A chilling thought has been gnawing at me the past few days. What if I’ve been wrong? What if the single greatest threat to America’s future is not the presidency of Barack Obama?
What if Obama is merely the conduit, the enabler, the accomplice to the actual threat? What if it is the American people, a broad swath of humanity to be sure, who are hurtling our nation down the road to economic stagnation and diminishing freedom?
It hit me when I read a comment by a woman who was, along with her husband, featured in a recent Chicago Tribune report about ordinary citizens who are neither unemployed or suffering. They are just not particularly optimistic. They remain exceedingly cautious about personal spending and planning for the future.
“I think President Obama inherited a lousy situation,” Cynthia Billington said. “He was sort of slow getting started, maybe, but certainly now he’s making most of the right moves. You just hold your breath and hope that cooler heads prevail and we follow a slow, sane, steady course and see this thing out.”
Another, Martha Mendoza, has been looking for a job for four years without success (while her husband has remained employed) but told the Tribune, “I want (Obama) to succeed. He was left with something that was broken and sometimes you just don’t know what glue to use.”
The messages here are disturbing. They are about waiting for a “move”. Holding your breath. Magical glue.
Is it possible that growing numbers of Americans have simply lost their will, or that they’ve grown up so dependent on government solutions that time tested American resiliency never occurs to them? Are they sold on the falsehood that the success of one sector of the population denies prosperity to another?
It is incomprehensible on one hand, but then you see the poll numbers rolling. They defy logic. Our nation is drowning in debt. More is being heaped on. Obama’s latest “budget” transfers more wealth from the private to the public sector. In many age and minority brackets, unemployment remains in double digits. And yet …
Obama this week rose to a 50% approval rating on the basis of a slowly improving economy, even though 8.3% unemployment is still abysmal and other economic indicators are murky, and gas prices are only heading higher.
According to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, 52% say the GOP should forget principal and just work with Obama to help him get things done? What? This isn’t just about check marks on a to-do list. The “things” actually matter.
Or maybe they don’t. To most Americans. Just punish “the rich” and redistribute the wealth, and pay everybody’s underwater mortgages, and student loans. Tell us what to eat. Pick our health care options. Get things done, Mr. President.
How do you talk to an electorate that has ceded its independence to the executive branch of government?