The real state of the union is in disarray, and here in
Connecticut many nutmeggers are living lives of quiet desperation: “Dark
Clouds, Sunny Speech” ran a page one, top of the fold headline in a Hartford paper.
Dark clouds indeed! The national economy continues to
under-perform, and some economic tea leaf readers see yet another recessionary
bump in the road. Mr. Obama has added $8 trillion to the union’s already
unsupportable national debt, quickly approaching $19 trillion. After two terms of visionary hope and change,
the U.S. Congress has fallen to Republicans. Reports of al-Qaida’s demise,
loudly trumpeted by Mr. Obama during his second presidential campaign, have
been greatly exaggerated. Mr. Obama has turned over to Russian President
Vladimir Putin, the butcher of Ukraine, the U.S.’s Middle East portfolio. Libya
– the Democrats' Iraq – is under siege by ISIS following former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton’s ouster of eccentric strongman Muammar Muhammad Abu
Minyar al-Gaddafi. Former allies – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Israel –
have been given the cold shoulder by the Obama administration, while former
enemies – Putin’s Russia, Bashir al-Assad’s Syria, and mischievous “Death to America” Iran – have been smiled upon and tentatively embraced. Mr. Obama’s unsigned
and possibly unverifiable “pact” with Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Hosseini
Khamenei – the President dared not call it a “treaty” because treaties must be
affirmed by the U.S. Congress – is regarded by many, not least Israel, as a
failure: The pact abolishes a successful embargo and, some would say, extends
to Iran a permission slip to deploy nuclear weapons after a lapse of ten years.
The Chinese economy that had been steaming along during the Obama years appears to have hit a many-storied bump in the road, a stoppage that would not
matter much if China had not financed a major portion of U.S. debt. The
economic surge in the emergent market BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and
China – has slowed considerably; at the same time, the BRIC nations have
assumed large debts. China’s rapid growth ignited both indebtedness and a boom
in raw commodities, fed by the over-optimistic assumption that China’s appetite
for raw materials-— oil, grains, metals – was insatiable. That bubble has now
burst. The shattered bubble may portend yet another recession, and Connecticut
has been convalescent during
the last two national recessions; because its revenues are so heavily dependent
on the financial market, business contractions in Connecticut are longer-lived
and more punishing than in other states, all of which have recovered from the
last recession much earlier than Connecticut.
Connecticut has yet to draw the right lessons from its economic
plight. Governor Dannel Malloy and the Democratic leaders in Connecticut’s
General Assembly, Speaker of the House Brenden Sharkey and President Pro Tem of
the Senate Martin Looney, are three comfortable peas in the same progressive
pod. Mr. Malloy was rightly honored by the most progressive President in living
memory as one among a band of brothers: “We few, we happy few, we
band of brothers.”
On social issues – and it should be recalled that campaigns
are won on social issues – Mr. Malloy has been leading the progressive
band of brothers. The Hartford paper noted, perhaps incorrectly,
“During his two terms in office, Malloy has embraced several of Obama's
priorities, including stricter gun control laws, an overhaul of the criminal
justice system, a higher minimum wage and paid sick leave. And as Chairman of
the Democratic Governors Association, he has emerged as a national spokesman
for his party — even as his popularity in Connecticut has diminished. Last
week, in a prominent editorial, the New York Times praised Malloy for his
‘reformist philosophy.’” Connecticut has become Mr. Obama’s Petri dish, but it
is increasingly impossible to tell who is leading whom.
Mr. Malloy’s popularity has plummeted in direct proportion
to his two massive tax increases, the largest and the second largest in state
history. A recent Quinnipiac poll
assigns a job disapproval rating of 58-32 percent to the reformist philosopher,
“… the lowest score for any governor in the nine states surveyed this year by
the independent Quinnipiac University Poll.
The governor gets 4-1 negative scores for the way he has handled taxes and the
state budget.” The progressive ascendancy in both Connecticut and the nation
has left moderate Democrats stranded on the shore, and Donald Trump – among
progressives, the Devil in disguise -- appears to be scooping up many of the
stranded wayfarers.
Neither Mr. Obama – who would not recognize a rain cloud if
it drenched him from head to toe – nor Mr. Malloy are deterred by a) low
popularity ratings or b) the real disastrous consequences of their reformist
policies. The primary responsibility of reformist philosophers, a late 19th
century political theoretician once said, is not to interpret history rightly –
but to change it.
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