There is a strong similarity between the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Gloom.
Jimmy Carter spent his initial campaign for office and four years in office, during which we had out-of-control inflation and virtually no economic growth, admonishing Americans to tighten our belts and learn to live within our means.
Jimmy Carter was an advocate of environmental Armageddon when Armageddon was seen as global cooling, population explosion and pollution. Carter emphasized the need for alternative energy both in biofuels and coal gasification. Jimmy Carter constantly used the imagery of belt tightening and America on hard times. Jimmy Carter was the voice of gloom.
He was defeated for re-election in 1980 by a campaign of ‘It's morning in America’ espoused by a jubilant and energetic optimist, Ronald Reagan.
Barack Obama has, from his first day as a candidate, emphasized that America is in bad shape and needs healing. He promised openness, he promised to stop the oceans from rising, he promised to bring the country together and bring troops home from an unwanted and irrelevant war. Every year he has been in office he has found a new enemy of America. It is always a domestic enemy. First it was the bankers and Wall Street. Next it was the disastrous mistakes of his predecessor George W. Bush. Then came a barrage of attacks on private jets and hedge fund managers. This was followed by attacks on a category of people Obama called the 1% whom he considered anti-American in their selfishness and tax avoidance.
At the beginning of the Obama administration he made a point to argue that America was absolutely no different than any other country and there was nothing ‘exceptional’ about America. Today he has gone further and argued that America has a uniquely serious maldistribution of income. Income distribution in America, he endlessly claims, has been getting worse, more egregious and more harmful to the middle class.
To put it in the simplest language Barack Obama like Jimmy Carter is a prophet of gloom. He has portrayed his Republican opponents as enemies. They are attacked as malicious. Above all Obama has raised the flag of racism in America. he has raised that flag above all other flags.
Have I made the point clear enough that Barack Obama like Jimmy Carter is a prophet of gloom and doom. Whoever runs for president against the Democrats in 2016 will undoubtedly ride on the Ronald Reagan ticket of ‘Morning in America’.