Robespierre2.0
10th December 2008, 19:00
Even though conservatism has been dealt a defeat in this last election, a sizeable portion of the country still clings to it. Let's look at the current situation through their eyes for a minute:
- Barack Obama is our new president. Apparently he is a muslim and a socialist.
- Obama intends to enact a few moderate New Deal-esque reforms, which involves spending lots of 'taxpayer money'.
- He will be able to do so because congress is dominated by the Democratic party, and the few remaining Republicans are pragmatic enough to go along with whatever Obama says. To the untrained eye, this will look like a 'rubber-stamp' talking-shop similar to how they (wrongly) characterize Soviet political organs.
- Regardless of what Obama himself thinks, a significant part of the constituency that brought him to power consists of groups traditionally maligned by conservatives (Atheists, Muslims, secularists, soft-leftists)
These groups will doubtlessly try to assert themselves more
- There is also a large cult of personality surrounding Obama
Of course, we know that the Democratic party is far from socialist, but what we think doesn't matter at the moment- Half of the country believes we've just had a communist takeover, the same half that is staunchly anti-gun control and pro-military.
I don't mean to be alarmist, but it feels like we're reaching a breaking point- We're only passing to the secular social-democratic stage of capitalism, but that's an incredibly big deal for a country with such a long tradition of conservatism and clericalism.
To me, this sort of feels like Spain in 1936, except with a more lazy and apathetic population. Hopefully it won't come to that, but if it does, I'll see you guys in the mass graves.
What do you think?
Economic crisis + bitter ideological divide that has been brewing for a century = I don't know, but something not good.
- Barack Obama is our new president. Apparently he is a muslim and a socialist.
- Obama intends to enact a few moderate New Deal-esque reforms, which involves spending lots of 'taxpayer money'.
- He will be able to do so because congress is dominated by the Democratic party, and the few remaining Republicans are pragmatic enough to go along with whatever Obama says. To the untrained eye, this will look like a 'rubber-stamp' talking-shop similar to how they (wrongly) characterize Soviet political organs.
- Regardless of what Obama himself thinks, a significant part of the constituency that brought him to power consists of groups traditionally maligned by conservatives (Atheists, Muslims, secularists, soft-leftists)
These groups will doubtlessly try to assert themselves more
- There is also a large cult of personality surrounding Obama
Of course, we know that the Democratic party is far from socialist, but what we think doesn't matter at the moment- Half of the country believes we've just had a communist takeover, the same half that is staunchly anti-gun control and pro-military.
I don't mean to be alarmist, but it feels like we're reaching a breaking point- We're only passing to the secular social-democratic stage of capitalism, but that's an incredibly big deal for a country with such a long tradition of conservatism and clericalism.
To me, this sort of feels like Spain in 1936, except with a more lazy and apathetic population. Hopefully it won't come to that, but if it does, I'll see you guys in the mass graves.
What do you think?
Economic crisis + bitter ideological divide that has been brewing for a century = I don't know, but something not good.