You see, I told you, didn’t I, you wouldn’t listen but I was absolutely right – I am a prat!
Well, Obama won and the outlook is grim. His apparatchiks will be itching to ram through yet more big spending programmes which will promise heaven today for their supporters in the black, Hispanic and college-educated women sectors of the electorate who, against the forecasts, actually turned out for him. The administration has already bought the industrial rust belt with their auto bail-outs and that helped them clinch the swing States. Expect more of the same – because it works – at the ballot box! By the time of the next election the full costs of ‘Obamacare’ will be more apparent and borrowing and taxing will have to increase to pay for it despite the national debt already being at dizzy and previously unimaginable heights - $16 trillion the last time I looked.
The only cut back in American government spending will be in the military, always an easy target. In itself that is not a bad thing. One senses that both the services themselves and, even more so, the industrial conglomerates behind them are more than somewhat swollen. However, it depends on where the cuts are made. Numbers can probably be reduced but high-tech research cannot – and that comes very expensive! It is necessary to remember at all times that many of the people who surround Obama will not care if a financial crisis hits America, quite the opposite, they would welcome it. Emergencies require emergency powers, and once enacted and seized they are not lightly given up.
However, the worst is yet to come. As I have mentioned before, this next term will almost certainly provide Obama with one or two chances to pick Left-wing anti-constitutional judges to the Supreme Court and that will set the political ground rules for the next generation. In addition, of course, he will be cramming the Federal courts with similar activist judges to entrench his socialist agenda. Even if some bright, new, young Republican candidate wins the next election he will find himself hogtied by the courts.
Finally, two foreign powers will be pleased with the result – Iran and China. The Iranians will be delighted that a clearly anti-Israeli president remains in the White House and can be relied upon to provide Netanyahu with minimal support in any attempt to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. In those circumstances, whether Netanyahu and his government still have the determination to proceed remains to be seen. The other smiles at this result will be seen in Beijing, where smiles are in short supply! They will now feel more able to ratchet up the pressure in the South China Sea confident in the knowledge that the very last thing this particular president wants is a confrontation.
The only good thing to come out of this whole disaster is that hopefully I will never hear another Yank talking about “American exeptionalism”. It was never true in the first place and now it has been shown to be so. Roughly half the American population rather likes the idea of democratic socialism, government hand-outs and a dependency culture, just like us lot ‘over here’. In fact, America, why don’t you join the European Union?