This election was a lot like 1976. In 1976, an obscure, little known candidate with no substantive experience became President. He was elected in the context of an unthinking desire for change. People were sick of Watergate and wanted to totally get rid of the 8 year Nixon era (in which Nixon even resigned). The economy was souring. The Democrats controlled Congress already, but the Republicans got the blame for everything. Enter Jimmy Carter. He nearly brought the U.S. to the brink of World War III with Soviet Russia, who invaded Afghanistan and went on a general rampage under his watch. Carter was horrified that meeting with the Soviet dictators did nothing to resolve the problem. Iran also erupted into an Islamofascist dictatorship that even today is a growing nuclear threat. Americans were held hostage in Iran for a humiliating year (pictured), until Ronald Reagan took office. The economy got worse under Carter’s watch — the worst since the Great Depression. His presidency was a spectacular failure and although the nation suffered under his wretched term, we got a relative reprieve in the years and even decades that followed, which on the whole were not nearly as bad. America learned from some of its mistakes thanks in part to Carter’s failures.
Once again, we have elected a President based on change for the sake of change. All that matters is that he isn’t Bush. He is fuzzy on the issues, as Carter was, but when he speaks he talks the language of higher taxes, more government spending and things that never have worked in semi-socialist or outright communist countries. They never work because they’re wrong: Because they enslave the most productive for the sake of the less able and the nonproductive. Because they take opportunities away from everyone by stealing all the capital from capitalism and giving it to politicians (and their interest groups) to squander. And they have the unmitigated nerve to condemn those who criticize this as “selfish.”
Barack believes he has the support of Americans for the biggest expansion of government power in American history. That remains to be seen, because it’s hard to believe we went from being a center-right nation to a socialist one in 3 or 4 short years — all because of the hapless Bush? Also, Obama starts out with the support of a little more than half of the country. This was no landslide. Nearly half of voters are totally against him, from day one, and will remain that way forever. The majority of Barack’s support comes from the confused and noncommitted “middle” — the people who don’t want socialism, capitalism, or anything in particular … just ease and comfort. They’re never going to get this from a politician — least of all the haughty, arrogant and socialistic Barack Obama who didn’t have to work all that hard to become President. Obama became President because people in the nonideological middle felt like changing the channel. In another four years — or four months, for that matter — they’ll probably be in the mood to change again.