What Kind Of Socialist Is Obama?

Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg visited this topic in May, 2010:

In many respects, Barack Obama’s neo-socialism is neoconservatism’s mirror image. Openly committed to ending the Reagan era, Obama is a firm believer in the power of government to extend its scope and grasp far deeper into society. In much the same way that neoconservatives accepted a realistic and limited role for the government, Obama tolerates a limited and realistic role for the market: its wealth is necessary for the continuation and expansion of the welfare state and social justice. While neoconservatism erred on the side of trusting the nongovernmental sphere—mediating institutions like markets, civil society, and the family—neosocialism gives the benefit of the doubt to government. Whereas neoconservatism was inherently skeptical of the ability of social planners to repeal the law of unintended consequences, Obama’s ideal is to leave social policy in their hands and to bemoan the interference of the merely political.

Is Obama a Nazi or some other kind of Socialist?

“I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care, and didn’t have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it, and just go ahead and have that passed,” he told CBS’s Katie Couric. “But that’s not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people.”

Whereas Ronald Reagan saw the answers to our problems in the private sphere (“in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”), Obama seeks to expand confidence in, and reliance on, government wherever and whenever he can, albeit within the confines of a generally Center-Right nation and the “unfortunate” demands of democracy.

As with Webb’s Fabian socialism, one will never be able to say of Obama’s developing doctrine, “now socialism has arrived.” On the night the House of Representatives passed the health-care bill, Obama said, “This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system. But it moves us decisively in the right direction.” Then, speaking specifically of another vote to be taken in the Senate but also cleverly to those not yet satisfied with what had been achieved, he added, “Now, as momentous as this day is, it’s not the end of this journey.”

Under Obama’s neosocialism, that journey will be endless, and no matter how far down the road toward socialism we go, he will always be there to tell the increasingly beleaguered marchers that we have only taken a “critical first step.”

He discussed the topic with Will Cain too. "Jonah Goldberg tells Will Cain that Barack Obama is a socialist. But he is (obviously) not a Stalinst, not Pol Pot, not a Nazi, and not a Marxist. Jonah says socialism comes in many forms and Obama seems to be taking the US in the direction of Western European social democracy - a strain of socialism."

Goldberg takes the position that Obama is some flavor of Social Democrat-type Socialist or Corporatist.  Sort of like Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson and FDR, but certainly nothing like Mao or Stalin.

I am not so generous.  As soon as Obama and his fellow travelers got to DC and were sworn in, they immediately engaged in tactics indistinguishable from pre-World War Two National Socialists.  After testing the waters a little, he took the bold step of nationalizing two of the three major US auto makers without any congressional action asked for or given, and got away with it, down to the detail of firing the CEO of GM and installing his own puppet.

Obama: Il Duce of General Motors

He continued through 2008 and 2009 in a slow-motion version of Mussolini in n1920s Italy, taking executive power to places it had never been in the USA, again with little or no congressional expansion of executive power.  With the help of Congress, he nationalized the healthcare industry and was given sweeping executive powers to administer it, including the power to force citizens and businesses to purchase healthcare plans against their will.  In typical leftoid calculus, the fine for failing to purchase healthcare was set lower than the cost of currently available health insurance policies.

Remember, one thing that applies to Socialists is if they tried a bad idea before, they will keep trying new ways of getting away with it until they succeed.  These tactics are not new on the American scene, but they have been under the dust heap of history for a while.

• Progressive Party Teddy Roosevelt included National Health Care in his 1912 campaign, modeled after a German system.
• President FDR suggested, but the American Medical Association (AMA) successfully opposed it.
• Harry Truman dusted off National Health Care, wanting to force all Americans to purchase health insurance.  He was stopped by a Democrat House and Senate, as well as the AMA.
• In 1962, President John F. Kennedy proposed National Health Care and was blocked by a Democrat House and Senate.
• In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid act, passed by the Democrat super-majorities in both houses of Congress.
• In 1971 President Richard Nixon began a Socialist squabble with Senator Ted Kennedy over just how socialized American Health Care should be.  With Nixon proposing the FDR/Truman/Hitler National Socialist tactic of forcing businesses to provide the service under penalty of law.  Kennedy took the full-on Marxist, International Socialist approach, proposing that National Healthcare become a federal government function.  Neither became law.
• President Carter proposed national healthcare in 1976, but was ignored by both Democrat controlled houses of Congress.
• Between 1986 and 1988, under President Reagan, Medicare was expanded so much and surcharges of wealthy recipients raised so high that a portion was repealed by the 101st Congress (both houses Democrat controlled) in 1989.
• Bill Clinton, in 1993 dusted off a Nixonian National Health Care proposal, nicknamed "Hillarycare", which failed to get widespread support, nor legislative support in the Democrat controlled Congress.  He succeeded with his 1997 State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) proposal, with the help of a Republican Congress.
• In 2003, President Bush (43) pushed for and a got from a Republican Congress, the Medicare Modernization Act, which socialized and bureaucratized (but I repeat myself) prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients.
• Jump to 2008, and President Barrack Hussein Obama, with the help of a Democrat Congress.

In my humble estimation, Obama employs National Socialist tactics in most of his efforts to nationalize/socialize American enterprise.  Also note that there was a distinct Left-shift to Socialism by the Democrat party in 1968, with incremental moves in that direction until in 2008 when they imposed National Socialism on the US healthcare and automobile industries.

Does Obama display International Socialist traits?  Not exactly.  Some people see any "internationalist" leanings of avowed Socialists as signs of Communist/International Socialist belief, and he does have some of those.  Not necessarily true.  The National Socialists of old did engage in technology transfer (see also), as well as ideology "transfer," to other countries.  They invaded countries they viewed as "backward" in the twisted belief that it was a benefit to them.  Kipling called it the "White Man's Burden" when the US invaded the Philippines.  Mussolini used the same justification for invading Ethiopia and Libya.  Now Obama is in Libya under the same pretense, only the wording has changed.

Socialists (International, Communist, Social, Democratic, International, etc.) are the false-altruistic busybodies who are doing everything "for you", but for some reason they keep getting rich and the people who slave under their regimes die in squalor.