When’s the earliest that Obama’s sincere (possibly naive) idealism is going to be tempered a little when he’s faced with his first lesser-of-2-evils compromise? I see this as inevitable, and so I don’t blame him for it; I blame our country’s collective refusal to acknowledge–let alone address–the corporatocracy that actually makes all the big decisions, and passes them on to the politicians for implementation. I’m just wondering what the issue will be, and how quickly Obama will transform from idealist to pragmatist. Sooner rather than later is usually better when there’s a inevitability factor.
Which will be the first plank to go?
And who will be the corporatocrat who will lower the wool and show Obama the man behind the curtain?
I think he’s already a pragmatist. The guy’s a community organizer turned politician from Chicago’s South Side. That’s not an idealist’s resume. I think he’s just good at sounding like an idealist and realizes that sounding like an idealist gets you votes.
Other than just trying to deal with the regular everyday stuff going on his campaign has really set him up to fail on two fronts.
(1) He’s sold his soul to a lot of groups with promises that can’t possibly be met. Nothing earth shattering when it comes to politicians, but this case may well be different.
(2) In order to succeed he needs a united America behind him Problem is that much of his campaign has been based on class envy which has driven a stake between the classes.
Um, if anything’s “driven a stake between the classes” recently, it’s been the spectacle of wealthy Wall Street brokers nearly melting down the financial system and trashing lots of folks’ 401(k)'s in the process. If there are high levels of hostility towards the rich these days, you can’t really blame Obama for it.
AFAICT, Obama’s campaign has been extremely moderate on class-based rhetoric. McCain/Palin were the ones appealing to class envy with their sneers at “celebrities” and “elites” as opposed to “real America” in the small towns.
Class envy? Are you kidding? Tweaking the progressivity of the system through tax cuts for the middle class and leaving the Bush tax cuts to expire is tantamount to class war?
Give me a break. Obama has run on an entirely conservative economic platform - emphasising a rejection of trickle down prosperity approaches, and revitalising the middle class. That isn’t bloody socialism unless you don’t know what socialism is.
Kimstu is exactly right: it was Palin and McCain running on class envy in the guise of cultural status anxiety nonsense.
Dude, did you listen to the whole quote from Obama? Here it is
"My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody. But listen, I respect what you do and I respect your question, and even if I don’t get your vote, I’m still gonna be working hard on your behalf, because small businesses are what creates jobs in this country and I want to encourage it.”
Ok? That is not setting up class envy. His whole position is that cutting taxes on the vast majority of consumers will help EVERYONE because people will have more disposable income to plug back into the economy, etc. You can disagree with this as a policy decision–this is fair. But the only people claiming this is class warfare is McCain/Palin. Obama doesn’t hate the rich and doesn’t want you to hate the rich. If the difference between conservative economics and class warfare/socialism is seriously 3.6% (the differences in the two candidates proposed top brackets) then I have no clue what to even say anymore. “Spread the wealth” was an unfortunate turn of phrase, but from context it is clearly apparent he is saying that the overall tax burden may go up but the business will still be better off overall because he’ll have many more customers than he’d otherwise have.
No, this is incorrect. Income transfers do not create more income, they shift it around. You also incur the overhead of collecting it from one taxpayer and giving it to another.
The idea expressed above is a common misconception, but can be disproved with a simple thought experiment. Daddy Warbux makes a million a year, and spends a hundred thousand on himself and nine hundred thousand on his investments. Joe Sixpack makes fifty thousand, and spends it all on himself.
Obama takes two hundred thousand from Daddy Warbux and gives it to Joe. (Fifty thousand of that goes to the accountants and staff at the IRS.)
How much more disposable income is there after the tax hike than before?
…which means precisely zero, since if there are any eligible voters in that group, you know they must’ve gone for McCain.
I don’t think Obama’s a naif who needs to be shown what’s behind the curtain. His victory speech was serious and pretty calm in tone, and picking Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff indicates more of a ‘brass tacks’ approach than an idealistic one.
What the man may have said is not important. What people *think *he said is important. We live in a world of sound-bites and catch-phrases, and the electorate will feel betrayed if he doesn’t fulfill promises they have convinced themselves he made.
I wish him the best of luck, and I feel he is intellignet enough to surround himself with qualified advisors and listen to them, but I believe many of his supporters among the great unwashed are going to be crying foul before next May.
This is a VERY interesting and thought provoking question.
President elect Obama is a pure intellectual. He went from college to graduate studies to teaching.
He has never run a business or met a payroll. He is all theory.
I suspect that even with the Democrat pick-up in congress he will find theory far removed from practice. How productive can our country be if those that work are conscripted to fund social program experiments in wealth redistribution?
Are we now to become an isolationist country?
Israel can not, and will not, tolerate a nuclear Iran. Conflict there is a question of when not if.
Iran has designs on Iraq. They can be patient until we pull out and allow a collapse of what’s been accomplished then swoop in and pick the pieces up with their teenage human waves (remember Iraq-Iran war?).
Russia has renewed wealth and is saber rattling again. Will President elect Obama stand by and let Russian march across Europe to reclaim its Union?
President elect Obama is untested. At least Governor Palin had management experience. It will be an interesting four years.
Also, if some nut-job does get to him, what sort of retributive backlash across the nation could that trigger?
I don’t envy the Secret Service their job.
Pesse (Pointing out a car won’t run is easy. Fxing it is much harder.) Mist
Daddy Warbux’s investment manager looks around for places to put his money, since the Warbuxes of the world somehow seem to have a whole lot bigger share of the money in the world than they used to, and with people like Joe not growing the consumer-spending market since for some reason he hasn’t gotten a raise to even keep track with inflation for the last ten years. Fortunately, there are lots of innovative financial firms out there with neat ideas for how to package up small loans to middle-class customers in order to let them continue to grow their spending. So Daddy W’s manager ends up putting some money into a AAA-rated tranche of mortgage-backed securities.
In the meantime, Joe is having trouble keeping up with his bills after getting treated for testicular cancer. His insurance covered part of it, but the co-pays are still slamming him pretty hard. So he looks into refinancing the house he bought five years ago. And presto! W has a source of income, Joe has managed his illiquidity problems and can go ahead and continue contributing to the all-important American consumer spending that has driven the world economy for the last N years, and all is good.
Except for when Joe’s construction company lays him off and he finds himself upside-down on his house, declares bankruptcy, and Daddy W’s investment dollars are, well, nowhere to be found any more.
You left out a couple of steps in your progression there. Right or wrong you also answered a very different question from what the OP asked - lissener is basically envisioning a conspiracy of men in dark suits telling Obama that the real power brokers won’t let him get away with some of his plans.
What conscriptions are you talking about, and what experiments? I knew the suggestions that Obama is a socialist wouldn’t go away after the election, but they’re still absurd.
What about Obama’s campaign or background leads you to think that’s a possibility?
Wouldn’t he actively support their march? I mean, I thought he was a redistributive socialist. :rolleyes: Yes, Russia’s looking to expand its power. The Cold War is over, and I’m not sure why you think he’d stand by other than a belief that he must by a pussy because he’s a Democrat.
Yeah- I mean, we know exactly how she would’ve dealt with Russia because she commanded the Alaksa National Guard, and we know how she would’ve dealt with the economy because she had executive experience in a state that gets lots of revenue from subsidies by oil companies.
I did not accuse our president elect of one single thing. I merely framed questions based on my understanding of the mans writings, speeches and voting record.
Nowhere in my post did I call Mr. Obama a ‘socialist’ I merely asked if the social programs HE ENDORSES and HAS ENDORSED in the past will be palatable to people who have to pay for them.
As to my understanding of his desire to redistribute wealth, that is what he has talked about himself.
Pesse ( Walks like a duck, talks like a duck…but don’t dare call it a duck!) Mist
Look, if you want to be passive-aggressive I have no problem overlooking your posts in the future. Meanwhile, in your rush to hide behind a lot of “Who, ME” garbage (which is undone by the parenthetical quote you posted at the end- a quote that makes this whole dodge a total failure), you didn’t answer any of my questions. Would you like to do so? It’s not like I have to cede the floor.
So rich man Joe the Plummer is going to spread his wealth down to people who then pay him for his services? This is nothing different than raising the minimum wage and expecting the wages above it not to move. Joe the Plummer is going to raise his rates until he gets back the money he was making before.
