Sardonic, contemptuous, angry political commentary below. No one should click the link for any reason.
So assume Obama wins. Not an outlandish prediction, looking at the current state of the economy and all the models for the last fifty-plus years. Everything goes as planned, and Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States.
That’s it, right? The lion lies down with the lamb, all our worries are over? Not even close. If you think an Obama administration is going to bring about the New Jerusalem, you’re out of your mind.
If you’re looking for justice and an accounting for the last eight years, it’s not going to happen. Pa Bush pardoned the entire raft of Iran-contra conspirators over Christmas after he was beaten, and that was for a scandal that basically nobody cared about anymore. Little Bush is going to hand out get-outta-jail-free cards like one of those guys passing out fliers in front of the club. You’re never, ever going to see any of those people held to account, because they’ll be pardoned for anything criminal, they’ll ignore congressional subpoenas, the press will bang the drum for getting over it and moving on, and they’ll probably never leave the country so you can forget about the thin reed of “universal jurisdiction.” Basically, everyone who got us into this mess is going to be let off the hook before Obama even puts his hand on the Bible. So kiss that good-bye.
If you’re looking for some changes to the way things run in this country, forget that too. The Senate Republicans have shattered the record for filibusters in a single session these last two years, and that’s with a President who could still veto things if they somehow got out of Congress. With a Democrat-controlled Congress (and probably by a larger margin in both houses) and a Democratic President, they’re going to dig in their heels. Scorched Earth, just like 1992-94. Every initiative will be tied up forever in the Senate, while the usual talk-radio scum bellow on about how the GOP is saving America from the depredations of the horrible socialist terrorist-worshipping Democrats…and the political media will bemoan the fact that Obama has failed to change the tone in Washington and cannot get his program through Congress.
The “heavy hand of government tyranny” is coming back, too. Nothing will actually be different, but the “essential tools to fight terrorism”, the surveillance and monitoring and put-your-shoes-on-the-belt horseshit that’s vitally important to the War on Terror, and if you’re not guilty you don’t have anything to hide? All that will be replaced on January 20th with a sudden outrage at the prying of government’s jackbooted thugs, the wailing at how Obama’s trashing the Bill of Rights, how a bunch of federal stormtroopers are out to violate your home and castle in the name of some evil regime that hates your liberty. And when some white-wing wacko blows up a government building again, it’ll be proof positive that all those people in their pickup trucks with their “I Fear My Government” bumper stickers (freshly reapplied in 2009 after being scraped off in 2001) are right to be afraid, that the government is nourishing a climate of fear, and that the threat of terrorism is being used to tamper with the fundamental freedoms we should enjoy as Americans. Bet on it.
Most of all, though, Obama inherits everything. All of it. Think back to 1992-93, when Bush the Elder took it upon himself to deploy troops into Somalia after he’d already lost the election. Does anybody remember that? No, all anybody remembered is how “Clinton screwed the military in Mogadishu.” Get ready for the Iraqi meltdown that’s been inevitable for years now, and get ready for the idea that “we were about to win in Iraq until Obama stabbed the troops in the back.” Because that’s exactly the narrative we’re going to get from the feces-throwing monkeys that drive our political discourse and their amen corner on the Sunday bitch-fests.
A new President isn’t the end of the nightmare, kids. It’s just the beginning of a new one. And unless the big O has it in his power to somehow reshape the whole of American political culture over the past 20 years, things are not going to change one little bit.