A s harsh as Democrats and the liberal grass roots were in their eight straight years of attacks on George W. Bush and his administration, they had one thing right: There is a great philosophical divide that splits this nation in halfa divide born of diametrically opposite worldviews, which are engaged in an ongoing power struggle over the direction of this nation. This struggle is as old as the United States, but it has grown more intense with each passing decade.
One man who understood this divide, and what it meant for our country, was Ronald Reagan. In a celebrated speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 1974, Ronald Reagan described the ideological rift he perceived in America. He warned his listeners of the efforts one side was making to denigrate the nation, its venerated institutions, and the very concept of free-market capitalism, and called attention to that sides goalto expand government control as a cure for everything that ailed the United States. Though the Vietnam War was nearing its end, Reagan recognized that the stirrings of protest over that conflict had spread far deeper into the culture of the leftand particularly into the universities that were preparing our children for adulthood:
The widespread disaffection with things military is only a part of the philosophical division in our land today. I must say to you who have recently, or presently are still receiving an education, I am awed by your powers of resistance. I have some knowledge of the attempts that have been made in many classrooms and lecture halls to persuade you that there is little to admire in America. For the second time in this century, capitalism and free enterprise are under assault. Privately owned business is blamed for spoiling the environment, exploiting the worker and seducing, if not outright raping, the customer. Those who make the charge have the solution, of coursegovernment regulation and control.
History repeats itself. That passage could have been lifted from any mainstream conservative publication today. Decades after Reagans speech, the American left remains deeply suspicious of our militaryfrom Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) accusing our soldiers of terrorizing Iraqi women and children in their homes;
Americas leftists have consistently betrayed their disdain for the military, for American exceptionalism, for capitalism and capitalists. But today theyve taken their assaults to a new level. Its no exaggeration to say that our future as a nation of liberty and prosperity, and as the worlds sole superpower, has never been in greater jeopardy. We are in a war for our national survival. We are in desperate need for a new vision, and an effective strategy, to defeat Barack Obama and the American left before they rob from us everything our ancestors sacrificed to bequeath us, and all that our military has fought, bled, and died to preserve.
In the past, Democrats often managed to downplay the extent of their radicalism, pretendingat least when it suited their political purposesto be a party of moderates. Thus, while they staunchly opposed the war in Iraq, they insisted that they supported the good war in Afghanistan, and in any event, that they always supported our troops. They professed to be on board in the war on terror, even as they sabotaged our intelligence efforts; they pretended to be deficit hawks, even as their policy agenda invariably called for higher deficits than George W. Bush in his worst fiscal year; and they told us they wanted to make abortions safe, legal and rare, even as they vigorously promoted the culture of death, including that of the unborn.
But in January 2009, when Democrats took firm control of the federal executive and legislative branches, the left had the confidence (and arrogance) to undertake, aggressively and unapologetically, the most ambitious socialistic agenda in this nations history, including FDRs New Deal. The new president, Barack Obama, still paid lip service to the importance of capitalism. But even as he did so, he unleashed a wide-ranging series of policies that aggregated enormous power to the federal government. Before long, the only ones who believed him anymore were the hopelessly brainwashed yellow-dog Democrats.
The truth is, we are a center-right nation. We treasure our freedoms, our capitalist system, and the way of life that our military sacrifices every day to protect. So its too bad that more of us didnt take Obama at his word when he promised fundamental change for this countryor when he told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread the wealth around a little. For wealth redistribution was precisely the kind of fundamental change he had in mind: a complete restructuring of the American economy, with a dramatic increase in federal control at the expense of the free market and private sector.
Equally alarming, Obama launched his own personal mission to reverse this nations foreign policy, to make amends for what he misperceived as Americas imperialism, unilateralism, arrogance, and dismissiveness toward other nations. Under his reign, he decided, tyrants and statesmen alike should realize that we had repented and atoned for pushing our weight around in defiance of world opinion. America would become loved and respected again in the international community.
But Obamas delusions of omnipotence didnt last long. Only months into his presidency, he had so infuriated average Americans that a series of Tea Party protests emerged across the nation, attended by everyday people who were outraged and horrified by Obamas every decision: his reckless federal spending, his seizure of control of private industry, his cap-and-trade legislation, and his obsessive quest to nationalize one-sixth of the American economy through socialized health care.
It was gratifying to watch as grassroots Americans awakened from their apathy and slumber to confront a president who was betraying their way of life. But its less comforting to realize that Obama and his leftist congressional stablemates have not yet been deterred by the popular backlash against their radical agenda. If anything, theyve been emboldened to press harder to impose upon this nation their vision for Americaa vision that couldnt be more inconsistent with that of this countrys founding fathers or the constitution they crafted.
Instead of listening to the voice of the people, the administration labeled the protestors as domestic terrorists. Instead of reconsidering his prohibitively expensive cap-and-trade laws, Obama defiantly attended a summit in Copenhagen to work on an international framework to cede our sovereignty to international bodies and transfer wealth to poorer nations in order to right our alleged environmental wrongs. Even in the face of the environmental movements disgrace over the intercepted email revelations known as Climategate, Obamas EPA unilaterally put forth new regulations that declared even the air we exhale to be a dangerous, toxic substance.
To be sure, Obama maintained the ruse that he was open to alternative solutions. When unemployment rose above 10 percent in December 2009, he opportunistically convened a jobs summit at the White House to hear ideas about jump-starting job creationapparently hoping wed forget his promise that the stimulus package would keep unemployment under 8 percent. But the people who attended his summit werent the everyday American businesspeople who drive this country: The invitees were mostly ivory-tower intellectuals from academia and government, union leaders in the tank for Obama, and a carefully selected group of business leaders who were already on board to reinforce the agenda he had preordained: a continuation of his failed Keynesian economic mythology. Notably absent were Obamas domestic critics: representatives of the U.S. Chamber