Response to a Facebook friend who, after watching the televised Presidential debats on Oct. 3, felt that President Obama has lost his faith in the American people:
John, I can agree with some of what you said. The President gave every physical indication of wanting to be somewhere else, doing something else. I don't think Barack Obama draws strength from the campaign trail the way that Bill Clinton did. Instead, it wears him down. In recent appearances, he has looked just plain tired. I guess that's something we should expect of a full-time President who is also a full-time candidate for President. I suspect that he also has grown tired of having to engage in the very same arguments over and over again, knowing that the facts are with him but the opponent refuses to yield to facts. How can one continue to reason with people who are unreasonable?
I do think that this President says what he means. But imagine the toll that the past four years have taken on him. A person who sets out with sincerity to govern for the common good by building coalitions finds himself blindly and universally opposed by Republican lawmakers and unprincipled media outlets not for anything he has done but merely for the fact that he exists. His citizenship, his patriotism, his religion, his wife have all been criticized and attacked. There is no question that opposition to the President has been irrational and unrelenting from the moment the election results were in. Some insist it stems from racism. It's possible. But the cause may be even more sinister than that. It may be that we now have a President who simply won't play ball.
That brings me to what I believe is the single best reason for voting Republican this November, and it has nothing at all to do with who the GOP candidate is: We are watching as the opposition party attempts to play out its version of its favorite novel, Atlas Shrugged. They have phrased their opposition using the Ayn Rand charges of increased taxation and oppressive regulation, even though NO such things have taken place. (As them why they oppose the President, and you are likely to hear about government run amok, enormous tax increases, silenced opposition, etc. But no one can give a single example of any of it. It's pure fantasy!)
This widespread obstruction has been orchestrated with the single goal of forcing Barack Obama from the White House, and it will not cease until its goal is realized or until it is convinced of the futility of its effort. The representative of that effort, Mitt Romney, has already expressed his certain knowledge that the economy WILL IMPROVE upon his election without him even having to lift a finger. And I believe he is right.
So, it seems to me, if you are concerned about hastening the economic recovery, freeing some of the capital held tightly in the greedy grasp of the right-wing wealthy and eliminating the gridlock imposed by a do-nothing Tea Party Congress, your best bet is just to let the miserable bastards win.
Let them lower taxes even further on themselves, their businesses and their estates. Let them move their manufacturing plants and all the related jobs to overseas locations where slave labor, growing markets and lack of concern over the environment, working conditions and product safety will help them to greater profits. Free them to gamble with middle class homes and retirement funds. Allow them to end organized labor in the U.S. and dismantle public education and public healthcare and every other program created through our noble instinct to help fellow Americans in distress. Assist them in creating an even greater military that can protect their foreign businesses and investments, dominate governments around the world and establish the supremacy of the white capitalist conservative Christian culture, even as terrorists emerge across the globe to slay American civilians by the thousands. (Think I'm exaggerating? We've been through this before.)
For me, I respect our President. I recognize our many shared views and concerns. I believe he wants what is best for America, and I trust in his integrity. He has endured merciless beatings for doing what he knows to be right, and he has not wavered. From time to time, I have been disappointed with the results of his continuing efforts to build alliances with people who intend him nothing but harm. But I trust him. And, beyond that, I consider allowing any success to economic extortion and treason to be a horrifying prospect.
