One of my favorite little Chunks o' History is The Great Disappointment. Short version: William Miller uses hints from the Bible to predict a specific day for the return of Jesus -- October 22, 1844. Thousands of people waited, some climbing up on their roofs so as not to miss the Arrival...
Unfortunately, Jesus decided to hit Skybar instead. His movement ridiculed, his followers dispersed into other sects (including the Seventh Day Adventists), Miller coined this day "the Great Disappointment."
I bring this up only because I've recently received batches of e-mails asking how I can be compliant in the coming socialist/Marxist government of Barack Obama. That's odd enough, but the McCain campaign has actively used the idea that Obama is some sort of closet Marxist, or open socialist. Not only that, a lot of the rhetoric by mainstream conservative leaders has been about how America will be fundamentally changed if Obama wins. I don't think I'm far off in pointing out that a lot of the mainstream conservative rhetoric here is downright apocalyptic. A lot -- not all, but a lot -- of McCain/Palin supporters are utterly convinced that Barack Obama's America will be the socialist wasteland they've been fearing their entire adult lives.
So what happens when ... it doesn't happen?
Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein can disagree all they want, but when push comes to shove, most of Obama's policies are magnificently boring. I had a friend just today say "But John, you're in that top 1%! Your taxes are going to go up!" To which I replied: "Strangely, I can live with the idea of my taxes going from 36% to 39.5%. That's not exactly nationalizing the means of production."
Obama's health care plan was the most conservative of the three major Democratic candidates' plans, the only one that left the insurance companies not only intact but with a major role in providing guaranteed coverage. If you have employer-based health care, your life will not change one jot. As noted, taxes will go down for the middle class and jump to from 36% to 39.5% for the top -- and frankly, that ain't gonna fund the re-education camps. His proposed capital gains tax rate is lower than Ronald Reagan's.
Supreme Court appointments will probably insure Roe v. Wade survives, but that's just a stasis from the 70's. Gay rights will remain the provenance of individual states. I personally wouldn't mind harsher prosecution of churches that blatantly violate the separation of Church and State, but frankly that's unlikely. Evolution issues will continue to be resolved at the state court level ... in short, barring unspeakable terrorist acts or some sort of natural disaster, the next four to eight years are going to look a lot like right now, but with more science guys hanging around in government offices and nominally fewer closeted-gay sex scandals in politics.
All to say -- what happens when the Socialist Nightmare never arrives? I mean, it's been a useful shadow threat for years, a lurking monster that lost a little power after the fall of the Soviet Union, but still had some spark thanks to several generations raised with a primal reaction to the very word. It was the last big wrench in the toolbox, and not one you wanted to pull out ot often.
But the best monsters are always the ones just offscreen. In their thrashing for purchase against Senator Obama, Senator McCain's campaign may have over-reached. An awful lot of conservative leaders have declared that an Obama presidency is October 22, 1844 in the great battle of freedom versus socialism. Interesting to see what happens when the people who've been fed a steady diet of terror images -- state-run medical care with month-long waits, abortion kiosks in the mall and forced gay-friendly kindergarten education -- encounter instead a higher minimum wage, guaranteed health care, and the occasional bit of science-based policy.
This, indeed was why McCain's campaign could never score a serious hit. Despite the cries of "Marxism" and waving the bloody shirt of 60's radicalism, Senator Obama has cultivated a studiously boring policy presence. Chris and I were talking in the writer's room the other day, about the 30 minute ad buy that aired tonight. Chris was wondering what it was supposed rto accomplish.
"Nothing," I said. "In the best possible scenario, it's so boring that people turn it off halfway through. He's already got the people he inspired. What he has to do now is get people who used to be uncomfortable with the idea of a black president, and make them so comfortable that they're even bored with the idea."
" 'Obama's not like those other black people.' He's like Rob down in Accounting.' "
"Precisely."
I think the same thing will happen now, with the Socialist door the McCain campaign opened. Eight years from now "Socialist!" will be met with "There you go again."
69 comments:
You have a dog that barks at the mailman? I used to.
Day after day, year after year. Would go into a frenzy when the mailman got to the door. Sometimes would shred some unfortunate mail that made it through the slot.
After years, the dog never, ever got bored of this; never ever realized that the postman wouldn't come in and kill us, and in fact just wanted to give us some mail of ours.
In the world of our dog -- a dog adorable and friendly in any other way -- the postman *was* going to kill us all, and it was only his constant vigilance, loud barking — and yes, sometimes, violence against the mail — that kept us all from being horribly killed.
It sucked for the mailman, and it sucked for us, because we really wanted our mail intact; but the dog had a purpose in life, right up to the end.
FACT: Obama personally taught kindergarteners how to have sex.
FACT: Obama may say he's not a socialist, but he does have a tattoo of Lenin and Stalin having a barbecue on his backside. You decide.
To be fair (and now I'm being serious), all the liberals (including myself) said the same apocalyptic things when Bush came to power, but... shit, I guess that's not really a good argument. Um... Nevermind. I just want some free fucking health care.
I have to say, normally I don't buy into the anti-American rubbish that's fairly rife in Europe but, as a Brit, this absolute, deep rooted, fundamental terror of "the 'S' word" makes me laugh.
Ultimately, I guess you guys haven't come all that far from ducking and covering from the Red Menace after all.
Yes, but the disasters we got under Bush are not the ones we were expecting. Abortion is still legal, social security never got mixed up with the stock market, and gay marriage is actually legal in some places.
Obama – safe and boring – is not a campaign strategy I was seeing until you pointed it out, John. Thanks.
The great disappointment won't be so dangerous in the guise of the non-impact of socialism, comrade Rogers. The more dangerous disappointment will be the one that descends upon the hope and dream addicts, the kids with visions of ponies farting sparkles at the mere mention of Obama's name. All that safe, old fashioned boring will be a poleaxe beteen the eyes for them. When all of the problems don't decide to solve themselves and things carry on much as they are today... well, there will be a scary bit of pouting after that sets in.
Republicans didn't abandon their fevered dreams of Maoist pressgangs when the Clinton Administration happened to spend more time rescuing the President's (and his wife's) career from the worse angels of his limbic system than rounding up subscribers to Combat Handguns and Redbook; they just told and retold the tales of that period as though the pressgangs and rounding-up had actually happened -- hence, George W. Bush.
Fortunately Socialism will be averted by the rise of the oppressive Black Nationalist Republic and the herding of white people into death camps where the last things they see before the poison gas shower are robots of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayres pissing on them. So, to sum up, no Socialism.
Actually, history's full of Great Disappointments, of varying degrees of greatness. Remember "88 Reasons Why the World Will End in 1988"? Cults get them a LOT, and there's been enough of 'em that a pattern has emerged.
When an important event is predicted and fails to occur, a few believers in it will drift away, but only a few. The overwhelming majority will NOT cease to believe in the prediction, and will rationalize it however they want, because they're committed to it. They will, in effect, double down again and again, always unshakably certain that this time they're right, and retaining only dim, vague, memories of all the other times.
Mark my words: even as moderates spend the next few years shuffling left and saying they've ALWAYS been standing there, the hard right is going to spend the next few years going violently insane. It will be very fucking weird.
Exactly, Boss....
The monster you don't show,but threaten to is always more terrifying than the monster that walks up and says...
"I am going to eat your face. Say, you got a light?"
The right wing propaganda types will be busy tagging every single proposal and policy as socialism. It won't make sense, but when has that made a difference in recent history? I believe that the propaganda will be less effective in the near future than it was in the near past, but the resentment consumers will see every little thing as socialism. My hope is that a larger number of people will blow off the resentment types and sign up for the moar helth cayr plz agenda.
After every cult leader makes an end-of-the-world prediction that doesn't pan out, the cult gets a little smaller, but, in a phenomenon that could be exactly likened to evaporative cooling, the remaining cult members are a lot more psychotic about it.
If we accept the "analogy" that likens modern conservatism to a cult, then that means that they will be a minority, but a TOTALLY PSYCHOTIC minority that will be prone to scorched earth tactics and marked by an unwillingness to compromise.
There are still people out there who think the collapse of the USSR was a scheme to get us off our guard.I read regular paeans to the greatness of Bush--including how he's brought peace and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan only the Liberal Media are hiding the truth. As commentators above have pointed out, a lack of socialism won't change their views.
I do think, though, that there's a huge chunk of Americans who honestly don't give a damn when "socialism" and "Communism" are flung as charges, any more than they care about William Ayers: Communism's dead, nobody under 41 was alive when the Weather Underground was active. I doubt these charges motivate anyone outside of "the base" that still thinks we should have nuked the Reds.
-Fraser
If you look at Obama's policies and ignore the foreign-sounding name and skin color, he's a fairly solid representation of a conservative circa 1972. Post 60's culture war but before the conservatives all got the Reagan religion.
It's sad that this is now what passes for liberal in America.
I imagine the conservatives will do what the liberals have done when the fascist state never arrived-- claim that it's here, anyway, and that you're all just too blind to see it.
Ridiculous, and sad, but true.
What I find laughable is that Obama is being called a liberal and a socialist when in a lot of countries (including my own, Canada), he would probably be slightly right of center. In the US, he's considered a bleeding heart liberal. This is the country that has one of the widest gaps between the rich and poor in the industrialized world, some of the worst social problems and a population that is getting less educated, while the rest of the world is going the other way. Quite frankly. the US could probably use a bit of socialism right now (especially right now). Unfortunately they're not going to get it with Obama.
"I imagine the conservatives will do what the liberals have done when the fascist state never arrived"
Well, Bush did hold a US citizen, arrested in Chicago, in solitary confinement and sensory deprivation in military brigs for years, so long that it made him crazy, and that was before he was allowed to have a trial.
Then there's the militarization of our civilian police forces, with podunk towns of 500 people getting SWAT teams that they end up using to do no-knock raids to serve warrants for non-violent offenses.
It certainly seems to me that American society has slid a few notches towards fascism, even if we haven't had a full-blown kristallnacht.
This is how Obama handled the Acorn/Ayres question in the final debate. The answer was a long narrative whose meta-message was "Huh. Nothing interesting to see here."
Wait. You mean $700B from Treasury and OVER A HUNDRED BILLION PER DAY from the Fed *isn't* Socialism?
And in addition, there's a substantial group which has made a very good living from this stuff. They certainly aren't going to look for honest work - that's for suckers.
-Barry
The right-wingers are going to give socialism a good name. They better watch out. Obama is competent. They accuse him of being a socialist and he governs well, people might gain a somewhat favorable view of socialism. Its so silly, all those socialist countries like in Western Europe, they so fucked up. Ha! People don't even realize, we have been living in a socialist mixed political economy since the rise the 1930's. What the fuck do they think social security, affirmative action, medicare, and medicaid are? Meals on wheels and the evil handouts of socialism. Be afraid, poor people might be getting more hand outs. Never heard a middle class or wealthy person complain about a handout. And we love getting them and giving them. Course we call them networks and hook ups
I think they will argue that all the bad economic things that will happen over the next few years are caused by Obama's socialism.
I want to second psa's comment. I'm guessing that when Obama governs as a corporatist centrist a la Clinton, and doesn't cut executive power back to year 2000 levels, a massive amount of energy and enthusiasm that could have been better spent is going to dry up permanently. This is one problem with supporting people rather than causes :/
"Strangely, I can live with the idea of my taxes going from 36% to 39.5%. That's not exactly nationalizing the means of production."
No kidding. I'd like great schools and competent bureaucrats, bridges that don't fall down and a distinct lack of melamine and e coli in my food. I'll gladly pay another 3.5% for that. Add in health care for everyone, and you can jack it up another 3.5%, I don't care. I just hope I don't also have to pay for three or four wars.
Just for perspective: Obama is pro-capital punishment.
For a politician in Sweden that alone would make him be considered almost a right extremist.
And even Sweden's conservative party is in support of free (tax-funded) college education, an issue not even raised by anyone in the US public debate. (As far as I know.)
Obama is to the right of Sweden's conservative party. And Sweden's conservative party is to the right of Swedens liberal party. And Sweden's liberal party is to the right of Sweden's social democratic party. And not even THEY are socialists anymore. So, of course Obama is not a socialist. But he seems like a nice guy, and I think you should vote for him.
/Swedish fella
"Obama's health care plan was the most conservative of the three major Democratic candidates' plans, the only one that left the insurance companies not only intact but with a major role in providing guaranteed coverage."
Wait, could you cite a source for that one? Granted, Edwards' plan was far to the left of Obama's, but my understanding of Clinton's health care plan was that it mandated purchase of insurance from private insurance companies, which would certainly leave those companies both intact and playing a major role. I believe she had the possibility of a government-run alternative in her plan, but so does Obama. What am I missing? I'm genuinely asking, because your opinions are usually very well-informed, and this seems to be pointing to a gap in my own understanding.
And in 8 years, the REAL socialist candidate will take over.
(insert evil laugh here)
Mr. Rogers, I present my Utah Mormon accountant brother-in-law-in-law on why he is now in favor of socialized medicine.
"This is so because I don't want to endure any more emails about fundraisers for bone marrow transplants for the little timmy's of the world. Just give them the transplants already before I start to cry....my stance on socialized medicine is pretty new. Like I said, I just feel bad when honest, hardworking people have to mortgage a home to save a child. I don't think it should be that way."
"Strangely, I can live with the idea of my taxes going from 36% to 39.5%. That's not exactly nationalizing the means of production."
The point isn't how much of an increase, it's the fact it has to be increased at all. The government needs to stop wasting the money it's already getting. The republican's were supposedly the ones to do it, but blew it big time and are paying the price. The main problem I have with Obama, and the dems in general, is they believe more government is the answer to every problem. The repubs supposedly don't, but still manage to grow the government at an alarming rate. (What a surprise, those in power want to expand their power)And if you think your added tax is going to have a discernable impact on education, I laugh.
I hope Obama does well but I'm not holding my breath.
So the thing that bothers me the most about this being a supposedly amazing panacea is it all seems seated on the concept that you CAN get something for free.
You could spend the entire US GDP attempting to cure one child with Progeria, not save him or her, and let everyone else starve. Obvious strawman, so the idea must be to provide more publicly funded benefits than we do at present, but still pick a benefits limit point so we're not spending 1 bil USD on a given leukemia patient (since so many others would suffer)... So where's the limit? And how do you fund it?
Tax corporations? So they move overseas or at best just transfer the cost to the consumer by raising prices, making it inherently regressive by placing the burden straight back to a feudal head tax.
'Progressive' Income tax? What's Steve Job's salary? Right ... so he actually pays capital gains, not income tax, which doesn't get near that 36 or 39%.
Moral of the story, it always, so far, costs those who can't afford it the most. To be truly progressive about it you have to be honest about where you're getting the money. The simpler the process, the less chance to wiggle out of it. A graduated income tax with too many exemptions to count, then the AMT and who knows what else, is not it.
Oh, and the actual scary part about it, the reason I posted at all.
We had those profound social reforms under FDR in the 30's, social security, the TN Valley Authority, all of it. Then we sat in the Great Depression for.10.years. It took a world war to pull us out of it. And no nukes for that war.
So yeah, I'm scared shitless that a Demo/Demo Legislature/Executive will do the same thing. Hear's hoping you're right and the socialist worries are all silly paranoia.
And yes, the stuff the 'conservatives' have been doing has me just as irate.
Uhhhh...so FDR caused the great depression? Please source that claim.....please spare us all if this is more Amity Shlaes style claptrap.......and go cry in your beer with Debbie Schluessel about how Quantum of Solace is proof..PROOF...that environmentalists are villains!!!!!
This anonymous guy sure is mouthy.
You left out the best thing about "The Great Disappointment" (at least from a writer's perspective). A journalism professor once told a story which I will paraphrase here:
Apparently, Miller follower Samuel Snow had added to Miller's prediction by saying that not only would the world end, Christ would return gloriously with the sunrise. So many of the believers went to the shore to meet Christ's return and a reporter who was tasked with covering the event trekked out to Montauk (or somewhere) to watch the Millerites' expected disappointment. Being a good, frugal reporter in an age when travel was slow and the telegraph was expensive, he wrote most of his story in advance and left it with the typesetter, planning on sending back confirmation that, yes, the event had occurred as described and adding quotes and other details as needed. The lede the reporter wrote went something like MONTAUK--The followers of William Miller were disappointed by the failure of Jesus Christ to return with the sunrise this morning.
And so forth.
However, my professor pointed out that skepticism of even one's own skepticism is what makes an excellent reporter and, he said, this writer was an excellent reporter. So prepared was this writer, in fact, that he left behind a second possible lede, just in case. It went: The world ended at 8:03 AM this morning.
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