Thursday, November 4, 2010

Impatient Americans

By Alan Caruba

Americans are an impatient people. There’s a reason why every manner of labor-saving device was invented here and why we are in love with every kind of device that lets us instantly communicate with one another.

In an earlier era, it might have taken longer for a majority of Americans to realize just how awful President Obama’s legislative and other policy initiatives were for the nation, but a plethora of punditry on countless Internet websites and blogs alerted them even while the mainstream media was trying to deceive them as they had with their support for candidate Obama.

As an aside, media prognosticators are predicting that daily newspapers are essentially all dinosaurs and many, if not most, will be gone in a decade or so. The general rule is that new technology, the Internet, drives out old technology, dead-tree newspapers.

The other factor is that most daily newspapers with their liberal outlook have simply been abandoned by subscribers who have tired of seeking real news amidst the propaganda. Prediction: none of the news weeklies will be around in five years or less.
When even the National Enquirer and Star Magazine are filling for bankruptcy protection, you know the times they are changing. Survivors, however, may be the nation’s many weekly newspapers because, like politics, all news is local.

Impatience with a Congress that was so clearly out of touch with most constituents has resulted in a historic turnover of power to the Republican Party and it is a far more humble party than its heyday during George W. Bush’s two terms, the latter of which saw Americans return Democrats to power.

Americans had already grown weary of the war in Iraq that had begun in 2003 and had little enthusiasm for the nation’s military involvement in Afghanistan since 2001. Throughout history, great empires have fallen because they got over-extended in such conflicts.

Making matters worse for any administration is the growing perception that the Middle East is psychotic; a place where reason takes a backseat to a seventh century religion that dominates its politics and social life. Watching Muslims blow up mosques filled with other Muslims is sufficient to convince many Americans that no amount of military power or billions in foreign aid will change anything.

Only one nation in the Middle East poses any kind of military threat and that is Iran. The minute it actually acquires nuclear weapons will be the hour in which Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and various Gulf States sit down at the table with Israel to discuss and plan ridding itself of this threat. The Iranian leadership—not its people—are certifiably crazy.

Americans will be looking to a Republican controlled House to rid the nation of Obamacare and begin to address over-spending, joblessness, and other issues, but the next two years will be spent in triage, trying to stop the bleeding until the patient can make it to the operating room and that will require the election of a new president and a Republican Senate.

So Americans are going to have to strive to be patient while the many Republican governors redistrict their states to aid a victory in 2012. They will have to content themselves with legislative maneuvers to defund Obamacare or remove many of its more noxious mandates. Also on the To-Do list will be to put the Environmental Protection Agency in manacles before it utterly destroys the economy with crazed greenhouse gas emissions regulations.

There is little that can be done to turn around the decades-old disastrous energy policies that have stalled the construction of the many new coal-fired and nuclear plants needed to provide the electricity that is the very breath of life to the nation. The Obama administration will also continue to thwart any oil exploration and drilling, and how much of a priority this will be in the new Congress is unknown.

Meanwhile the White House has announced that, upon his return from India, President Obama will sit down with the Republican leadership of the House along with their Democrat counterparts including the noxious Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. It is likely to be little more than a photo-op because this president is deaf to partisanship or the reversal of his plans to destroy the nation.

This means that that a less frightening two years is ahead with the hope of real change in 2012. The economy is barely improving and is likely to remain stagnant, even with the extension of the Bush tax cuts. A Mount Everest of federal regulations will have to be eliminated to get the economy moving again.

And then there are the unknown and unpredictable “events” that will occur. 9/11 was one such event in 2001.

On September 18, 2008, there was a little reported electronic run on U.S. banks that withdrew $550 billion before the Federal Reserve stepped in to stop it. It blew away the charade of the nation’s housing market that involved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Privatizing both should be a GOP priority. Americans have yet to have been told who withdrew those billions.

Other events over which there is no control such as hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes could play a role. We’ve seen how the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico undermined confidence in the Obama administration.

Two years isn’t really that long a time, but a lot can happen and it will call for patience and perseverance.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

8 comments:

Ronbo said...

Alan: A prediction - When this mess is cleaned up after 2012, it's going to be at least a generation before a black man is elected president and the Democrats again control Congress.

Hopefully...several generations...

Alan Caruba said...

@Ronbo: Agreed! And I have noted this in an earlier post about "Politics in Black and White." Obama has set back the black community in many ways; making whites who supported him feel foolish.

kenlowder said...

I disagree. A black man or woman, or hispanic, or indian may easily be in the mix real soon. They just will be CONSERVATIVE, not democrat or republican.

Steve Koch said...

OT, from:

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=552810&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+EditorialRss+(Editorial+RSS)

Must read article about California economics/politics.

Steve Koch said...

Obama's race has nothing to do with it. His problem is not that he is half black, his problem is that he is a lefty.

The past two years of Democrat control have been disastrous for America but will soon be forgotten by many Americans. One third of the Americans, the hard core Democrats, love what Obama has done. Of the remaining 2/3, you only need for 1/4 of them to forget how bad the past two years have been to have 1/2 of Americans ready for another go round with the Dems. We're working with small tolerances here.

The Republicans need to have more minority candidates. I predict that the newly elected hispanic senator Mark Rubio from Florida
will someday be elected USA president.

Alan Caruba said...

@Steve Koch: Rubio is definetely a bright new GOP star, but he will need a full term in the Senate to grow into a leadership role.

Next week I will share what I have seen in my crystal ball regarding GOP contenders for the presidential nomination.

Rachel Pohli said...

This post is insightful and, I believe, correct, Alan. It is in line with another of my favorite blog authors, Michael Connelly. His post "He Gets It" (http://michaelconnelly.viviti.com/entries/general/he-gets-it) details similar caution & vigilance as you have stated here. I'm glad that we have won a battle with this election...unfortunately, I was not so lucky with the two states in which I have a vested personal interest: Washington & California. These remain liberal disaster areas, which upsets me greatly, but I guess I have to focus on the bigger picture and try to remain hopeful and, as you say, patient until 2012 when this mess can finally and fully begin to be undone.

LarryOldtimer said...

If the great devaluation of the American dollar weren't happening right now, we could gradually work to that end.

Obama will still have the "power of the pen", that is executive orders, and have the power of veto. He will remain CIC of our military. No way will the coming Congress have a large enough majority to override a veto.

Obama is the "Chief Executive Officer" of the entire federal government, and has direct control of the EPA.

And there is no telling what this "lame duck" Congress will enact and Obama sign into law before they are no longer in office.

To provoke a large war that we have to fight to defend ourselves could easily be in Obama's plans. The rallying cry for FDR's run for a third term was "Don't change horses in the middle of the stream" (Don't change the CIC in the middle of a great war.)

China has "taken the gloves off", and has the equivalent of economic brass knuckles on. China is no longer being diplomatic, but is demanding. "Economic" gunboat diplomacy is what China is up to.

The next two years are fraught with great danger. Bills that Have no chance of becoming law must be passed in the House, to demonstrate to our voters that the Republicans are not causing the grief that will surely come. This is a long, long way from "business as usual".

"It is difficult indeed to keep your focus on draining the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators," as we engineers are wont to say.