April 22, 2008
We have three very bad candidates for President. One is an angry, open borders fanatic. One is a black nationalist and smooth-talking charlatan. One is an crude and unaccomplished ladder-climber whose only qualification is her association as putative spouse of an ex-president.
Which of these three losers will best rally conservatives? One argument for either Hillary or Obama is that conservatives will become united, thwarting these presdients’ worst proposals, and rethinking policy and principles after taking stock of the damage of the Bush Presidency. But have the horrors and mistakes of the Bush presidency caused a rally of real conservatives?
It seems like his populist war talk and faux “man of the people” horse sense instead creates a kind of false consciousness, where memories of the anti-war movement counterculture of the Sixties and the pusilanimousness of the Democrats during the Cold War made instinctual conservatives mistakenly support all the talk of war in the Middle East. The president talked democracy, but the people heard “revenge.” The distraction of the Iraq War let conservatives forget about all the ways this president is, in fact, advancing the sixties agenda, i.e., open borders, big government, silence on various culture issues. The president is like a “human resources manager” liberal, smiling his way through the most vile and subversive notions all so that the company—i.e., the nation seen as large commercial entity—can continue its economic progress.
A friend writes an interesting point about how the “unity” of a Clinton or Obama presidency may give us false hopes:
“As far as the Conservative movement goes, I still choose having someone in office who will appoint decent judges and protect the country even if it means a slightly smaller chance the conservative movement will regenerate, which I am not even sure is the case. Consider that an Obama or Clinton (or Gore) presidency would give anyone to the right of Lenin plenty to complain about, and it might actually serve to paper over significant differences among the right that need to be hashed out. Think about some of the conspiracy theorists that got thrown into the conservative movement during the Clinton presidency. And look who we elected President afterwards. It doesn’t seem like a Democratic presidency was all that helpful to the Conservative movement (I know that Bill was more moderate than these goons, but still).”
All of these candidates are so bad, it’s hard to decide who will be worst. We can only think now of who will accomplish the least, be the least bad, or, in the alternative, who will be the most potentially bad and thus do the most to unify conservatives.
I think more and more that person is Obama, because our biggest national hang up is confusion about equality, race, and the role of government. He’s terrible on all three issues. He, more than a McCain or Clinton, will be ideological, supporting open borders equally with McCain, but also supporting divisive minority set asides and various symbolic embraces of black barbarism. Can you imagine a President Obama during our periodic black riots? Other than a rousing speech, where has he shown the grit and patriotism to stop a foreign attack on Americans, whether in the form of hijacked jetliners or armies of day laborers? To the extent he has faced these issues, he has been an apologist for or associated with the most extreme anti-American leftism.
Becoming accustomed to criticizing this man, seeing his errors, realizing he’s a charlatan (a process already underway), and taking note of his conflicting loyalty to his tribe will be a cleansing process, albeit a painful one. I think he’ll be less likely to win than McCain or Clinton, but I think his victory would be the best hope for a conservative revival.
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