Obama comes to bury Reagan, not to praise him

[killbotfactory]

I found it painful to read yesterday's diary regarding Barack Obama's comments about Ronald Reagan. Seeing such obviously sincere people completely misinterpret Sen. Obama's comments and misunderstand the rare opportunity that Obama offers to the progressive community prompted me to attempt an explanation of that opportunity. Many Kossacks appear to be missing the possibilities for the generational change to progressivism that Obama is trying to achieve. Only by winning the kind of mandate that Reagan won can major change be accomplished.

Far from agreeing with Reagan, Obama instead is attempting to reverse Reagan's legacy. He is doing so by following Reagan's successful battle plan for winning a complete generational realignment of politics in this nation. He cites Reagan not for his policies, but for the man's undeniable political prowess. Reagan achieved a generational shift toward conservatism, still the dominant philosophy in the nation. Simply put: Reagan won, and we lost (as did America).

(snip)

The turmoil of the 60s turned half the country toward political conservatism. The nation divided along the lines we still see today. Because of Watergate, Nixon lost his chance for a generational realignment after his second, massive victory. Carter won with only a narrow victory that reflected the nation's continuing division, and was unable to achieve his goals as president. Then the struggling economy and the Iranian hostage crisis set the stage for another big shift.

Enter Ronald Reagan. He beat us. He also implemented shortsighted, egregiously destructive policies that were, intentionally, the polar opposite of progressivism.

How did Reagan beat us? By winning the kind of mandate that gives a president the power to achieve major change. Reagan capitalized on the sour mood of the country by running, as had FDR, on optimism: "It's morning in America." He was smooth and constantly smiling. He kept his fearmongering gentle: "There's a bear in the woods." He convinced large amounts of Democrats, the famed "Reagan Democrats" to vote for him.

(snip)

That new mandate is what Obama is trying to achieve. Obama understands how Reagan did it. Reagan identified the yearnings of the majority of the population in 1980, and capitalized on them. Obama is doing the same in 2008, by capitalizing on the demoralized mood of the nation. He realizes that the majority of the population, Democratic, Republican and Independent, simply are heartily sick of the constant, vicious foodfight between polarized conservatives and progressives. He offers hope that things can change for the better, the nation can unite as it has not since before the 1960s.

Much more at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/17/55056/5026/147/438174

[aquart]

1. Yep. Ronnie was the greatest role model ever.

Obama is doing very well emulating him.

[jackson_dem]

4. What "excesses" of the 60's and 70's does Obama feel Reagan "corrected"?

No Obamite has explained that one.

[killbotfactory]

6. Yes, that's exactly what he's doing.

ATTENTION PEOPLE OF GD: P

STOP BEING SO STUPID

[motocicleta]

15. Until one of the Obamanation

answers jackson dem's worthy question, we will wonder what the hell Obama could have been thinking. And until that point, you schmucks can stop saying anyone else is stupid; you are missing the most basic point of all, and you seem damn pleased at your own ignorance.

[JI7]

2. exactly

[jackson_dem]

3. Obamites continue to pretend Obama agreed with nothing Reagan did

Audacity of Hope Pages 156-157

"The conservative revolution Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight--that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing he pie--contained a good deal of truth."

[flyarm]

5. thanks but........

" Only by winning the kind of mandate that Reagan won can major change be accomplished."

i lived through Reagans kind of change..it was horrible ..no thanks..

oh and many are dead now from the AID's..and Most of the Patco people never got their job back..my Union was crushed until we started a new one..I had to sell my home for less than it was built for..many people committed suicide when Reagan destroyed their investments..and retirement..and many families lost loved ones due to all the drugs that flooded US cities by the friends and cronies of Reagan..and greedy MTF'ers..
and i haven't even mentioned Iran Contra and how many Reagan killed out of our country..worldwide.

No thanks i will pass ..been there done that...and i didn't like it the first time!

fly

[killbotfactory]

7. Obama is talking about a political shift to the left

The way it shifted to the right after Reagan.

He's not going to emulate any kind of bullcrap Reagan pulled.

Please understand at least that minor point.

[jackson_dem]

9. He AGREES with some of what Reagan did. Read his book

Not all, but some, and we need to find out what exactly he agreed that Reagan was great on.

Audacity of Hope Pages 156-157

"The conservative revolution Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight--that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing he pie--contained a good deal of truth."

[tishaLA]

11. I believe it is true that all

bureaucracies grow complacent and less responsive to needs and that we always need to rethink them and their relationships to their users. I have seen this first hand, as someone who recently went through a very difficult time financially and had to deal with government bureaucracies that were generally unresponsive in any number of ways. Sen Obama certainly saw this as he worked in the Housing Projects in South Chicago at the height of Reagan's reign of terror.

Obama, you will note, never advocates eliminating those government agencies. Instead, he thinks that we need make them more "consumer friendly," to chose an inadequate phraseology, so they can better respond to the needs of the people.

As for his critique of Democratic policy makers, I am unaware of his referent, so I will sit that one out.

[flyarm]

12. i believe you need to see the entire Obama Interview..

sorry but it is now gone from this link..but i am sure you can find it..

i do not care for anyone in my party telling me about reagan..i lived it..and not just when i was in college like Obama..i was raising a family then..and i had c o-workers die ..lots of them from Aids..because Reagan allowed it to go on taking no responsibility federally.

no thanks..i will say that loud and clear..no damn thanks!!

i don't want some young whipper snapper to tell me idealistically what reagan did or didn't do..i know damn well what he did to this nation..and it was not pretty!

it was pretty damn ugly..and many died needlessly because of that fucker!

and i also know how people were tricked and fooled by that dick..with a p!

never again..i swear to that..never again !

fly

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http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/01/17/obama-panders-to-right-throws-democrats-under-the-bus/#more-1332

Obama Panders to Right, Throws Democrats Under the Bus
By SusanUnPC on January 17, 2008 at 7:24 PM in Ronald Reagan, Obama, Current Affairs

Obama said what? That the GOP has been the party of ideas for the last ten to fifteen years? Are you kidding me?



snip:
Well, Sen. Obama, there was the Reagan public persona, and then there was the Reagan private agenda: Ronald Reagan “borrowed Teddy Kennedy’s nationalist rhetoric … echoed Carter’s incessant talk against Washington, and festooned his speeches with quotations from FDR,” writes Sidney Blumenthal in his 2003 memoir. But, Reagan — just like George W. Bush — “was astonishingly successful in his plan to paralyze the federal government.”

After a rush in his first year to pass an enormous regressive tax cut, accompanied by a large increase in the military budget … Reagan was a president at leisure. He delegated his authority and paid little attention to detail. … His achievement of presiding over a government that permitted the federal deficit to grow to astronomical proportions made a federal social policy virtually impossible to realize. Once he learned that the supply-side economic theory his advisers had advocated was backfiring, producing deficits instead of the promised Niagara of revenues, he was pleased with the deadening effect. He revived the grandeur of the presidency for his stage set but put the executive branch to sleep.

Obama has a dreamy attitude about the presidency. He thinks he can just be the “vision” guy and get “smarter people” around himself, and that the governing will take care of itself.

Never mind that George W. Bush — taking off where Ronald Reagan began — has decimated all key federal agencies of their most experienced staffers and devastated the agencies’ budgets, so much so that some will have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Where will that new president begin? The devastated Department of Justice? The Food and Drug Administration? The Consumer Protection Safety Commission? Every branch of the U.S. military? The Veterans Administration? The Evironmental Protection Agency? Medicare? The Department of Education?

The list of essential federal agencies near death from personnel and budgetary starvation goes on and on. Then there’s our decimated military suffering from worn-out soldiers and equipment.

The new president will have innumerable Herculian tasks to face. Only the most dedicated and hardest-working president will begin to succeed in rebuilding these vital federal institutions.

[killbotfactory]

14. I give up.

It's not worth it. You guys win.

Goodbye.

[jackson_dem]

20. How can you claim to want to talk about Obama/Reagan and act as if Obama never wrote a book?

[flyarm]

13. i watched his interview in its entirety..i understand exactly what he said,.

seems there is creative revisionism going on here..

i know damn well what he said.

so do many others.

fly

[emilyg]

8. Good post.

[some guy]

18. I agree with this part

"Only by winning the kind of mandate that Reagan won can major change be accomplished."

The bankrupt ideology of the right is showing itself fully at this point in time. Much as it did in the late 1920s, which ushered in the opportunity for FDR to push the large shift to the left this country underwent at that time.

I think that is what Senator Obama is trying to say, without the bashing and pejorative tone that would rankle those on the right who know, even if they won't admit it, that right-wing policies are bankrupt, and so are looking for an opportunity to try something different. Those seem to be the voters the Senator is trying to reach with his message, so that he can achieve the "kind of mandate Reagan won"

The Dems have a majority in the House, and yet, the House hasn't pushed through major legislative change. They could push that sort of change there, even if it were to be stopped in the much more-closely divided Senate, and/or vetoed by the pResident. But they're not. Maybe they don't feel they have that sort of mandate.

I'm a die-hard supporter of Congressman Kucinich, and I know that the only way for him to get elected would be for a very large majority of the electorate to rise up in support of him. Further, if he were elected, it would take that same large majority to continue to hound both the Congress and Senate in support of his ideas, for them to become reality.

At this point, Senator Obama seems to have the type of support that (might) be willing to hound their Congresspersons and Senators in support of his ideas, should he be elected.

Does Senator Obama have the vision and ideas I would like to see? I don't really know, as I haven't read much about or by him.

But I am certain he is correct in saying major change in this failing empire will require the election of a President with a strong mandate for change, and for trying something other than the incremental, baby steps policy changes we have seen from the Dems over the past too long.

JFK said we would go to the moon, and though he didn't live to see it, we did.* When was the last Dem to propose such a vision?


* assuming the US really did go to the moon, and it wasn't a stage play. :)

[Azathoth]

19. So you don't want a mandate? You'd prefer a bitterly divided country, a la Dubya?

[LulaMay]

10. If it walks like a duck.....

He goes on in that interview to say that he did not come of age in the 60's and is not 'invested' in the battles of the 60's. He also says his frame of reference about war does not really reflect on Vietnam, that he is not anti war, and his views are not like some big '70's Love-IN. Quite disparaging of the 60's and 70's. He disassociates himself from 'Baby Boomers' and puts us down like we are no longer relevant; people who were part of the 60's and 70's revolution, the greatest this country has ever seen. He says it's a 'generational thing', but puts himself in the "all past that stuff" category, supposedly aligning himself with younger people. Not my sons. They are as liberal as their OLD mom and dad, and think the 60's and 70's were cool, great and love the music. :)

[FrenchieCat]

16. I understand, and understood the first time I heard him....

The Frenzy here feeds on itself.

Any excuse will do.

Obama is Reagan, they will say....as though they actually believe it, when they, in their hearts of hearts, really don't.

It's pretty amazing to see the walls of ideology and how liberals, meaning ones with open minds, actually have their eyes shut tight.

Some don't support him no matter what, because they support someone else.
Some don't support him, because they have a fear of running a Black man, because they have no faith in themselves.
Some don't support him, because they only hear what others say, and so they react accordingly.
Some don't support him, because they have not bothered to hear anything he has ever said.

On this board, we have indeed become the ones we most fear.

[flyarm]

17. Paul Krugman is clearly dumbfounded, as am I. Here is the entirety of Krugman’s New York Times blog

Paul Krugman :post today at 3:41 pm:

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/01/17/obama-panders-to-right-throws-democrats-under-the-bus/#more-1332


Reagan and Obama

Read Rick Perlstein. Rick is our premier historian of the rise of modern movement conservatism, and knows whereof he speaks.

What does Perlstein say?


One of the Democratic candidates is getting a bit of abuse for lionizing Ronald Reagan. Here’s part of the relevant quote:

Perlstein quotes Obama:

he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

Perlstein adds, “Matt Stoller criticizes Obama thus“:

if you think, as Obama does, that Reagan’s rise to power was premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, then you don’t understand the conservative movement. Reagan tapped into greed and fear and tribalism, and those are powerful forces. Ignoring that isn’t going to make them go away.

“He’s right,” Perlstein observes, then goes on:

He’s also right that accepting the right’s successful fantasy-frame about what Reagan was all about surrenders to one of their most successful strategies: affecting innocence about the terrible consequences of their own ideology in the here and now—helping conservatism, as an ideology, survive to fight another day:

“Why would the conservative movement create such idolatry around Reagan? Is is because they just want to honor a great man? Perhaps that is some of it. Or are they trying to escape the legacy of the conservative movement so that it can be rebuilt in a few years, as they did after Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I?

[jackson_dem]

21. Obama couldn't have helped the rethugs more if he wrote them a $1 million check