Minutes after President Obama finished his second inaugural address the World Wide Web was well stocked with the rantings of right wing hacks like Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin. The president’s address was a fairly standard attempt to urge Americans to come together and to face our challenges together, but Ms. Rubin apparently heard something very different, something so nefarious that immediate condemnation was required.
For Rubin the speech confirmed that Mr. Obama is a “dogged collectivist with little appreciation for the dangers we face in the world.” She was particularly flummoxed by the president’s claim regarding the need for collective action to protect our personal freedoms. To this Rubin responded, “really?” as if there is no connection between the preservation of liberty (personal or otherwise) and collective action.
Instead, Rubin relies on italics to push her non-existent point writing, “personal freedoms are obtained by limited government, the rule of law and a free market (relatively speaking) where one can achieve his aims and fulfill his personal goals.” Each component of Rubin’s retort is, of course, entirely impossible without effective COLLECTIVE ACTION. She includes a qualification after “free markets” as if to show that she’s not completely irrational, but what she unintentionally confirms is that she really is nuts. “Limited government” and “the rule of law” require just as much collective action as free markets do Ms. Rubin.
There really is a reasonable conservative argument against the President’s agenda and/or approach, but hacks like Rubin are unwilling (or unable) to articulate it. The election is over and Rubin’s party lost, but she insists on doubling down on the absurd mischaracterizations of the president’s record and perspective that were decisively rejected on Election Day. Why?
Idologues like Rubin (she’s a true believer; hence “hack” is a little unfair) are not conservatives, but Right-Leninists. A principled and internally consistent conservative argument would be totally out of her Manichean frame of reference.
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On second thought, I feel compelled to qualify my reaction to Jennifer Rubin’s reaction to the president’s inaugural address. Her claims remain foolish and untenable, but a bit more understandable to me this morning.
First, I want to thank Paul Simmons for his proper correction. The term “hack” is generally reserved for excessive partisanship thought to be of the unprincipled variety. Ms. Rubin, as Paul points out, is a “true believer,” a rigid ideologue to be sure, but not a “hack.”
Second, I want to update my own impression of the president’s words, which I listened to live on the car radio. Having read the speech, many of the reactions to it and having had a good night’s sleep, I feel compelled to amend my previous characterization of the speech. I now see that it was NOT a “fairly standard attempt to urge Americans to come together and to face our challenges together” kind of address. I now appreciate what made Ms. Rubin froth at the mouth and lash out. The president really did do something unexpected. He stood his ground. He made no particular effort to pretend that unity is actually likely, or that it should be sought at any costs.
The president articulated something like what John Kerry tried to in the 2004 presidential campaign, a muscular liberal patriotism. The speech was more political and confrontational that the occassion usually encourages. As a liberal, I liked it. As a political scientist, I liked it. I wonder though how historians will look at it.
It was a challenging speech that sets the tone for his second administration that promises to be more activist than the first. Additionally, this agenda is likely intended to solidify a new majority electoral coalition of minorities, young people, and liberals (at least for presidential elections).
With the Republican brand name in such disarray, liberals need to strike when the iron’s hot. 2014 will be a major test to see if the public wants to follow the President Obama’s vision or if Reagan’s limited government vision continues to have salience.