The costs if Obama fails: "an America run by religious fanatics, locked in holy (thermonuclear) wars abroad while engaging in ethnic cleansing at home"

The Cost

from Open Left - Front Page by Paul Rosenberg

Right now, it's becoming particularly apparent that there's a real danger of Obama's Administration going really wrong.  I've long been hopeful that the historical logic Mike Lux writes about in his book will take hold, and that Obama will be forced to move to the left, to institute progressive reforms, as has happened at crucial times before.  But what if he doesn't?  What if his current support for Timothy Geithner and his misbegotten plan is the harbinger of all that's to come?  How bad could it get?

What Would Be The Cost?

In my last diary, "Geithner = Warren?", one answer was suggested by limpidglass, writting:

theocratic dictatorship, here we come!
Recipe:

• A lot of God talk and flag-waving;
• A lot of railing against the evil Fed and the banking class (which will be conflated with American Jews);
• A lot of talk about we shouldn't waste money on "wasteful" and "bloated" government social programs, and how we should instead give it directly to the churches so they can help the poor like Jesus told them to do;
• A little dose of the Dolchstosslegende about how the Democrats pussied out and retreated from Iraq and Afghanistan when those wars could have been won, + a sacred vow to go into the Middle East, wipe out all those "heathens," and take back the oil that belongs to the American people by right;
• A lot of raving against Muslims (for "being terrorists"), immigrants (for "stealing jobs from honest, decent Americans"), homosexuals (for their "decadent lifestyles"), and liberals (for "hating America");

Bake for four years or so, and you've got yourself an America run by religious fanatics, locked in holy (thermonuclear) wars abroad while engaging in ethnic cleansing at home.

I don't think that's anywhere near guaranteed if Obama fails.  But I certainly think it's a distinct possibility.  And in responding to limpidglass, Master Jack sketched out a different sort of cost--the opportunity cost of what's potentially going to be wasted if we continue in this way:

What a wasted opportunity.
This banking meltdown COULD have led to a new progressive era -- as previous American economic collapses have done. It could have been a massive, once-in-a-generation teachable moment about the disastrous consequences of unbridled, unregulated capitalism.

And we have a "Democrat" in the White House, as well as "Democratic" majorities in both houses. The mechanism was in place to truly move beyond Reaganism.

The last time the Democrats availed themselves of that teachable moment, they set the stage to dominate American politics for a half-century.

This generation of "Democratic" leaders has used this opportunity to move the country even further to the right.

This will not end well. This is the first time I'm wondering if it would have been better if McCain had won -- he'd be coddling Wall Street just like Obama is now, but at least it would be Republicans he'd be setting up for permanent irrelevancy.

We have to think about these costs very seriously, because they are very serious costs, which are all the more serious because of how oblivious to them Obama and the rest of the Versailles Dems seem to be.  Do I hope that these are both overblown?  Of course!  But hope is not a plan.  We cannot ignore the costs we face if we allow failure to prevail.