Obama’s Permanent Revolution
Ever since Barack Obama’s election, the very same conservative movement that had been castigating him for months as a harbinger of sharia socialism has spent an awful lot of time crowing about weird nonsense concepts like Obama’s cabinet coming from the “center-right” of the Democratic Party. It’s a bit annoying, I miss the classics. Fortunately, Victor Davis Hanson is willing to kick it old-school and explain that in 2008 “50 years’ worth of careful thinking and hard-won wisdom were erased, as the Reagan Revolution, the work of Milton Freidman, and the classical free-market ethos were suddenly Trotskyized.”
Trotsky! I like it. I wonder which kind of Friedman-style, free market thinking Hanson thinks was prevalent back in 1958. As I recall it, the 50s were a time of high taxes, high levels of unionization, and strict regulation in the economic sphere with conservatism generally prevailing on matters related to sex and gender relations.
36 Responses to “Obama’s Permanent Revolution”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I clearly remember Stalin having Trotsky killed because he supported bailing out investment bankers.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Ah, good old VDH- the man who really puts the “nut” in “wingnut.”
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I imagine the idea is that National Review is about fifty years old (and by extension “the conservative movement”) and thus in that sense Obama’s election is fifty years of careful planning overthrown, even though conservatives (especially of the Milton Friedman sort) had rather limited power fifty years ago.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
As I recall it, the 50s were a time of high taxes, high levels of unionization, and strict regulation
Taxes weren’t higher fifty years ago. I’m pretty sure tax collections as a percentage of GDP were somewhat lower in 1958 then now — even if you’re only counting the federal government. Income tax rates, of course, were higher back then, which I’m pretty sure means the wealthy of the late 1950s were paying for a greater percentage of governmental operations than the wealthy of 2009. So, the main difference between now and then is a modest expansion in the size of government (much of that at the state and local level, as it happens) and a less modest expansion in the tax bills of the non-wealthy.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
#3: exactly. As we all know, the most important story in the National Review is the story of the National Review.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I didn’t know that “careful planning” could explain the last eight years. Thanks, VDH, for letting us know it was intentional!
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Saw this the other day:
we are all Kronstadters now. So VDH, who saw no comparison to the Sicilian Expedition, now sees the prophet armed. geeze.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
you sort of look like Trotsky, actually
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
I like how he deprecates baby boomers for shifting blame over the finacnial crisis, rather than “privately and quietly jumping out of windows”.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Re “ Trotskyized” , I think what Victor is saying is that George W Bush, the Republican Congress, and the Republican intelligentsia put an ice ax in the the skull of the US economy.
Hell of a Hood Ornament but Texas style sense is strange.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
there is very little about today’s republican party that barry goldwater would approve of, but hanson, of course, is a deadender.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Re “Trotskyized”, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotsky#Assassination
Trotsky’s assassin’s account of how he hit Trotsky with the ice ax supports Victor’s characterization:
“I took out the ice axe from the raincoat, gripped it in my hand and, with my eyes closed, dealt him a terrible blow on the head.”
“eyes closed” is certainly how George W ran the country.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I think you’re misreading Hanson here. He writes, ‘50 years’ worth of careful thinking and hard-won wisdom were erased, as the Reagan Revolution, the work of Milton Freidman, and the classical free-market ethos were suddenly Trotskyized.’ It is the thinking that has been going on 50 years, not a type of governance. Friedman was originally publishing in a political environment guided by a rather strident version of Keynes. Buckley too saw himself as a reactionary rebel, clawing at the bureaucratic mass of 50’s America. Indeed, John Judis argues the best way to understand Buckley is as a sort of Catholic Counter-Revolutionary, romantically defending the doomed and goodly Remnant in a statist wasteland.
I think the intellectual fruit of all this hard thinking is rather rotten now, and may well have been at its advent. It is horribly convenient to think that the apologetics for capitalist America during the cold war reflect some eternally valid wisdom, and just as obviously fallacious. A great deal of conservative utterances recently seem to show the Panglossian insanity that can result from only seeing what you already know.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I like how he deprecates baby boomers for shifting blame over the finacnial crisis, rather than “privately and quietly jumping out of windows”.
Yeah it’s funny how the right will meekly engage in generational warfare. Damn baby boomers! RE: Social Security, old people suck!
“50 years’ worth of careful thinking and hard-won wisdom were erased, as the Reagan Revolution, the work of Milton Freidman, and the classical free-market ethos were suddenly Trotskyized.” It’s all the baby boomers fault?
Reminds me of the Marx quote: “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers.” Actually they are the gravediggers. Of themselves. Or something.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
The Reagan Revolution was the result of careful thinking? Hoocoodanode? The things you learn every day.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Don’t forget the commie-hating! (Trotsky, remember?) Fighting the Red Menace[tm] was the lynchpin (pun intended) of 50s-60s conservatism.
Now it’s the Brown Menace, which let’s them combine their bigoted tropes into one convenient package!
“Musilms: evil like commies, only not white!”
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Yeah it’s funny how the right will meekly engage in generational warfare. Damn baby boomers! RE: Social Security, old people suck!
I just meant that there’s nothing “private” or “quiet” about jumping out of a window. If it was anyone but VDH, I would guess he was joking. (Also, there’s not much evidence that anyone did this during the crash of ‘29 either).
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
“What it all comes down to is that this foul Trotsky is a Jew.”
Winston Churchill
(as quoted in Nicholson Baker’s “Human Smoke”)
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Does anyone know if VDH’s political/current events commentary has begun to influence his other writings? I mean, what got the guy into the pundit game in the first place was some apparently legitimate expertise in military history and the classics. But his pundit stuff has been so stupid, irrational and awful, I wonder if he’s been able to segregate his ridiculously flawed thinking in that area from his other interests. Is VDH the military historian,classicist demonstrably smarter and more reasonable than VDH the pundit, or has his brain degenerated overall like someone with mad cow disease?
Mike
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
In the often overlooked words of Milton Trotsky, “you might not care about the money supply, but the money supply cares about you!”
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
In the aftermath of the financial meltdown, 50 years’ worth of careful thinking and hard-won wisdom were erased, as the Reagan Revolution, the work of Milton Freidman, and the classical free-market ethos were suddenly Trotskyized.
Hey, maybe he’s just admitting that the conservative governing philosophy has been proven to be spectacularly wrong.
…
Speaking of Trotsky: Barbara Walters’ dog looks like Trotsky.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Weren’t a lot of the Neocons Trotskyites?
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Ironically, the last “respectable” American publication I saw publish an ode to Trotsky was the National Review Online.
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Re wiley’s comment “Weren’t a lot of the Neocons Trotskyites?”
—————
Er.. more like whores to powerful men. Pat Buchanan described the Neocons’ intellectual promiscuity thus:
“Who are the neoconservatives? The first generation were ex-liberals, socialists, and Trotskyites, boat-people from the McGovern revolution who rafted over to the GOP at the end of conservatism’s long march to power with Ronald Reagan in 1980.”
hee hee
One can see why Rachel Maddow likes Pat — he’s got a mean streak a mile wide when it comes to the Neocons.
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2003/mar/24/00007/
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Sometimes I like Buchanan, too, Williams. Life is strange.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Maybe the fifty years ago refers to the election of Pat Brown, who was (I’ve heard) once a hero of the Hansen family. In my California days I shook hands with three politicians — Pat Brown, Harvey Milk, and Tom Kuchel. Pat was the most impressive, even if Milk was the most charismatic.
In regard to Hansen’s publications, his ancient historical work (which I believe he has pretty much given up, unfortunately) is deservedly respected, completely competent, and asks interesting questions. His co-authored book on the decline of the Classical tradition, or American education, or whatever (with the barfy title of Who Killed Homer) is sloppy and self-indulgent. And his general military historical stuff, partly on my own reading and partly on the opinions of people I respect, is occasionally interesting, but too often boiler plate wrapped in dubious generalizations, particularly in areas where he has no personal expertise such as the Aztecs and medieval Japan.
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:39 am
levitraIt is the coolest site,keep so!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:24 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
March 17th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Great site. Good info
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:59 am
tramadol
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 am
buy viagra online
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:02 am
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:02 am
Incredible site!
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 5:03 am
Very interesting site, Hope it will always be alive! viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 6:59 am
This topic is quite trendy on the Internet right now. What do you pay attention to when choosing what to write about?
April 19th, 2009 at 8:55 am
NJAN6j xrpcvdsinogu, [url=http://urponyviwxwf.com/]urponyviwxwf[/url], [link=http://knvolbeglrae.com/]knvolbeglrae[/link], http://rnwndmxoyzuz.com/