We Are Not Coming Back
Please take a moment to digest this provocative article by a Jewish Rabbi from
Teaneck,N.J. It is far and away the most succinct and
thoughtful explanation of how our nation is changing. The article appeared in
The Israel National News, and is directed to Jewish readership. 70% of American
Jews vote as Democrats. The Rabbi has some interesting comments in that regard.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in
Teaneck,New Jersey
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"The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is
that Americans voted for the status quo - for the incumbent President and for a
divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence,
economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility. And fewer people voted.
But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile
explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering
classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that
devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did
he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he
lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business
cycle.
Romney lost because he didn't get enough votes to win.
That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because
the conservative virtues - the traditional American virtues of Liberty, hard
work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness -
no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate.
The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete
against free stuff.
Every businessman knows this; that is why the "loss leader" or the
giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama's America is one in which
free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps
clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of
millions; those who - courtesy of Obama - receive two full years of
unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work
and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their
windfall) surely know for whom to vote. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.
The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation of the
secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning
an election in which "47% of the people" start off against him
because they pay no taxes and just receive money - "free stuff" -
from the government.
Almost half of the population has no skin in the game - they don't care about
high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do they care that the
money for their free stuff is being borrowed from their children
And from the Chinese.
They just want the free stuff that comes their way at someone else's expense.
In the end, that 47% leaves very little margin for error for any Republican,
and does not bode well for the future.
It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against such
overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence, the people
vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for a President who
will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay for it.
That engenders the second reason why Romney
lost: the inescapable conclusion that the electorate is ignorant and
uninformed. Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter, because most other
voters - the clear majority are unintelligent and easily swayed by emotion and
raw populism. That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people
vote with their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to produce
a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He needed only to
portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who throws elderly women over a
cliff, when he is not just snatching away their cancer medication, while
starving the poor and cutting taxes for the rich.
During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson:
"Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson
called back: "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"
Truer words were never spoken.
Obama could get away with saying that "Romney wants the rich to play by a
different set of rules" - without ever defining what those different rules
were; with saying that the "rich should pay their fair share" -
without ever defining what a "fair share" is; with saying that Romney
wants the poor, elderly and sick to "fend for themselves" - without
even acknowledging that all these government
programs are going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by
deficit spending.
Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a Romney victory
would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women that their abortions and
birth control would be taken away. He could appeal to Hispanics that Romney
would have them all arrested and shipped to Mexico and unabashedly state that
he will not enforce the current immigration laws. He could espouse the
furtherance of the incestuous relationship between governments and unions - in
which politicians ply the unions with public money, in exchange for which the
unions provide the politicians with votes, in exchange for which the
politicians provide more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even
though the money is gone.
Obama also knows that the electorate has changed - that whites will soon be a
minority in America (they're already a minority in California) and that the new
immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the
traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th
centuries. It is a different world, and a different America . Obama is part of
that different America , knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he
won.
Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective sells, and
harsh personal attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in such diatribes
points to his essential goodness as a person; his "negative ads" were
simple facts, never personal abuse - facts about high unemployment, lower
take-home pay, a loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of
leadership, etc. As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not
embrace the devil's bargain of making unsustainable promises.
It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan - people of
substance, depth and ideas - to compete with the shallow populism and
platitudes of their opponents. Obama mastered the politics of envy of class
warfare - never reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and
cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups. If an Obama
could not be defeated - with his record and his vision of America , in which
free stuff seduces voters - it is hard to envision any change in the
future.
The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to a European-socialist economy - those
very economies that are collapsing today in Europe - is paved.
For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results
demonstrate again that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for a
president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as hostile to
Israel . They voted to secure Obama's future at America 's expense and at
Israel 's expense - in effect, preferring Obama to Netanyahu by a wide
margin.
A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is inconceivable that
the US will take any aggressive action against Iran and will more likely thwart
any Israeli initiative. The US will preach the importance of negotiations up
until the production of the first Iranian nuclear weapon - and then state that
the world must learn to live with this new reality.
But this election should be a wake-up call to Jews. There is no permanent
empire, nor is there an enduring haven for Jews anywhere in the exile. The
American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration has been
exacerbated in the last five years. This election only hastens that decline.
Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and materialistic excess. It has
lost its moorings and its moral foundations. The takers outnumber the givers,
and that will only increase in years to come.
The "Occupy" riots across this
country in the last two years were mere dress rehearsals for what lies ahead -
years of unrest sparked by the increasing discontent of the unsuccessful who
want to seize the fruits and the bounty of the successful, and do not
appreciate the slow pace of redistribution.
If this election proves one thing, it is that the Old
America is gone and, sad for the world, it is not coming back."
--
The problems we face today are there because the people who
work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living.
