Obama's answer: More populism

By Nolan Finley

Populism_reader_cover

Incredibly, the message President Barack Obama is hearing from the revolution in Massachusetts is that fitful Americans want more of the same: more populism, which means a more expansive government that is more intrusive in private markets, which means more spending and more taxes, which means more economic stagnation, which means more unemployment.

In other words, more of everything that's got the electorate already so agitated.

Obama's response to the Democrat's Bay State rebuke was to grab a pitchfork and try to elbow to the head of the mob. It's the greedy bankers you're angry with and not me, he insisted, vowing to renew his war on Wall Street with a vengeful vigor.

It would be easy to assign his denial to tone deafness. It goes beyond that. It's a stubborn resistance to recognize that America doesn't want to go where he's trying to lead it.

 

Obama is still taking his counsel from the leftist ideologues who are telling him that the trouble isn't that he's too liberal, but not liberal enough.

Two of his most trusted economic advisers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council chief Larry Summers, urged him not to pitch his punitive tax on large banks, warning it would further bind a credit market already seized up by new regulations. that discourage lending.

He ignored them and listened instead to those who advised going on the offensive to deflect heat from himself and Congress' liberal leadership. Wall Street is too easy a target for a president in trouble. So he flogged the banks.

Wall Street responded as Geithner and Summers feared. Stock markets plunged in anticipation of the negative impact of Obama's bank-busting plot.

If that becomes a trend, investors will know who to blame for the reversal of their recent 401(k) gains.

Obama is repeating the mistakes of Franklin Roosevelt, who worsened the Great Depression by demonizing private industry and overexpanding the reach of government.

Instead of putting an end to the spending orgy in Washington, the president was back on the campaign stump in Ohio promising a second stimulus package that doubles down on the failed first one. He'll keep trying to create jobs and spark an economic revival with massive spending on welfare and public works projects.

Expect him to attack the deficit not with fiscal restraint, but by raising taxes on investors and job creators.

This may not be a president capable of changing course, as Bill Clinton did when voters spanked him in 1994. He's not likely to waver from the conviction that government should be the dominant force in American society. What he can't do through legislation now that he's lost his Senate supermajority, he can do through regulation.

It will take more than the loss of a Massachusetts Senate seat to make Barack Obama abandon his mission of remaking America into something Americans won't recognize.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com

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Comments

[ken]

syrin, are you ok, sit down and take a couple of aspirin,did you know you just put up a derogatory comment about herr obama.cabin fever,a bad moose burger??????????i'm proud of you syrin,confused,but proud.

[Syrin from Wasilla]

Don't forget... Populist's don't have to be smart- Just Popular..

Palin and Populism http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122300786229301597.html

[FlynnD]

ken, are you ok, lay down and take a couple of aspirin, did you know you just said something stoopid yet again? you sure like it here, dontcha? writin' like a good ol boy dumb ass shithead don't make you any more "real" than sarah is dumb and full of elitist botox.

Dumbing down in order to write like you is more difficult than I thought it would be. I needs a another drink and maybe a valium or three...

[ken]

oh, arnt you the cats whiskers,is that really a picture of you,you smoke like my sister,but then again most liberals seem to be girly men,you go on back to trying to find your face and leave the thinking up to the adults,and drinking and drugging is bad for you,it kills brain cells,but you already know that don't you.

p.s. is this like a stock remark with you libs.i've seen it on alot of your pages.do you pay people to think it up.

there you happy,you got a reaction,run along now.

[FlynnD]

ken,

you sure got my number. yep.

cats whiskers? you're dating yourself, bud. i'm 52 but recall my grandad sayin' somthin' 'bout 23 skiddoo too

are you a brush cut old boy type or a more modern mullet-wearin', stuck in the 70's, beer-gut kinda chump?

[FlynnD]

btw, Ken

You are some out-of-work screenwriter's poor idea of what a reactionary stereotype should sound like. Your act smells scammy (to quote a recent conservative assessment of the upcoming Tea Party gathering somewhere in the nether regions of the deep South) so YOU go away and peddle your wares somewhere else.

[Syrin from Wasilla]

Ken- Flynn's picture is Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. He's known for drinking and drugging.  

[FlynnD]

Yep. Keith Richards!

Kenny - and Syrin - suppose we post are real photos?

In my case, if you think Keith Richards looks like death warmed over, I got him beat!

Well. What say you two? Shall we reveal ourselves?

[ken]

if your going to reply to me hit the reply next to my name its the only way i have of knowing on someone elses blog,pictures,no,i did that when i first got started and had some nut job trying to chase me down.

i'm almost sure you mean the up coming tea party convention,if i had the time and desire to go back up north i would be going,i know it will be a hell of alot better then the last acorn convention,or the last meeting of the czars for that matter.