The Congress is the thing

McCain is the weakest reed imaginable.
— Paul Nachman, in “The Wall Street Journal’s case against Obama.”

As a follow-up to the discussion in the above-linked entry, and as an expansion on the implications of Paul Nachman’s comment, let’s look at the issue a different way, by focusing on the Congress, not the President.

All along, the standard conservative assumption has been: either we have the leftist Obama, or we have the admittedly flawed Republican patriot McCain. If Obama is elected, we’re in deep manure, if McCain is elected, things will be basically ok.

But what this argument leaves out is the Congress. Everyone on both sides of the contest believes that the Democrats will expand their majorities in both Houses, very possibly to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. It’s also said that the Democrats in Congress are a more left-wing bunch than in ‘93-‘94 (the last time Democrats controlled both the Congress and the presidency), since the moderate Southern Democrats are gone and the Dems have become a European-style, leftist party represented by such as Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank.

That being the case, the focus on the presidential race seems off-kilter, since, whether Obama or McCain is elected, the next Congress will be a leftist Congress in which Republicans will be essentially powerless.

The first insight that comes from this—not just for anti-McCain people like me, but for all conservatives—is that there is no happy outcome this year. Whoever wins the presidency, the country will be entering a time of troubles. A Congress intent on revolutionizing America will be elected, a super-majority, Democratic Congress hungering for nationalized health insurance, for all kinds of expanded entitlements, for the fairness doctrine, for D.C. statehood, for turning the nation’s public schools into training grounds for leftwing activists, the whole shmear.

That being the case, the focus becomes, not Whom do we elect as president, but How do we stop this Congress? Specifically it becomes, Under which president will we be better able to stop this Congress?

With Obama as president, working with the leftist Congress, the right half of the country will be united against the Congress and the president. Conservatives will be alert, on fire, at war.

With McCain as president, working much of the time with this leftist Congress, the conservatives will be divided. They will not be able to oppose the Congress strongly and consistently, because they will want to be loyal to the Republican president whom they elected and support. Another factor here is that they adore Sarah Palin as the greatest conservative figure since Ronald Reagan and they want her to succeed McCain in the White House. For Sarah to become president, McCain’s presidency must be successful. So the conservatives will be committed to helping McCain all the way. Every time McCain goes left with the Democrats and some conservatives start to oppose him, the McCain loyalists will tell them, “If you let McCain down and his presidency fails, Sarah won’t get to be president.” After all, what have the Republicans and establi-cons been telling us for the last eight years? “If you don’t back Bush in his brilliant, Machiavelian concessions to liberalism, Bush will be weakened or defeated and the terrorists will destroy America.”

In any case, whether or not the above scenario is correct, we know that Republicans much of the time will go along with McCain as he cooperates with the Democratic Congress.

The upshot is that there will be a greater chance to stop the leftist Congress under Obama than under McCain.

Also, as has been said many times, we don’t really know where Obama is coming from. What is his top priority, to revolutionize America, or to be a figure of harmony, a centrist American leader who brings us all together, as he brought together the different factions in his tenure as president of the Harvard Law Review? He won’t be able to maintain the centrist persona if he goes for a hard left program. If he tried to push through nationalized health, D.C. statehood, and all the rest of it, half the country will be up in arms against him, he would lose his conciliatory cool and become an embattled figure. And he wouldn’t want that. Meaning that he won’t pursue a radical course but will end up more like the triangulating Clinton.

That’s just a guess, of course. But I’d say there is a reasonable, though less than 50-50, chance, it will turn out to be correct. And even if it doesn’t turn out to be correct, we still have the scenario of conservative America united against the leftist team of Congress and Obama.

McCain by contrast will have nothing keeping him from going left. To the contrary, he will be looking for every opportunity to stick it to the conservatives who elected him, because … because … that’s just the way that he is. The friendship of the Democratic Congress will be vastly more important to him than the support of the conservatives. And he will have all that guilt over having kept the nonwhite messiah from the White House. Of all the sins in his life that he has had to confess and make up for, his defeat of Obama will be the greatest. How will he make up for it? By passing the defeated messiah’s program!

Again, just a guess, but one based on McCain’s life-long modus operandi—or, in this case, his modus obamarandi.

—end of initial entry—

James P. writes:

“With Obama as president, working with the leftist Congress, the right half of the country will be united against the Congress and the president. Conservatives will be alert, on fire, at war.”

But how will they do so? Without a Republican President to veto the most crazed legislation, the Congressional Democrats will be able to shove their new entitlements down the country’s throat, and Obama will happily sign off on them, while the right half of the country sits on the sidelines in an impotent rage.

“If he tried to push through nationalized health, D.C. statehood, and all the rest of it, half the country will be up in arms against him, he would lose his conciliatory cool and become an embattled figure. And he wouldn’t want that.”

That’s when he plays the racism card! Oppose nationalized health? Racist! Oppose D.C. statehood? Racist! I am not sure he wouldn’t relish being “embattled” against racists. What more worthy foe for the liberal is there than the racist?

LA replies:

There is such a thing as public opinion.

James P. replies:

True, but Obama and the Democrats undoubtedly plan to shape public opinion as they always do via the media. After all, if “public opinion” could be relied on to stop a Leftist, Obama would have had no chance to get elected in the first place, since the media would have done their job and the public would be fully informed before the election. Obama and the Democrats are also clearly planning to frustrate and control “alternative” media sources such as the Internet.

LA replies:

Ok, but your scenario assumes that Obama as president will take off his mask and become an entirely different figure than he’s previously been, confrontational rather than conciliatory. Now it’s possible that that may happen. But it seems at least equally likely to me that it won’t happen.

You’re also assuming that the whole country would simply become and remain supine before a radical left takeover of the country. If that’s the case, if the country is that weak, then there’s no hope for America in any case.

Steve D. writes:

I wonder if you read your own title. Whoever wins the presidency, a Congress controlled by the Democrats—possibly by a Democratic supermajority—will pursue its own agenda, not the president’s. The Democrats did not elect the most radically leftist leadership in U.S. history for no purpose—they have been waiting for this opportunity for generations, and realize it may not come again. They also realize that, despite the possibility of Democratic gains, they remain stupendously unpopular. They therefore have, at best, a two-year window to push through all the changes they have planned. President Obama is not likely to lift a finger to stop them. As Buchanan said, he goes to war with his base, or with the country—by which Buchanan means that half of it that won’t docilely swallow 200-proof socialism. What, precisely, has any Democrat done in the past decade to demonstrate that, given such a choice, he would side with that half of the country?

With a Democratic Congress determined to take full advantage of a short-term opportunity to make radical and permanent changes to America, the only Constitutional hope for conservatives is a veto pen in the hand of a Republican president. McCain is a weak reed, but Obama is no protection at all. Neither is “public opinion”—especially considering that leftists have won the public opinion war for generations. (How do you think this became a country with an unreflective leftist mindset?)

Granted a McCain presidency holds the possibility of disasters of a different sort for conservatism; but a Democratic defeat also holds the possibility of the end of the far-left stranglehold on Democratic Party leadership. Three successive defeats to eminently beatable Republicans might be enough to jar moderate Democrats to their senses, and purge their party of the Pelosi-Frank-Reid leadership axis. Maybe, maybe not; but it’s at least as likely as the possibility of Obama suddenly becoming a centrist.

LA replies:

You make a reasonable argument. Your scenario could be right, and if one believes that it is right, then one would be required to vote for McCain. But it seems to me that your scenario is not necessarily right.

I’d be interested to hear other commenters’ thoughts on this.

Gregory F. writes:

You write: “With Obama as president, working with the leftist Congress, the right half of the country will be united against the Congress and the president. Conservatives will be alert, on fire, at war.”

The moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life…Do you think America is ready for what will happen soon?

LA replies:

We don’t know that this will happen. It’s a reasonable hope that it will happen. Everything now is guesswork. We’ve facing an unprecedented set of imponderables, particularly about Obama and who he really is and how he would govern. I could construct four or five very different yet plausible scenarios of how he might govern.

Do I think America is ready? No. But that doesn’t mean that what I predicted, about conservatives “on fire, at war,” won’t happen.

Gregory F. replies:

Of course, there are many ways that this can turn. Time will tell.

October 24

Stephen T. writes:

You write: “If he tried to push through nationalized health, D.C. statehood, and all the rest of it, half the country will be up in arms against him, he would lose his conciliatory cool and become an embattled figure. And he wouldn’t want that.”

You’re dead-on with that observation about Obama’s nature: the “embattled figure” is his worst nightmare. The very white, Nixon-like un-coolness of it! I think his strongest instinct is always to maintain that youthful “cool” and above all never be perceived a “loser” on any issue—anathema to both his proud black male identity and the hip college-age admirers he most identifies with, who themselves have no experience with the failures inherent in life. As a group, black males are not drawn to the notion of humility and notably tend to lack the ability to handle public criticism and failure objectively. This combination of traits should be entertaining in the White House when the stuff hits the fan, as eventually it always does for every president.

By the way, when you were in college did you relate to 47-year olds as youthful contemporaries? I viewed them as beginning the downhill slide to senior citizenship. (I can recall watching my father mow the lawn in his 40s and worrying he might collapse from a heart attack at any moment.) Yet, college students of today, if we are led to believe correctly, identify with Obama due to his incredible “youth” and great proximity to their own age. Michelle Obama repeatedly casts back to their college years with a tone of immediacy that sounds as if she and Barack were strolling around the student union only a semester or so ago. These are people entering their late 40s whose undergrad years are a quarter of a century behind them! Both are older than my parents were when I started college. I predict that another stamp the presidency will make on Obama is that he will be involuntarily and quite precipitously AGED into his actual chronological stage of life—both visibly and (even worse for someone like him) in the way he is apprehended by the truly young and cool.

LA replies:

Well, Obama is very young looking, mainly because of his striking thinness; it gives him the perpetual air of a graduate student. But I began noticing a few months ago that his hair is greying, so your prediction may be borne out.

James P. writes:

How would you respond to the contention that when Congress enacts a liberal agenda that will enrage half the population, Obama will have to break with half the population or break with his party, and he has absolutely no history of breaking with his party? To the extent that he has a record at all, he has aligned himself completely with the extreme Leftists in the Reid-Pelosi Congress (indeed, he is one of those extremists). He may not want to be confrontational, but he will be forced to confront someone, and who is he more likely to confront, the “ignorant racists” who oppose him, or his ideological supporters?

LA replies:

Yes, he has no record of being confrontational with the left, but he has no record of being openly confrontational with anyone, let alone with the entire country! Just the opposite. So the question of how he will resolve or attempt to resolve the inherent contradictions in his political persona cannot be answered, short of making him president. Which I hasten to add is not a reason to make him president.

Mark Jaws writes:

Look, ladies and gentlemen.

With McCain we face certain, agonizingly slow death. Do some of you actually think that he will veto some of the radical, leftist agenda!? Don’t hold your breath. This is the man who gave us McCain-Kennedy and McCain-Feingold. In both cases, it hurt GOP constituencies. McCain is not to be trusted. Period.

On the other hand, a Barack presidency offers us the OPPORTUNITY—not the certainty—of galvanizing and uniting the Right. And if ever there was such a time to galvanize the Right, it is now—with amnesty and Medicaid and Social Security for illegals, Baby Boomers poised to retire, the country in recession, and Al Qaeda waiting in the wings, Obama does not have the resources or the space to embark on a radical course, which means he loses.

If he raises taxes he hurts the economy. If he does not increase social spending, he lets down his base. If he cuts military spending or terminates “domestic eavesdropping” and we are attacked yet again, he is deep doo doo. If he pursues the Fairness Doctrine aka Hush Rush or gun control he will have hundreds of thousands of angry whites marching in the streets of DC. All Rush has to do is call them here and they will come. Even that lightweight Hannity could get 500,000 people to DC. Interesting times lie ahead with plenty of opportunities for vitriolic guys such as Mark Jaws poised to sap the sang froid out of Obama.

And folks, please remember. The Left is electing an enabler of Afrocentrist, anti-white bigots. Don’t let the charges of racism deter you. We need to stuff the “R word” back in their mouths.

Bill Carpenter writes:

Mark Jaws’s comment that “we have to stuff the R word back in their mouths” reminds me of a saying, from many years ago, of local radio personality Tom Bernard: “Sometimes you just have to take the racist bullet.” He certainly did. That is more important than responding, when leftists call you a racist, “No, you are.” The accusation of racism has to be discredited, not recycled.

A few days ago, a lady from Southern California was telling Bill Bennett on his radio show how people were accusing her of racism for no cause, just for speaking honestly about the subprime crisis, and so on. She testified to a growing indifference on her part to these hostile and groundless accusations, concluding, “Let them call me a racist, I don’t care.” Mr. Bennett disagreed with her, saying, “No, you care, it’s very unpleasant.” I doubt if it was his intention—he is a great contributor to public discussion—but I had the suspicion he was trying to prevent her from discarding her sensitivity to leftist name-calling because a part of civility is to care what our fellow-citizens say to us and think of us. I had the suspicion that his response was an appeal to her to continue to give liberals and leftists a handle on her emotions and self-respect, as if to take that away from them would further polarize society and political discussion.

If his point is that we should not just cut ourselves off from others behind a wall of contempt, he had a point. It would be better to challenge the accuser and expose his or her errors. But contempt is at least an improvement over undeserved guilt.

LA replies:

Except when the charge is so silly that one can just laugh at it, my approach is not to ignore the racism charge (i.e., not to “take the racism bullet,” as Tom Bernard puts it, an attitude that implies moral insensibility to the charge, and perhaps guilt, and does nothing to stop people from continuing to use it), and not to deny the charge (i.e., not to say, “I’m not a racist,” which implies that the charge is legitimate when used against others, it’s just not accurate when used against oneself, an attitude that legitimates and empowers the racism charge), but to analyze the charge, to say, in all sincerity, “This is a very serious and damaging charge you’re leveling at me. So please tell me what you mean by racism, and how my behavior is racist.” In other words, to challenge the entire premise of the charge, and force people to think about and to take responsibilty for what they are saying.

Mark Jaws writes:

There are three ways to answer the charges of racism. The first way is the immature, knee jerk and, most of all, ineffective. “I am not a racist—you are.”

The second is the Larry Auster method, which our gracious blogmeister has described up above.

But the third way, is the most effective. It is to go on the offensive with facts, and I have plenty of practice with this Mark Jaws-patented method. It requires a tad of chutzpah and histrionics, and the sheer will to seize the initiative and not to relinquish it. The Larry Auster method gives liberals too much wiggle room, and being the worms that they are, they are likely to squirm away. Larry is a nice guy. I am not. Try my technique below.

“Wait a minute. I’m a racist, because I explicitly state I am pro-white or I cite government demographic data about minorities? Then what is Barack Obama? He was a member of a church that was explicitly pro-black. He was a member of a church which awarded Farrakhan with a life-time achievement award. And furthermore, he even marched with Louis Farrakhan during the Million Man March. He called his own grandmother a “typical white person.” Just what the heck is a typical white person? I guess he used stereotypes, right? So, if I am a racist for being pro-white, then what the hell is Barack Obama?”

Ladies and Gentlemen. This works every time. This Mark Jaws methodology is like Raid to white liberals who for 40 years have been allowed to infest the public arena with their pesky playing of the race card. Oddly enough, in one of the more ironic twists in contemporary American life, Barack Obama has given us the just cause to play our own race card—against him and his supporters! Practice this technique. I know that not everyone can perfect this mode of attack as Mark Jaws has, but I guarantee you can achieve results or your money back.

LA replies:

Raid to white liberals, huh? That’s an image I can relate to.

Gintas writes:

Interesting times lie ahead with plenty of opportunities for vitriolic guys such as Mark Jaws poised to sap the sang froid out of Obama.

He’s in Virginia, isn’t he? Yeah! We need an election-night movie marathon to get the fightin’ spirit up:

Death Wish

Falling Down

Shane (“Ryker, you’ve lived too long.”)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 23, 2008 09:06 AM | Send