"...Easier to Vote for Obama than to Get a Job!" T-shirt

So what was behind the election results of 2008? The failures of Bush and the Republicans to stand by their principles surely contributed as did the feckless candidacy of Senator McCain. But if we look on the affirmative, pro-Obama side we see two elements: The hard line anti-American, anti-freedom left was always going to be with him as they have been lurking behind the scenes and waiting for their chance to take over for 100 years. In between they pass the time by making common cause with our enemies in the Soviet Union or Vietnam or Al Qaeda, and corrupting American institutions from education to journalism.

But they could never be a majority. The majority of 2008 was formed by millions of Americans who succumbed to a politics of personality. Since the development of mass-media, demagogues skilled at counterfeiting personal connections to millions through an impersonal medium have preyed on those willing to be duped. The masses who see Obama as someone who will personally take care of their needs are just such dupes. They could not explain what the economy does when it works right let alone what’s wrong with it. But with minds programmed for a more primitive tribal society, they are looking for a father figure (or perhaps a sugar daddy) to spare them from the need to think and be responsible.

One step removed from this, are those who see the president as a symbol because of his color. (If the president looks like me, then my team has won somehow and that must be good for me. Alternatively, my white guilt will be appeased if I vote for a president of a different color.) One is tempted, given the genuine historical limitations suffered by black Americans, to sympathize. But the cure for racist identity politics has never been more racist identity politics in the other direction. And for the vast majority of Americans today who have no pre-1965 memories, it is wrong to allow them or yourself to be defined by things that never happened to you. You were not handicapped by slavery or the Irish potato famine, or the pogroms in the Ukraine or the internment of Japanese Americans, etc. You are your own person and you're living your life today. It's important to study history but it’s equally important to live your life today. If you confuse the two you end up voting for Obama instead of getting a job.

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