Posted by
TOTA on Thursday, July 17, 2008 10:00:00 AM
I believe everyone has long been mis-reading the public's sentiment.
People don't
want change. They want normalcy. They want stability. They are sick and
tired of feeling like they don't have very much
control over the future. Recent developments in the commodities and
credit markets are more of the same, generating more consumer anxiety
and uncertainty. The average American no longer wakes up most days with
the conviction that life will be largely the same next month as it was
last month; some new grim revelation seems always to be lurking.
Consider the challenges that have settled in since 2000: 9/11, war, the continuing threat of terrorism,
North Korean and Iranian nukes, payday loan centers on every other corner, outsourcing,
rising health care costs, de-industrialization, illegal immigration, Islamic radicalism, exotic
diseases, gay marriage, the world's animus toward America, energy
prices, currency devaluation, the ascendancy of amoral China, the home
loan crisis, disintegrating credit markets, etc. On top of these new concerns there still persists
record and growing consumer debt, massive national debt, a zero savings rate, and looming
national financial insolvency due to entitlement commitments. These
concerns, along with a slew of others, have people feeling insecure and
uncertain about the future. The media stokes this uncertainly
relentlessly because they are largely leftists, and they want radical
change.
Even the well-off ought to be concerned. Some of these problems are
existential problems; we will have to deal with them to survive as a
relatively free people. And the ongoing general uncertainty can throw open the
doors to a demagogue like O'Bama!, who would seek to radically change
virtually every aspect of society, using the public's anxiety as an
excuse for action on all fronts, with government at the center
of everything. No evidence exists that growing the government is the
solution to any of these problems, but that doesn't matter to O'Bama!;
growing the government is his philosophy, every problem simply serves
as an excuse. It's irrelevant to him that virtually every other country
in the first world is looking to go in the other direction - looking to shrink
government and promote private sector growth.
McCain must articulate the real nature of America's anxiety, and argue
that this is not the time to turn the country upside down. It's time for the tried and true.
If anything,
some of the problems listed above are so serious and unavoidable that
they
should serve to focus the government's attention where it will do the
most good - foreign relations, war, disease prevention, emergency
response, terrorism, certain macroeconomic issues, and border security.
The free market can provide much better solutions to many ongoing
problems,
such as health care, retirement security, energy, and education.
Washington can't do everything, obviously, and giving it more power and
money has so far failed to change that fact. This seemingly iron fact
of the universe will be on brutally clear display going forward. The
challenges faced by the country dwarf those it faced just a decade ago.
If the GOP can't alter this 'change' debate, they may lose the election with or
without the energy issue. By November, things may look so bleak on so
many fronts that people will blindly grasp at the loudest proclamation of 'real change' - even the
poison O'Bama! is peddling.
TOTA