The presidential god that failed

Suppose God has heard the prayers of conservatives and wants to end the Age of Progressivism? How would He do it?

Videos by Rare

Chances are that God knows that persuasion does not come from science or a rational argument. As Jonathan Haidt writes, humans use reason instead to rationalize actions and criticize the actions of others.

The only thing that persuades humans is utter destruction; for man to see his dreams lying shattered at his feet, to see his god crumbling before him with feet of clay.

Liberals were never going to abandon their dream of a government program as the key to a heavenly utopia based on economic and political science evidence as well as the failure of the Soviet Union. God knows that for liberals to give up on their cruel program of ruling-class power, they would have to drive themselves off a cliff.

So what would it take?

It would take an untried state senator running for president on the strength of a well-received speech at a party convention.  It would take a cult of personality in which millions of people would stake their faith in hope and change only to be cruelly disappointed.  It would take the mother of all government programs, a government-mandated health care system, concocted by health industry lobbyists and Senate aides in a smoke-filled room.  The bill would have to be passed on a strict partisan vote, ignoring the sage advice of Pat Moynihan that you must pass big things with a 70-30 bipartisan vote.

You would want the untried state senator to think that he can solve all problems with another speech.  You would want him to make an egregious lie about “you can keep your plan” so that even the most distracted low-information voter can understand it.  You would want him to refuse to compromise and delay the program all the while making cozy waivers and carve-outs for special interests.  You would want him to insult the people losing their health care plans by talking about “bad apple” plans.

You would want the vast healthcare.gov website to be a disaster. You would want faithful liberals in cities like San Francisco to face 100 percent increases in premiums and still blame the presidents’ “stewards.”  You would want the president to make a mealy-mouthed limited-hangout apology to those folks losing their plans. You would want Democratic senators up for reelection breaking ranks.

If you were God, you would know that none of this, not even reducing the entire United States to the nightmare of Detroit, would convince the liberal true believers. But you would know that a political, economic and credibility disaster of this magnitude would put the majority of the American people off big government programs for a generation. You could look at New York City and consider that it took 20 years of sensible Republican governance to revived the city only to usher in a new generation of voters “that knew not Rudy” and vote a clueless lefty into power.

God would know that nothing convinces the average voter that it’s time for a change more than a presidential god that failed.

We hope.

What do you think?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

KUDLOW: Attack Obamacare but talk growth, too

“The Global War on Christians”: A talk with John Allen