adult and not the
adolescent. Obama has spent the last six years campaigning; even his
governance has been focused on payoffs to his favored interest groups.
The permanent campaign also won again, to the detriment of American
life.
It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan – people
of substance, depth and ideas – to compete with the shallow populism and
platitudes of their opponents. Obama mastered the politics of envy – of
class warfare – never reaching out to Americans as such but to
individual groups, and cobbling together a winning majority from these
minority groups. Conservative ideas failed to take root and states that
seemed winnable, and amenable to traditional American values, have
simply disappeared from the map. If an Obama could not be defeated –
with his record and his vision of America, in which free stuff seduces
voters – it is hard to envision any change in the future. The road to
Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to a European-socialist economy – those very
economies that are collapsing today in Europe – is paved.
A second cliché that should be retired is that America is a
center-right country. It clearly is not. It is a divided country with
peculiar voting patterns, and an appetite for free stuff. Studies will
invariably show that Republicans in Congress received more total votes
than Democrats in Congress, but that means little. The House of
Representatives is not truly representative of the country. That people
would vote for a Republican Congressmen or Senator and then Obama for
President would tend to reinforce point two above: the empty-headedness
of the electorate. Americans revile Congress but love their individual
Congressmen. Go figure.
The mass media’s complicity in Obama’s re-election cannot be denied.
One example suffices. In 2004, CBS News forged a letter in order to
imply that President Bush did not fulfill his Air National Guard service
during the Vietnam War, all to impugn Bush and impair his re-election
prospects. In 2012, President Obama insisted – famously – during the
second debate that he had stated all along that the Arab attack on the
US Consulate in Benghazi was “terror” (a lie that Romney fumbled and
failed to exploit). Yet, CBS News sat on a tape of an interview with
Obama in which Obama specifically avoided and rejected the claim of
terrorism – on the day after the attack – clinging to the canard about
the video. (This snippet of a “60 Minutes” interview was not revealed -
until two days ago!) In effect, CBS News fabricated evidence in
order to harm a Republican president, and suppressed evidence in order
to help a Democratic president. Simply shameful, as was the media’s disregard of any scandal or story that could have jeopardized the Obama re-election.
One of the more irritating aspects of this campaign was its limited
focus, odd in light of the billions of dollars spent. Only a few states
were contested, a strategy that Romney adopted, and that clearly failed.
The Democrat begins any race with a substantial advantage. The liberal
states – like the bankrupt California and Illinois – and other states
with large concentrations of minority voters as well as an extensive
welfare apparatus, like New York, New Jersey and others – give any
Democratic candidate an almost insurmountable edge in electoral votes.
In New Jersey, for example, it literally does not pay for a conservative
to vote. It is not worth the fuel expended driving to the polls. As
some economists have pointed generally, and it resonates here even more,
the odds are greater that a voter will be killed in a traffic accident
on his way to the polls than that his vote will make a difference in the
election. It is an irrational act. That most states are uncompetitive
means that people are not amenable to new ideas, or new thinking, or
even having an open mind. If that does not change, and it is hard to see
how it can change, then the die is cast. America is not what it was,
and will never be again. . . .
The American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration
has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only hastens
that decline. Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and
materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings and its moral
foundations. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only
increase in years to come. Across the world, America under Bush was
feared but not respected. Under Obama, America is neither feared nor
respected. Radical Islam has had a banner four years under Obama, and
its prospects for future growth look excellent. The “Occupy” riots
across this country in the last two years were mere dress rehearsals for
what lies ahead – years of unrest sparked by the increasing discontent
of the unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits and the bounty of the
successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace of redistribution . . .
If this election proves one thing, it is that the Old America is gone. And, sad for the world, it is not coming back.
Abby and Robby – San Diego Wedding Video
4 months ago
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