Four More Years: The Age of Obama

Good article by Victor Davis Hanson (a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution), published here in National Review Online. The tagline of the article is, "'Hope and change' has been replaced by envy and jealousy." Hanson discusses five likely consequences of the Obama administration: 

1. Massive government spending (i.e., expansion of government services and entitlements)
2. Diminishing support for Israel (and the ho-hum response from American Jews, over 60% of whom voted for Obama)
3. Failure of conservatives to counter Obamism. Here's how Hanson put it: 

"The traditional conservative antidote to Obamaism has fallen short. That is, the arguments of principled conservatives about the perils of big government, redistributionist economics, and diminutions in personal freedom seem for a majority of Americans to be outweighed by the attraction of government subsidies and entitlements."

1. Balkanization of American society (i.e., pitting one racial group against another, which is ironic since Obama ran on the now disproved ideal of uniting America and healing the racial divide)
2. Class envy (i.e., not just the haves vs. the have-nots, but the haves vs. the have mores)

Here's Hanson's final paragraph: 

"One of the great lessons in the age of Obama is that wealth and poverty will always remain relative. Happiness is now defined not as having the basics I need, but as ensuring that someone else does not have more. Obama has successfully appealed to the oldest and basest of human emotions — envy and jealousy, masked with the notion of enforced fairness — and for now they trump even the human desire to be free."

Not mentioned in Hanson's discussion are other likely consequences which others have articulated (Dinesh D'Souza in his book called Roots of Obama's Rage, followed by his documentary called 2016: Obama's America) and Steve Emerson, founder of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, which has produced a documentary called Jihad in America: The Grand Deception. Both D'Souza and Emerson seem concerned about the influence of radical Islam on America (more on this later). 

Here's the link to "Ripples from the Election," by Victor Davis Hanson (National Review Online, December 11, 2012).