The Coming Thugocracy

If this disastrous election didn't tell us anything else, we certainly learned how many ill-informed or simply brainwashed people were out there casting votes. We also learned just how reviled George W. Bush really is and its evident impact on the results. Now, just a few days later, we have a president-elect and adoring media who act as if he's already taken office. Doesn't that tell you something about the Democrats' continual lust for power?

At times over the last few days, I must admit pondering Joseph Farah's post-election article seriously. Farah postulates that the division in this country has reached such a level of hopelessness to resolve, that the only true solution is for us conservatives to basically carve our own nation out of middle America and let the liberal secularists have theirs as well. Only in this way, Farah claims, can we finally live at peace with one another.

I know that as conservatives and especially for those of us who profess Christianity, we are admonished to defer to our leaders and obey them. But I have a hard time respecting and honoring people who, by their associations and actions, appear to be nothing more than thugs. And there's every indication that the Obama administration will govern in a heavy-handed, my-way-or-the-highway, thuggish manner. After all, what is there, besides us, to stop him? He has Congress and most of the media in his pocket.

But it's more than that. How difficult will it be for conservatives to support a president whose views are diametrically opposed to our own on virtually every important issue? How can we possibly "unify" with someone like that, especially when he has majorities of his party in both houses of Congress who will be eager to do his bidding?

What will we do the first time a faith-based hospital is told that they must perform abortions or they will be forced to close their doors? What will we do when the so-called Fairness Doctrine is re-imposed, effectively shutting down the only bastion of conservative speech? These terrifying things and more are not just distant possibilities anymore-they're frighteningly close to reality.

While McCain offered to put liberal Democrats like Al Gore in his cabinet, Obama has assembled a Democrat-only economic team including the hapless governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who has led that state into the worst economy in the country in her six years in office. Meanwhile, Republicans such as Mitt Romney who have a lot to offer in our current circumstances will sit on the sidelines. This is a sneak preview of what's to come in an Obama presidency-a lot of empty talk about unity and bipartisanship, but actions that are totally partisan.

Those who believe the old canard that once he's president, a partisan candidate steers toward the political center, are sadly deluded. Did Bill Clinton do that in 1993? Hardly-his first big move out of the chute was the initiative to legitimize gays serving openly in the military. This was followed by one of the biggest tax increases in the country's history and Hillary-care. It's noteworthy that by 1994 a majority of Americans were already fed up with the Clintons' liberal agenda and therefore gave Republicans a majority in Congress that year. I fear that things have changed enough since then-and not for the better-that we should not hold out false hope for a repeat performance in 2010. Only if Republicans return to their roots and find a leader who can articulately and boldly state these timeless principles, do we have a chance in the next few years to make any inroads into the future utopian "paradise" our new leaders are shaping for us.

Actually, to find a parallel to this election you have to go back to 1964, the year of the Lyndon Johnson landslide win. With that supposed mandate, Johnson became a second coming of FDR with his "Great Society" programs which did little if anything to address the problems they were supposed to eradicate. Rather, these programs have instituted massive structural deficits and contributed mightily to the breakdown of the family over the last 40-plus years. Obama, with a few strokes of his pen, has the power to have an even longer-lasting impact than LBJ and his abysmally failed programs did. Moreover, unlike Johnson, Obama has the power to structure the voting base in this country, through acceptance of millions of illegal immigrants, so as to ensure Democrat control of Congress, the presidency and the judiciary-including of course the Supreme Court-for years to come.

I desperately hope that I'm wrong, and that Obama will fool me and many others who believe he will govern like the radical leftist that he is-simply because he can. A companion article this week is telling us we should give Obama a chance or, in the author's words, "cut him some slack." Before I get to that point, I can't help but ask, where were the Democrats in late 2000 that were willing to cut George W. Bush some slack? Or, for that matter, where was any Democrat who cut Bush any slack in the last eight years? It's hard to forget what our current president endured from his critics, especially when we're being told to unify around someone whose behavior thus far is anything but that of a unifying leader.

I will continue to pray for the future of this nation and yes, I will pray for the new leaders as they take over. But the prayers for their hearts to be softened will be tempered by the certain knowledge that the terrible fate awaiting us will probably be avoided in spite of them, not because of them.