Then they turn around a re-elect Obama. This must be some of that “fuzzy math”:
The percentage of Americans who think America will be worse off in four years has more than doubled in the four years since Barack Obama was first inaugurated as president, according to the Gallup poll.
In a survey conducted Jan. 9-11, 2009–concluding just nine days before Barack Obama’s first inauguration as president–Gallup asked American adults: “Do you think the country will be better off or worse off four years from now?”
At that time, 72 percent said the country would be better off, 20 percent said it would be worse off, 4 percent said it would be the same, and 4 percent said they had no opinion.
Despite the deep recession America was in at that time (GDP declined by 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2009), a super-majority of Americans were optimistic about the nation’s future.
From Nov. 9-12 of this year–just after President Obama was reelected–Gallup asked American adults the same question it had just before Obama’s inauguration four years ago.
This time, only 54 percent said they believed the country would be better off in four years, while 41 percent said they believed it would be worse off, 3 percent said it would be the same, and 2 percent said they had no opinion.
The 41 percent who said just after the Nov. 6 election that they believe the country will be worse off four years from now is more than twice the 20 percent who said that four years ago–just before Obama’s inauguration.
Actually, the quip in my opening aside, I think what we’re seeing here is a tangible sign of the enormous rift between those who believe in the government-centric trajectory of the democratic socialist welfare state (and this includes far too many in the GOP and within the Republican leadership specifically), and those who recognize that the cultural and academic elite, along with the low-information and client voters they control, have pushed the US past the tipping point, and that “fundamental transformation” is inevitable — as is the outcome of such a tranformation: egalitarian misery, a permanent ruling class, heavy regulation, a declining standard of living, more government dependency (and an ever-expanding federal government to manage it), and — eventually — a collapse of the economy and the dollar and the Constitution, followed by a transnational progressive attempt at re-ordering of the global landscape through hysterical (and bogus) climate science and a treaty matrix that will effectively neuter ostensible sovereignty.
The time for compromise has passed, because what we’re being asked to compromise is all the principles that make our Constitution a bulwark against tyranny, and all the things that keep us from being subjects of the state rather than the governed who control the government by way of our consent. Majoritarianism without Constitutional protections is rank democracy. It’s banana republic stuff — and it allows cobbled together voting coalitions to win slim majorities that vote themselves the “right” to strip you of your liberty and your property by way of controlling your stake in your own labor.
Something wicked this way comes. A “megastorm,” perhaps. But it will have nothing to do with the physical climate and everything to do with the political one.
a permanent ruling class,
That’s not possible. They believe in a classless society.
QED
Chins up, ladies and gentlemen!
That noted genius Paul Krugman has the solution! Link
Yay!
These days, I’m trying to figure out whether I’m technically a kulak or an imperialist running dog. I guess I’ll find out whether my family have to pay for the bullet I’m executed with.
The more I rub shoulders the more I’m convinced that the greatest ideological failing in society is the inability (and refusal) to separate individual altruism and goodness from government oversight.
Even “government oversight” doesn’t make sense. I don’t think contemporary liberals* actively want to be ruled as much as they want a religion.
If you want to hang up a liberal, start there. As dicentra alludes, American Classists are an irrational lot.
*as opposed to virulent Proggs, who are just virulently virulent.
I regularly end up in conversations where the proggie conclusion was that taxation is merely the distribution of everybody’s charitable donations via the most efficient mechanism available.
They don’t see the difference between the government demanding money with menaces and some old guy dressed as Santa ringing a bell outside a department store. I’m still pretty dumbfounded by the whole thing. I can only put it down to some kind of mass delusion brought on by American Idol or Hello! magazine .
I’m gonna risk a beatdown from the wimminz, but it seems to be a particularly common reaction on the distaff side, although it’s not exclusive to that gender.
Repeal the 19th. Now.
Krugman has gotten hold of some ‘dusted doobies, evidently.
It’s just not nice to sound not nice, Emmett. That’s as close to logic as this gets.
I don’t think contemporary liberals* actively want to be ruled as much as they want a religion.
For some people, that’s the same thing: they want someone to say authoritatively what is what so that they can use that authority as a cudgel against their enemies. You’re against GOD!!!1!1
BURN THE HERETIC!
The Spanish inquisition was political, not religious. Isabella and Fernando wanted to exorcise the non-Christians (and pretend Christians) from the populace thus to prevent sedition and opposition, not to get rid of Teh Other.
They did it in old Europe, back when countries had Official State Religions, and they’ll do it now. Same types of people crop up all the time, and we’re fools not to recognize it.
Some scary attitudes amongst purported Americans on our little Republic’s direction, from yesterday’s NYT…
Tax Payers vs. Tax Consumers. Or, Moochers and Looters vs. the rest of us. Something has to give; Obama wants to squeeze the top, his far-Left base agrees.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/is-rush-limbaughs-country-gone/
Perhaps the most powerful “man” in the world spins out a nice soundbite designed to force an entire alternate reality.
Proggs love that the ProggState needs so much grease on the ways. Meanwhile John Meynard blushes.
SAY NO TO THE PARTY OF NO!
The Spanish inquisition was political, not religious.
As I recall, the Protestant Reformation movement came about as a protest over the Church itself becoming entirely political (with all the corruption that entails).
Scary attitudes indeed, serr8d. When Mittens declared he would put America back to work, a phrase that inspired in FDR’s day, he scared the piss out of the moocher “entitlement” class.
Obama is the new Steve jobs telling America to come bury our faces in his brand new, still steaming, pile of iShit.
The Protestant Reformation was driven by a rather large, complex mix of political, religious, technological and economic reasons. What’s interesting is that the Catholic Church’s response to the Protestant Reformation was to double down. And it worked for quite a while.
Noted genius Paul Krugman’s nostalgia for the halcyon days of high taxes and strong unions in the 1950’s always ignores the fact that the rest of the industrialized world was conveniently destroyed, enabling the boom the US had after WWII. But then, he’s big on that kind of watching the world burn to stimulate Keynesian GDP numbers!
As I recall, the Protestant Reformation movement came about as a protest over the Church itself becoming entirely political (with all the corruption that entails).
All wars are fought to settle one question and one question only: “Who is in charge of this expanse of dirt—Us or Them (or Them, or Them, or Them)?”
How we divide ourselves into Us and Them varies widely: religion, race, language, ethnicity, tribe, philosophy, whatever, but the dividing line cannot be said to be the cause of the war. Different people can live in the same space without a war being fought as long as nobody perceives that They are trying to dominate Us.
Which is why in the United States, despite being full of tons of religions and denominations of those religions, there’s never been a religious war, because no church has ever had political power. The Baptists would spit blood if the Catholics or Mormons established an American Theocracy (and vice-versa), which is why nobody on the right actually wants an actual theocracy: it probably wouldn’t be our folks in power, so nobody gets to be in power.
It drives me NUTS when The Cause Of War is analogized to be “breaking the egg at the wrong end,” as if pet peeves could drive whole populations to kill.
No, war only starts when the people who break the egg at the narrow end aspire to rule over the people who break the egg at the wide end and seek not only to force them to break the egg at the narrow end but also conspire to ruin their lives.
Star Trek ruined it, you know. It’s always “misunderstandings” that cause conflicts, not the desire to dominate (except with Klingons and Romulons, I guess), so Kirk and Picard can swoop in with their Superior Insight and show them how foolish they’ve been lo these many generations. (“Live and let live? It’s so crazy it just might work!”)
Spoiled Americans/Eurotrash are just about the most dangerous people on the planet.
I don’t think Helen would appreciate you calling her a piece of dirt for Paris and Menelaus to fight over Dicentra.
Somewhere I saw: WWOD?
No, I thought — not Obazma, surely — Odysseus.
What would Ozymandius do? Stand in the desert of a foreing land as two vast and trunkless legs of stone? If called by a panther don’t anther.