13th Down

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World

November 04, 2008

Not the end of the world
It’s easy to let yourself go in despair and start thinking things like “We are well-and-truly fucked” or “This is the worst of all possible outcomes”. But it isn’t true.

I think this election is going to be a “coming of age” moment for a lot of people. They say, “Be careful what you wish for” and a lot of people got their wish yesterday.

And now they’re bound to be disappointed. Not even Jesus could satisfy all the expectations of Obama’s most vocal supporters, or fulfill all the promises Obama has made.

I think Obama is going to turn out to be the worst president since Carter, and for the same reason: good intentions do not guarantee good results.  Idealists often stub their toes on the wayward rocks of reality, and fall on their faces. And the world doesn’t respond to benign behavior benignly.

But there’s another reason why: Obama has been hiding his light under a basket. A lot of people bought a pig in a poke today, and now they’re going to find out what they bought. Obama isn’t what most of them think he is. The intoxication of the cult will wear off, leaving a monumental hangover.

And four years from now they’ll be older and much wiser.

A lot of bad things are going to happen during this term. But I don’t think that this is an irreversible catastrophe for the union. I’ve lived long enough to absorb this basic truth: the US is too large and too strong to destroy in just 4 years. Or even in 8. We survived 6 years of Nixon. We survived 4 years of Carter. We even survived 8 years of Clinton, God alone knows how.

The President of the United States is the most powerful political figure in the world, but as national executives go his powers are actually quite restricted. Obama will become President, but he won’t be dictator or king, let alone deity. He still has to work with the House and the Senate, and he still has to live within Constitutional restrictions, and with a judiciary that he mostly didn’t appoint.

The main reason this will be a “coming of age” moment is that now Obama and the Democrats have to put up or shut up. Obama got elected by making himself a blank slate, with vapid promises about “hope” and  “change” — but now he actually has to do something. Now he has to reveal his true agenda. And with the Democrats also having a majority in both chambers of Congress, now the Democrats really have to lead. And they’re not going to do a very good job of it. It’s going to be amusing to watch.

And the people who fell for the demagoguery will learn an invaluable lesson.

Oh, the Democrats try to blame failure on Republican filibusters, of which there will be many. But that’s  always been a factor in our system, and many people believe it’s an important check on government excess. The tradition in the Senate is that it is supposed to be a buffer against transient political fads, and the filibuster is a major part of that.
If the Democrats go all in, and change the filibuster rule, then they’ll have truly seized the nettle with both hands and won’t have any excuses any longer. That’s why they won’t do it. It’s their last fig-leaf. But even with the filibuster rule in place, they’ll be stuck trying to deliver now on all the promises implied, or inferred, during this election. The Republicans can only filibuster on bills the Democrats have already proposed.

And it ain’t possible for the Democrats to deliver what’s been promised. Gonna be a hell of a lot of disillusioned lefties out there. A lot of people who felt they were deceived. A lot of people who will eventually realize that the Obama campaign was something of a cult.

Disillusionment will turn to a feeling of betrayal. And that will, in turn, convert to anger.

In the mean time, Obama and Congressional Democrats will do things that cause harm, but very little of it will be irreversible.  I would have enjoyed watching lefty heads explode if McCain had won. But we’re going to see lefty heads exploding anyway; it’s just going to take longer.

In the mean time, those of us who didn’t want Obama to be president have to accept that he is. And let’s not give in to the kind of paranoid fever dreams that have consumed the left for the last 8 years. Let us collectively take a vow tonight: no “Obama derangement syndrome”. Obama is a politician. He isn’t the devil incarnate.

So what are the good sides of what just happened?

1. It is no longer possible for anyone to deny that the MSM is heavily biased. The MSM have been biased for decades but managed an illusion of fairness. That is no longer possible; the MSM have squandered their credibility during this campaign. They’ll never get that credibility back again.

2. Since the Democrats got nearly everything they hoped for in this campaign, they’ll have no excuses and will have to produce. They’ll have to reveal their true agenda — or else make clear that they don’t really have any beyond gaining power.

3. Every few decades the American people have to be reminded that peace only comes with strength. The next four years will be this generation’s lesson.

Now, a few predictions for the next four years:

1. Obama’s “hold out your hand to everyone” foreign policy is going to be a catastrophe. They’ll love it in Europe. They’re probably laughing their heads off about it in the middle east already.

2. The US hasn’t suffered a terrorist attack by al Qaeda since 9/11, but we’ll get at least one during Obama’s term.

3. We’re going to lose in Afghanistan.

4. Iran will get nuclear weapons. There will be nuclear war between Iran and Israel. (This is the only irreversibly terrible thing I see upcoming, and it’s very bad indeed.)

5. There will eventually be a press backlash against Obama which will make their treatment of Bush look mild. Partly that’s going to be because Obama is going to disappoint them just as much as all his other supporters. Partly it will be the MSM desperately trying to regain its own credibility, by trying to show that they’re not in his tank any longer. And because of that they are eventually going to do the reporting they should have done during this campaign, about Obama’s less-than-savory friends, and about voter fraud, and about illegal fund-raising, and about a lot of other things.

and 6. Obama will not be re-elected in 2012. He may even end up doing an LBJ and not even running again.

One last thing: I’m not saying I’m happy with this outcome. I would much rather have had McCain win. But this is not the end of the world, or the end of this nation. We’ve survived much worse.

And now we need to show the lefties how to lose. Our mission for the next four years is to be in opposition without becoming deranged.

UPDATE: One other good thing: no one will be spinning grand conspiracy theories about this  administration’s Vice President being an evil, conniving genius who is the true power behind the throne.

1.  How can a movie bomb big time at the theaters but when the DVD comes out, the commercial claims it to be the #1 DVD in America (i.e. Stupid ass non-original “Road Trip”)?

2.  How much longer is the NBA going to support the rating disaster and inferior league known as the WNBA?

3.  Why on commercials when someone is drinking through a straw, they make the sound a straw would make if there were no more liquid to suck threw it (Pepsi commercial with Justin Timberlake)?

4. What stupid fricking bone head decided to remake the Bo Derek Goddess movie “10″?  Hollywood lacks any originality that they have to remake older movies.  Wonder what over celebrated vain stricken ho they’ll get to play Jenny.

5.  Have you ever watched the E! channel’s Daily 10?  Are those 2 skinny bow legged air heads not allowed to eat?

6.  Who the fuck are Heidi and Spencer and why should any one care?

7.  Even though he is a moron, does anyone really believe that Dik-Rod would would risk his penicillin allergy to swap body fluids with American with English accent, overrated, politically ignorant, skank, Madonna?

more to come later when the mood hits.

This has to be the worst time of the year for those of us who love sports.  You got baseball, inferior boring women’s basketball, or Canadian football.  Can we just boycott this part of the year?  Jesus fucking christ this sucks.  For you pussies out there, Soccer is not an American sport.

Olympics will help a bit, but hard to get good betting action on those events.  And god damn will it suck to have to see billy bob costas every night.

On a site note, yes I am picking MLB and CFL games.  I dabbled in Arena Football but that fell apart like every professional Dallas team does.

Well Spring Training starts soon.  I’ll be back then to spew my picks and fantasy advice.

In 2006, the Democrats took over control of both houses of Congress and promised change and a better quality of life for all.  The tyranny of the Republican led congress was to blame for the countries problems.

When the Democrats took over after the 2006 Elections:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since January of 2007 when the Democrats took over:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.99 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5.5% (a 22% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 TRILLION dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

Only Congress approves and passes spending bills, not the President—all he can do is slow them down. Imagine a Democratic President and Democratic Congress.

Read more spew »