Populist-in-Chief
Can Obama's progressive policies save the middle class from economic hardship? That's the question that I take up in my column for Defining Ideas this week.
One clear sign of America’s social unease is found in the constant refrain that our current economic condition has poisoned the well for the middle class in the United States. That theme has long been a favorite of American labor leaders, who have wrongly claimed that the great improvement in the quality of life of the middle class during the twentieth century was due to the ability of union leaders to secure high wages and stable jobs for their employees. In his recent speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, President Barack Obama made the same argument. There he announced in no uncertain terms that the “defining issue” of our time is how to rescue the fragile economic position of the American middle class, which he defined in the broadest possible terms.
But an analysis of the president's speech leads me to conclude that he is firmly determined to set himself against the tides of progress. His chosen constituency, the middle class, should tremble at the prospect that his agenda might well set the course for the United States for the next four years. The problem is not the president’s demagogic in tone. The problem is that he is intellectually incoherent. On the one hand, he announces his fealty to markets. On the other, he denigrates and undermines them at every step.
Continue reading at Defining Ideas.
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Jan '11
Re: Populist-in-Chief
Enjoyed the heck out of your column. My hope is that every Ricochet member -- particularly those with protectionist leanings and other distrusts of markets -- will read it and be affected.
Edited on Dec 12, 2011 at 5:36amSep '10
Re: Populist-in-Chief
In the President's code "middle class" appears to mean, "government employees and those who derive their incomes from government or reguatory action". Presumably there is some actual distribution of incomes that represent the middle of the distribution but a small business owner who makes $250,000 is far different from a college president or the head of a state agency who makes the same ammount of income. It will be interesting to see if school teachers and health care workers who make "middle class" wages will fall for the same demagogic nonsense that the more industrial workers in the days of Huey Long and FDR were fed.
Oct '10
Re: Populist-in-Chief
Another example of his incoherence is his advocacy for greater "investments" in education, for the sake of technological advancement, and his excuse that ATMs and overseas call centers are to blame for unemployment.