Barry Rubin: Secrets of the Soft-Core Obama Supporters

Secrets of the Soft-Core Obama Supporters

by Barry Rubin

It’s really interesting when I talk to Obama supporters who are soft-core, meaning they are open to discussion and not completely closed-minded or ideologically set in granite. There are several themes that constantly recur in such conversations though one rarely or never sees these points in print.

Of course, these people get their information from the mainstream media, which protects the administration and repackages its talking points while largely censoring out critical responses and the failures or scandals. But there are also some important assumptions they are making on their own.

–A key argument is that Obama really hasn’t done that much to change anything. The subtext of this claim is that the person who believes it is only looking at legislation passed by Congress. In that category, once one goes beyond Obamacare or the disastrous Stimulus Plan this administration has gotten far less in the way of major bills through the legislature than have many of its predecessors.

Leaving aside the fact that the speaker usually doesn’t understand the full import of Obamacare, the problem here is that most of the changes are invisible. They are the result of regulatory changes made by unelected official and czars in a wide range of agencies or of executive orders from the White House. Thus, it is possible to vastly understate the changes to American society made by this administration.

Continue reading Secrets of the Soft-Core Obama Supporters

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, was published by Yale University Press in January 2012. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media

Technorati Tag: Obama and Election 2012.