General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama: The conservative in 2012 --- by: E.J. Dionne Jr.
E.J. Dionne Jr.
Opinion Writer
The GOP is engaged in a wholesale effort to redefine the government help that Americans take for granted as an effort to create a radically new, statist society. Consider Romneys claim in his Bedford speech: President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing the government.
Obama believes no such thing. If he did, why are so many continuing to make bundles on Wall Street? As my colleagues Greg Sargent and Paul Krugman have been insisting, Romney is saying things about the president that are flatly, grossly and shamefully untrue. But Romneys sleight of hand is revealing: Republicans are increasingly inclined to argue that any redistribution (and Social Security, Medicare, student loans, veterans benefits and food stamps are all redistributive) is but a step down the road to some radically egalitarian dystopia.
Obama will thus be the conservative in 2012, in the truest sense of that word. He is the candidate defending the modestly redistributive and regulatory government the country has relied on since the New Deal, and that neither Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush dismantled. The rhetoric of the 2012 Republicans suggests they want to go far beyond where Reagan or Bush ever went. And heres the irony: By raising the stakes of 2012 so high, Republicans will be playing into Obamas hands. The GOP might well win a referendum on the state of the economy. But if this is instead a larger-scale referendum on whether government should be inconsequential, Republicans will find the consequences to be very disappointing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-the-conservative-in-2012/2011/12/23/gIQAFyviHP_story.html
Kahuna
(27,311 posts)ClassWarrior
(26,316 posts)NGU.
WingDinger
(3,690 posts)And dammit it works. That is why we needed Occupy, to argue the center.
caringnoah
(1 post)Unlike EJ, I believe It's very likely that GOP would win the referendum on whether government should be inconsequential.
bonzotex
(865 posts)This is a great editorial. Our political language is so polluted that few people have any idea what words like, liberal, conservative and radical really mean.