Bill's Notes

Vulcan Hammer suggests that Generation Y, who are among Obama's biggest supporters, have a real issue with dependence:

It’s no secret that the overwhelming majority of this generation supports Barack Obama for President. They have done so since the beginning of the Democrat primary process (which was a long time ago!) What Coursey set forth helps to explain why that’s so.

Back at the first of the year (when this primary process was moving into high gear,) I made the following statement:

…the Republicans’ core problem in moving forward this election year…simply put, is that Americans in general are less and less willing to be self-reliant, and a desire to be self-reliant is a key ingredient in a conservative society.

The characterisation of Generation Y only adds one more reason why this is so. A generation that tightly bonded to parents is simply not as self-reliant as those who went before, their own manifest shortcomings notwithstanding.

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton promised a “nanny state” in response to this. But Obama ended up triumphing. Obviously he did a better job connecting to Generation Y in his style of campaigning. But there’s something else at work: he is, in effect, a surrogate parent for a generation used to looking to parents for so much.

Interesting. This isn't something I've thought of before -- but yes, this is a generation (some individuals excepted, of course) that has known nothing but peace and prosperity, have never been tempered and tested through hard times, and haven't properly separated from their parents. Obama as surrogate daddy.

The lack of parental separation and self-reliance ... yeah, that's an issue for a couple of Obama supporters I know.

Let's hope McCain finds a way to pull this off, because I don't feel like finding out the hard way if Obama will be the next Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Juan Peron, Pierre Trudeau, Huey Long, or Neville Chamberlain.

And pray. I will. Here's some more sobering thoughts:

- but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places....

But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization. Obama's entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich." The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual.

Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he will get much of what he demands.

The question is whether enough Americans understand what's at stake in this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a different place.