Just for fun, I’ve been reading old blog posts from 2008 trying to gain a better understanding of President Obama. (Okay, I’m also looking for ways to measure just how spectacularly his presidency has failed to live up to his promises. And believe me, it’s a target-rich environment.)
A couple of incidents stand out, though, that dovetail very nicely with the President’s recent disdainful “you didn’t build that” remarks. And taken together, all these statements, both old and new, paint a picture of a man who is very much upset by the thought of a successful upper middle class that earned its way out of “the masses” and into a position that threatens the authority and power of the anointed Ivy League elites.
First, in a 2005 interview (Adobe PDF) promoting Dreams From My Father, then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama had this to say about “mutual responsibility for bridging the [racial] divisions that exist right now”:
And I really want to emphasize the word “responsibility.” I think that whether you are a white executive living out in the suburbs, who doesn’t want to pay taxes to inner-city children for them to go to school, or you’re an inner-city child who doesn’t want to take responsibility for keeping your street safe and clean, both of those groups have to take some responsibility if we’re going to get beyond the kinds of divisions that we face right now.
Interesting choice for irresponsibility isn’t it? A “white executive” (who presumably benefited unfairly from the work of others) who has fled from the ugly world that his greed helped to create, and who now can’t be bothered to part with any of his ill-gotten fortune, even if it is for the children.
Second, in the wake of the infamous “Joe The Plumber” incident, Barack Obama seemed to really enjoy mocking “plumbers makin’ a quarter-million dollars a year”:
Throw in President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remarks, and a clear image emerges — a man who is extremely disdainful of lower-middle and middle class Americans who work hard and make it into the upper middle class.
For the first time in history, we have a President who completely fails to understand entrepreneurship. Apparently this is because a successful entrepreneurial class is an impediment to the classical Marxist worldview of “haves” vs “have nots” power struggles. And because successful entrepreneurs have the ability to run for political office and shape government policy without having first earned an Ivy Leage university education. To President Obama and his egg-headed ilk, that is utterly intolerable.
But to the rest of us, President Obama’s elitism is not only intolerable, but incredibly dangerous. November can’t come soon enough.
