It almost goes without saying that the pending sequester can not possibly have as severe an impact as the Obama Administration is attempting to portray to the public. However that does not mean that Obama and his allies in the media will not actively attempt to make the worst of it.
I suspect that plans are already in place to disrupt essential services, create delays and in anyway possible make this shot glass of budget cuts from the ocean of red ink look as devastating as possible.
It is not like we do not have decades of examples of how the Progressive power structure will spin meaningless events into apocalyptic disasters in order to promote their goals. Not only will they promote and propagandize every little problem into a crisis, they are fully willing and able to create actual crisis with real world consequences in order to advance their agenda.
As an example it is easy to laugh at the absurdity of the fluidity of the "climate change" theorem, where global warming is now defined as massive blizzards. However the shape shifting ability of the statist has in fact left us with disastrous energy and economic policies that are having real world consequences on our lives. When the conscious of your opponent is ruled by an "ends justify the means" morality, it ceases to be a matter of humor but rather one of survival.
We may mock all these Cassandra scenarios that the Obama Administration is forecasting to occur with the coming sequester, but does anyone seriously doubt that Obama is not willing to unleash the power of his presidency to make them reality to some degree? This, after all, is the man who can stand before the nation time and time and lie in order to shift blame, destroy political foes, or by any way necessary move his progressive ideology FORWARD. This is an administration that will knowingly send guns to drug cartels in order to advance a policy objective without any regard for the foreseeable murderous consequences and yet we doubt that he would cause longer lines at airports? Or shut down Yellowstone National Park? If you think he is incapable of pulling the levers of the federal government to inflict pain on the American citizenry in order to prove his point that without government we as a people are helpless, you have not been paying attention.
The question is, not whether he will do it, or to a lesser degree how the puppets in the media cover it, the question is, how will the Republicans respond to it? Knowing that Obama will do this and the media will support him, does the GOP have a strategy to respond?
As these stories of doom begin to fill the airwaves will Republican leadership confront them head on? Will they unflinchingly and without fear accuse the administration of maliciously creating hardships? Will they point to where alternatives were available but the Obama administration "to score political points" made matters worse through their choices and actions?
Does the GOP have a crisis team in place to evaluate and respond to the coming storm? Have they designated a spokesman or spokesmen to go out front and explain and shout to the public if necessary what Obama is doing all the while repeatedly pointing to his hypocrisy and lack of action on the issue. Why not have someone like Paul Ryan on the House side and Rob Portman on the Senate side, politicians with the economic gravitas, be the point men in responding to this Tsunami of negativism about to be unleashed against the supposed proponents of limited government?
Will the GOP stand for what it says it believes in, will it actively fight the fight for fiscal sanity and restraint? Recent history and the political calculations over principle of a few important GOP governors would indicate that as usual the Republicans, with all too few exceptions will cave to the progressive and statist forces which threaten the republic. Even worse is the fact that it is doubtful that the Republican Party has even thought about how they will respond to the coming Obama induced Apocalypse.
MY HOPE is that the Republicans have CHANGEd and will begin to fight back, but I am doubtful.
This is a great post, Jer, and I think you're absolutely correct.
ReplyDeleteI will take exception with one point. You say, "...the question is, how will the Republicans respond to it?" I think this is part of the problem. The Republicans wait to respond to Obama, rather than getting out in front and owning the narrative. They need to be talking now and saying that Obama can, for example, make choices that will prevent long waits at the airports. When people are waiting in line, they need to know that this was Obama's choice.