I consider Charles Krauthammer to be a very intelligent man. I think he is intelligent, but I also think he is quite devious in the sense that he cannot be relied upon to say what he really thinks. He’s a manipulator. His arguments don’t roll off the top of his head but are prepared meticulously to have the desired psychological impact. If you take him too literally, you’ll conclude that he is either not very bright or that he’s simply crazy. As a result, he can sometimes be hard to gauge.
There is certainly a degree of scare-mongering in his column today. There’s the boilerplate about how Obama is turning America into a typical European socialist state filled with people who can’t tie their shoes without some assistance from a bureaucrat. We all know that is food for the sheep. But maybe he actually believes that Obama represents a real threat to the Reagan Revolution.
Reaganism’s ascendancy was confirmed when the other guys came to power and their leader, Bill Clinton, declared (in his 1996 State of the Union address) that “the era of big government is over” — and then abolished welfare, the centerpiece “relief” program of modern liberalism.
In Britain, the same phenomenon: Tony Blair did to Thatcherism what Clinton did to Reaganism. He made it the norm.
Obama’s intention has always been to re-normalize, to reverse ideological course, to be the anti-Reagan — the author of a new liberal ascendancy. Nor did he hide his ambition. In his February 2009 address to Congress he declared his intention to transform America. This was no abstraction. He would do it in three areas: health care, education and energy.
To be more clear about it, Krauthammer also made this statement: “Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy.” I agree with that statement, but it seems clear that Krauthammer sees next Tuesday’s election as the potential endpoint of the conservative ascendancy. I’d like to believe that he is correct. As for the next part, I believe he is correct:
If Obama loses, however, his presidency becomes a historical parenthesis, a passing interlude of overreaching hyper-liberalism, rejected by a center-right country that is 80 percent non liberal.
When you put it that way, I guess this election in kind of important.
What say you?
I can’t believe I’m going to say this but I think I agree with him.
I think I need to take a shower.
What say I?
This little bit of extortion needs to be hung around the neck of even Republican candidate for Congress, especially the House:
With the statement that we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
That’s why David Frum endorsed Romney, essentially. Once a Republican, always.
The word “sedition” should come into more common usage when discussing the political strategies of the Right.
I’ve tended to think for a while now that Krauthammer has far better insight into the President’s intentions and capabilities than the odious Professional Left or faux-centrist wankers.
Much of the right hates the President because he’s black, but they should hate him because he’s…winning.
“center-right country that is 80 percent nonliberal”
See but that’s bullshit but it seems like they all believe it.
Nothing would make me happier than to see the end of Reaganism. May Obama win and may the threat be carried out.
No. And not only is the following incorrect, it’s delusional:
“overreaching hyper-liberalism” since Obaam became POTUS? That’s as ignorant as calling Obama a socialist. And this isn’t a “center-right country” — a bit nuts because we really do like all the government goods and services that we get, but don’t want to pay for them.
On a totally visceral level Krauthammer creeps me out — and that’s always a clue to watch out.
No, I believe that Krauthammer has accurately described how Obama’s presidency will be perceived by history if he loses.
I believe that a Romney victory will seal the deal for fascism in this country, and regardless of how successful or popular Obama (and Clinton) really were, the history books will be re-written to serve the regime.
If there is a less draconian outcome, and our democracy survives, then I believe that if elected, the post-Romney legacy will be far worse.
http://news.yahoo.com/why-gop-fear-romney-presidency-121512172–politics.html
Kraphammer is full of shit as always. I disagree with Boo. He is stupid. Stupid and evil like most other GOPers. If this is a center-right country, why have the GOPers only won one(2004) popular vote in a Presidential election since 1988? And it’s only been a 30 year GOPer ascendancy because establishment Democrats whored themselves to Wall Street and the other MOTU’s
Maybe hegemony is a better word for illuminating Booman’s (and Krauthammer’s) point.
The fact that centrist, establishment Democrats have largely gone along with the “Reagan Revolution” actually strengthens their point. If the past 30 years had been a liberal ascendency, then centrist, establishment Republicans (e.g., Eisenhower, Nixon) would have been going along with Democratic policy initiatives (while trying to blunt their impact, of course).
Going slightly off-topic, if Obama wins on Tuesday then we can expect a 3 act challenge to his legitimacy by Republicans:
1 – Obama only won because of massive voter fraud.
2 – The “fiscal cliff” negotiations in December and (possibly, hopefully?) January.
3 – Raising the debt ceiling in February or March.
(Rules reform in the Senate will be an important side act.)
If Obama wins—beating back the “illegitimate president” claims, going over the “fiscal cliff” and forcing House Republican to both take the blame and then compromise more than they want on taxes and spending, forcing a “clean” debt ceiling vote or asserting executive constitutional authority to keep paying debts that Congress authorized—it will go a long way towards “breaking the back” of the conservative ascendency.
Pres. Obama would still face bitter Republican opposition for the rest of his term, and Republicans will almost certainly gain seats in the 2014 election, but he’ll have set the stage for a center-left ascendency for the next generation.
That’s what Krauthammer understands and fears.
If they still have a majority the Dems will have another chance to empower themselves by killing the filibuster with the new congress.
Will they do it?
I don’t think so.
They will instead let the GOP continue to use the filibuster as a veto on anything they don’t like.
You will still need, and the Dems won’t have, 60 votes to pass anything the GOP doesn’t like.
“If Obama loses, however, his presidency becomes a historical parenthesis, a passing interlude of overreaching hyper-liberalism, rejected by a center-right country that is 80 percent nonliberal”
Total bullshit. Hyper-liberalism? The things the GOP rants about: HCR, the stimulous, cap and trade, deficits, etc etc etc are all things they embraced in the past.
All they have is hate and plutocracy. Fuck the Kraut’s dishonesty, and fuck the rubes that believe his bullshit.
Yes, and Jimmy Carter is remembered as a liberal rather than a Blue Dog precursor who inspired a strong liberal primary challenge from Teddy Kennedy.
Funny, I don’t remember Carter that way. I also don’t internalize GOP bullshit.
It doesn’t really matter how you remember it. That’s how the public at large views the Carter presidency.
Do the people remember Carter putting solar panels on the roof of the WH? Or that he de-regulated the airlines?
What people remember is that he was a failed liberal president. If they remember anything specific about his presidency they remember the hostage crisis and maybe Desert One.
We may know that he was the first of the “Blue Dog” Democrats but that’s not what the public at large thinks of him.
I think Krauthammer knows the stakes. I think he’s right on.
Well, if that’s true, what does it mean that Bill Clinton, once the craaaaziest, most liberal, enemy-of-normal-Americans has slowly evolved into conservatives’ favorite Democrat?
That would mark a liberal ascendancy by Dr. K’s reasoning, wouldn’t it?
I don’t think so. I think it is just an acknowledgment that everything the GOP said in the 1990’s was a lie.
And Kraut/GOP is lying now. Go figure.
I held my nose and read Krauthammer. I need to wash my brain out with soap.
“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan could guide the country to the restoration of a more austere and modest government with more restrained entitlements and a more equitable and efficient tax code. Those achievements alone would mark a new trajectory — a return to what Reagan started three decades ago.”
Jesus, he’s full of shit. If that’s intelligent, I must be an idiot. I lived through Reagan’s two terms, I remember them well, and they had nothing to do with being equitable or efficient.
He is one cold, evil motherfucker. Damn.
He really is. Krauthammer is a turtle-faced, Robespierre bastard. Fellow traveler with the likes of Bill Kristol. Every revolution has its share of blood-soaked intellectuals as supporters and you’re looking at one when you look at Charles Krauthammer. He’s an unreconstructed Neocon lacking even a portion of the shame that Broder or Frum have.
This election is in fact critical. I believe it will mark the end of an error. Having said that, the only point I see is on his head.
It’s all spin, Booman.
If Obama loses, the right will certainly claim he was an overreaching liberal; this is the narrative the GOP has been invested in since the first day of his presidency.
If, on the other hand, Obama wins, I highly doubt the political right will come to the conclusions that Charles does in this article – even privately.
Whatever the case, I don’t think it’s wise to give too much credence to what Krauthammer says. The only thing you can be sure about with his ilk is that – like all paid political propagandists – he will be on message.
I used to school myself that a person’s looks don’t tell you enough to judge. Bundy and Dahmer’s looks didn’t scream evil at me.
But Krauthammer, well, he looks exactly like what he is.
He’s quadriplegic.
I believe he is paraplegic, which means he is paralyzed from the waist down. His face isn’t affected by that. But the face is the mirror of the soul.
I hated Clinton for that surrender.
Progressivism relies on government big enough to push corporations and rich people around.
Government that refuses to let the market – meaning corporations and rich people – make all the important decisions about the economy.
To surrender big government is to give control of the economy to the rich bastards who use all their power for only one purpose, and it’s not to advance the common good: to make themselves richer.
K is right that if we lose this one the conservatives will recover the initiative.
Unfortunately, winning this one is no guarantee they have lost it.
If this is a “center-right country that is 80 percent non liberal,” then why does the Republican Party have to spend millions of dollars lying about their true policies, suppressing votes, and subjecting us to the reality altering lies of Krauthammer,Limbaugh,and FOX News?
If social programs are so horrible why did the New Deal help to end the Great Depression instead of making it worse? In fact, didn’t the Great Prosperity followed the introduction of the social net?
Yes, I absolutely agree that if Obama wins it will represent the end of the Reagan revolution.
In fact, Obama’s first election signalled the end of the Reagan revolution.
A lot of people would probably say, why? What was the big change?
From Enron to 9/11 to two wars in Asia to the financial meltdown, the “W” administration was marked by greed, corruption, destructive incompetence, and ideological blindness. Obama’s decisive victory four years ago was the nation’s answer. Since then the Republicans have been on the defensive, so vicious it may look like an offensive, but what has it gained them?
A Romney loss under these circumstances just confirms that America has had it with Reaganism. The long-term result of Reaganism is that it is a threat to the middle class and has nearly bankrupted the country. Nobody can say the GOP didn’t put everything they had into this election, with Citizens United, wall-to-wall lying, public racism we haven’t seen in decades. After the election we are still going to have to deal with this.
“Reaganism”? “Thatcherism”? Out chaos comes order, and back again, hmm, Charles?
These guys all think they are reading tea leaves. Nothing really has changed for thousands of years: it’s the Golden Rule all over again and the rich guys think they would be kings.
Booman, I think you give Krauthammer a little too much credit. As the saying goes, when you are a Krauthammer, everything looks like a nail. He’s a rich bastard paid to write stuff that other rich bastards will want to read. How ever else shall the poor guy keep his job?