In Part 5 of "The Troubling Election of Barack Obama", I outlined points 12) to 16), the final five troubling actions of Barry Soetoro prior to his election.
In Part 6 below, I will conclude with an analysis of the voter mindset during the 2008 election process.
SUMMARY OF THE TROUBLING 2008 ELECTION OF SOETORO
The sixteen factors identified above are, although lengthy, not a complete list of the troubling factors surrounding Soetoro prior to his election. However, the list includes most of the factors I find to be serious.
There were so many troubling circumstances. Some of those circumstances were extremely troubling. There is no doubt that a rational voter should have easily made the determination that Seotoro was not a good candidate for President. The election shouldn't have been close at all.
But is it possible that most voters actually did agree that Seotoro was a troubling candidate, yet chose to select him over McCain, thinking that Soetoro was the lesser of two evils?
No, that's not plausible. There were very few, if any at all, troubling circumstances surrounding McCain. It's possible he may have flip flopped on an issue or two, but I can't think of many prominent flip flops off hand (although I have a feeling he may have flip flopped on immigration reform). He certainly was not a serial flip flopper like Soetoro. In fact, McCain chose to stick to his word even when Soetoro flip flopped on a mutual agreement (ie. public financing). In fact, McCain chose to act in an upstanding (although naive and unwise) manner by choosing not to attack Soetoro on the birth certificate issue.
Also, I am not aware of McCain having supported any significantly controversial positions prior to the election, except perhaps one: his support for legislation granting illegal aliens what amounted to amnesty. Such a position was very atypical of a Republican. However, I wouldn't think that his position would have hurt him with Democrats choosing between Soetoro and McCain, since Democrats tend to agree with McCain's position, and it's reasonable to believe that Soetoro would've supported the position as well. In fact, you would think that if voters had to choose between McCain and Soetoro based simply on the immigration issue, you would think they would choose McCain simply because he was willing to take the hard path by resisting fellow Republicans!
There is another reason to believe that voters didn't believe Soetoro was the lesser of two evils: You rarely heard people make comments that suggested they were begrudgingly voting for Soetoro. In fact, the opposite occurred. The electorate was energized, there was a huge turnout of voters (the most since the 1960s), and tears of happiness flowed from the eyes of many cult-like Soetoro voters on election night.
Is it possible that some voters chose Soetoro over McCain due to the belief that Soetoro would handle the economy better than McCain would? Yes, that's very likely. But again, irrational.
First, voters often boot out the party that was in power when economic troubles occurred. However, that's likely not a rational response, for two reasons: 1) The economic troubles could've still occurred if the incumbents weren't in power, and in fact the troubles may have been worse if the incumbents weren't in power; 2) Voters should aim to determine which party would do the better job going forward, regardless of the past (although one could weakly argue that it's worthwhile to punish a party that governs poorly, regardless of the future outlook).
Also, Soetoro had revealed very few details about what he planned to do to revive the economy. He was always very vague, talking about "hope" and "change", charismatically like a cult leader. One idea he floated was the idea of his vetoing legislation if it included pork barrel spending. But of course, it wouldn't have been rational for voters to believe Soetoro given his troubling history of flip flops.
Many voters likely voted for Soetoro simply because their investment portfolio had been devastated under the watch of Bush. In fact, I remember polls showing that something like two thirds of wealthy investors chose to support Soetoro.
True, there are quite a few reasons to believe that the Republican Bush and the SEC were very corrupt when it came to assisting with theft of the middle class investment community. However, I see no reason for voters to have believed that the situation would be better under Soetoro than McCain. What about the fact that Soetoro was a Democrat, not part of Bush's party? Well, the stock market crash in 2000 occurred under the watch of a Democrat, Clinton, and there were donor finance scandals that surrounded Clinton and Al Gore. And of course, there was no reason to believe that Soetoro would improve the situation because he was a good guy, because the sixteen factors above are very suggestive that he is not a good guy.
Is it possible that voters believed that Soetoro truly believed (and intended to enact) his original positions, and flip flopped only in order to win the election? Yes, that's possible. But, for many reasons, that doesn't make it rational to vote for him, given the very illogical fiscal policies associated with his extreme liberalism and given his suspected anti-Americanism and/or unpatriotic actions.
So my conclusion is that Americans were very irrational. There were huge amounts of evidence suggesting that Soetoro was a liar, a crook, and probably not a good person. But I don't believe that most Americans who voted for him are also crooks, or evil (although I do believe that evil people were probably more likely to vote for Soetoro than McCain). I believe many simply got duped by him, and by their own emotions and desires, and by their inability to be logical. Now, the media certainly aided in voters being duped, because they downplayed the circumstances surrounding Soetoro. However, the stories were out there. They weren't being buried, just downplayed. Any reader of a newspaper would have been easily able to locate many stories.
So what does this mean? Are American voters somehow more gullible than other foreign voters? Perhaps, but I'm not sure that any difference, if it exists at all, is as large as you may think.
Think about Germany in the 1930s. Germans elected Hitler, even though Hitler had already published "Mein Kampf" prior to the election. Now, I haven't read "Main Kampf", so I can't comment on it with authority, but the document's reputation (along with a cursory review of the anti-Semitism outlined in the book) is such that you'd think it would've caused alarm in the mind of many voters. Yet they voted for Hitler.
The troubling thing is this: over seventy years after Hitler's election, humanity has fallen prey to the same circumstances. They chose to ignore disturbing evidence and elect an illogical liar and crook.
Should people who voted for Soetoro ever be allowed to vote again? Probably not. I think that's obvious!
Some people might argue that it's unfair to prevent people from voting. Well, even if that was the case, remember that only those voting for Soetoro would be the ones being treated unfairly. I would argue that it's even more unfair to allow the fools to vote and thereby harm an even greater number of people: society as a whole!
You do not want to allow fools to be voting and influencing the future of society at large. These people may be rational when it comes to everyday life, but they appear to have been complete fools when it came to voting. But that's another topic.
In Part Three of "Reader Request: Why Did Voters Change Their Preferences from 2006 to 2010", I will examine the 2010 midterm elections, and the belated revolt of the people against Obama.
In Part 6 below, I will conclude with an analysis of the voter mindset during the 2008 election process.
SUMMARY OF THE TROUBLING 2008 ELECTION OF SOETORO
The sixteen factors identified above are, although lengthy, not a complete list of the troubling factors surrounding Soetoro prior to his election. However, the list includes most of the factors I find to be serious.
There were so many troubling circumstances. Some of those circumstances were extremely troubling. There is no doubt that a rational voter should have easily made the determination that Seotoro was not a good candidate for President. The election shouldn't have been close at all.
But is it possible that most voters actually did agree that Seotoro was a troubling candidate, yet chose to select him over McCain, thinking that Soetoro was the lesser of two evils?
No, that's not plausible. There were very few, if any at all, troubling circumstances surrounding McCain. It's possible he may have flip flopped on an issue or two, but I can't think of many prominent flip flops off hand (although I have a feeling he may have flip flopped on immigration reform). He certainly was not a serial flip flopper like Soetoro. In fact, McCain chose to stick to his word even when Soetoro flip flopped on a mutual agreement (ie. public financing). In fact, McCain chose to act in an upstanding (although naive and unwise) manner by choosing not to attack Soetoro on the birth certificate issue.
Also, I am not aware of McCain having supported any significantly controversial positions prior to the election, except perhaps one: his support for legislation granting illegal aliens what amounted to amnesty. Such a position was very atypical of a Republican. However, I wouldn't think that his position would have hurt him with Democrats choosing between Soetoro and McCain, since Democrats tend to agree with McCain's position, and it's reasonable to believe that Soetoro would've supported the position as well. In fact, you would think that if voters had to choose between McCain and Soetoro based simply on the immigration issue, you would think they would choose McCain simply because he was willing to take the hard path by resisting fellow Republicans!
There is another reason to believe that voters didn't believe Soetoro was the lesser of two evils: You rarely heard people make comments that suggested they were begrudgingly voting for Soetoro. In fact, the opposite occurred. The electorate was energized, there was a huge turnout of voters (the most since the 1960s), and tears of happiness flowed from the eyes of many cult-like Soetoro voters on election night.
Is it possible that some voters chose Soetoro over McCain due to the belief that Soetoro would handle the economy better than McCain would? Yes, that's very likely. But again, irrational.
First, voters often boot out the party that was in power when economic troubles occurred. However, that's likely not a rational response, for two reasons: 1) The economic troubles could've still occurred if the incumbents weren't in power, and in fact the troubles may have been worse if the incumbents weren't in power; 2) Voters should aim to determine which party would do the better job going forward, regardless of the past (although one could weakly argue that it's worthwhile to punish a party that governs poorly, regardless of the future outlook).
Also, Soetoro had revealed very few details about what he planned to do to revive the economy. He was always very vague, talking about "hope" and "change", charismatically like a cult leader. One idea he floated was the idea of his vetoing legislation if it included pork barrel spending. But of course, it wouldn't have been rational for voters to believe Soetoro given his troubling history of flip flops.
Many voters likely voted for Soetoro simply because their investment portfolio had been devastated under the watch of Bush. In fact, I remember polls showing that something like two thirds of wealthy investors chose to support Soetoro.
True, there are quite a few reasons to believe that the Republican Bush and the SEC were very corrupt when it came to assisting with theft of the middle class investment community. However, I see no reason for voters to have believed that the situation would be better under Soetoro than McCain. What about the fact that Soetoro was a Democrat, not part of Bush's party? Well, the stock market crash in 2000 occurred under the watch of a Democrat, Clinton, and there were donor finance scandals that surrounded Clinton and Al Gore. And of course, there was no reason to believe that Soetoro would improve the situation because he was a good guy, because the sixteen factors above are very suggestive that he is not a good guy.
Is it possible that voters believed that Soetoro truly believed (and intended to enact) his original positions, and flip flopped only in order to win the election? Yes, that's possible. But, for many reasons, that doesn't make it rational to vote for him, given the very illogical fiscal policies associated with his extreme liberalism and given his suspected anti-Americanism and/or unpatriotic actions.
So my conclusion is that Americans were very irrational. There were huge amounts of evidence suggesting that Soetoro was a liar, a crook, and probably not a good person. But I don't believe that most Americans who voted for him are also crooks, or evil (although I do believe that evil people were probably more likely to vote for Soetoro than McCain). I believe many simply got duped by him, and by their own emotions and desires, and by their inability to be logical. Now, the media certainly aided in voters being duped, because they downplayed the circumstances surrounding Soetoro. However, the stories were out there. They weren't being buried, just downplayed. Any reader of a newspaper would have been easily able to locate many stories.
So what does this mean? Are American voters somehow more gullible than other foreign voters? Perhaps, but I'm not sure that any difference, if it exists at all, is as large as you may think.
Think about Germany in the 1930s. Germans elected Hitler, even though Hitler had already published "Mein Kampf" prior to the election. Now, I haven't read "Main Kampf", so I can't comment on it with authority, but the document's reputation (along with a cursory review of the anti-Semitism outlined in the book) is such that you'd think it would've caused alarm in the mind of many voters. Yet they voted for Hitler.
The troubling thing is this: over seventy years after Hitler's election, humanity has fallen prey to the same circumstances. They chose to ignore disturbing evidence and elect an illogical liar and crook.
Should people who voted for Soetoro ever be allowed to vote again? Probably not. I think that's obvious!
Some people might argue that it's unfair to prevent people from voting. Well, even if that was the case, remember that only those voting for Soetoro would be the ones being treated unfairly. I would argue that it's even more unfair to allow the fools to vote and thereby harm an even greater number of people: society as a whole!
You do not want to allow fools to be voting and influencing the future of society at large. These people may be rational when it comes to everyday life, but they appear to have been complete fools when it came to voting. But that's another topic.
In Part Three of "Reader Request: Why Did Voters Change Their Preferences from 2006 to 2010", I will examine the 2010 midterm elections, and the belated revolt of the people against Obama.
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