Why bother listening to Obama’s speech?
The front page of the Washington Post has already announced that 34,000 new troops will deploy to Afghanistan. The front page of the NY Times says “about 30,000″.
So tonight’s speech isn’t about the decision Obama has made. It’s about how he will justify it to his own party and to the American people. Here are five things to listen for:
1. “A war of necessity” Obama made those words famous. Will we hear them again tonight? If it is a war of necessity, failure is not an option.
2. “Counterinsurgency”: Will Obama give his strategy its proper name? Or will he present his approach as a compromise that reflects the input of skeptics?
3. “Victory”: Will Obama say that he wants to achieve “victory” or even “success”? What is our mission? What must we achieve before we even think about an exit strategy? If winning isn’t essential, why should we sacrifice American lives?
4. “Exit strategy”: Obama has the thankless task of explaining how escalation actually means he wants to end the war sooner. Which phrase will Obama use? Will there be any specifics? Will Obama tell us how, 6 or 12 or 18 months from now, we will be able to distinguish success from failure?
5. “9/11″: Will Obama justify this escalation as the continuation of what started on 9/11? That may infuriate the skeptics in his own party. But if he doesn’t invoke 9/11, how will he explain why success is worth the loss of more American lives?
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
21 Responses to “Why bother listening to Obama’s speech?”
Good question…
I haven't listened to an Obama speech in months.
This is a biggy. He is being consistent with his campaign position on Afpak.
Is anyone else noticing the extreme hawks turning into soft white doves all over the place? If Obama only has the left to count on for support for this it is not he that has failed but the US electorate since half of them seem to only care about defending our nation when their party is in power. Let me again remind any that give a flip, we supported Bush on the left until Afgh turned into a trumped up Iraq(agree or disagree before the invasion that is what the history books will say now). Afgh was defending ourselves and we supported you, Iraq was not and you acted like we were siding with terrorists. Afgh is now in our own defense and all I hear is crickets and to be honest I never thought I would see the day the GOP would act this way.
I have some pretty words to describe you at this point in my frustration.
Hypocrites
Cowards
Children
Keep on this path and you will win the boobie prize that the Dems won in 1968, yeah for you. You are so far successfully attempting to undermine the war effort, hope you take some pride in that because your honor is laying on the floor behind you.
*And yes you have the right to disagree, and yes you may have always felt this way but know what you are actually doing because I would guess some of you have cried about Nam for a decade or two and yet here we are with you acting like hippies.
/rant
I started wearing my flag pin again. You are right, TMSF.
I was unhappy about Obama's decision until I paused and gave hi credit for being a thoughtful person and a man of good will. These things, I think he is even though he may have to act sometimes within the confines of savvy political decisionmaking.
The thing is that Pakistan is scary and unstable. Pakistan has also shown a shaky commitment to fighting extremists. Pakistan also has nuclear weapons. It would be plain dumb to, right next door, leave a lawless, extremist-riden, haven for modernity-haters. President Obama hasn't yet given me a reason to doubt his decisionmaking even though it may be slower than I prefer. I'm going to believe that he's got good reasons and he's making wise choices. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
It's our patriotic duty to pay rapt attention (as in “rapture”) to every word, every inflection, every element of every expression and gesture he makes, of course — especially when he goes to the trouble of going on campaign for this, complete with pomp, circumstance, and the chance for some lurid spectacle.
The speech itself was okay. He's made his choice. The drivel (with sinister implications) about wanting to wrap up things in Afghanistan in order to do more at home (waste more money, buy more votes among those so willing to sell them) shouldn't have been included, along with other filler; wanting to work with a “reformed” [snort] Taliban is taking an obvious if not ridiculous risk (and making one hell of a concession — so much for the typical overreaction and worse lefties have demonstrated about Cheney's late remarks).
“If Obama only has the left to count on for support for this it is not he that has failed but the US electorate since half of them seem to only care about defending our nation when their party is in power.”
Obama made the right choice, to improve our position there rather than evacuate and effectively to surrender.
Wanting to work with the Taliban (under conditions) is risky. (“Conditions” permit the blame to go on the Taliban if things go really wrong.) To me the interesting thing is the size of the commitment and to what extent it may involve holding others in reserve, and possibly being willing to commit them as well, but not revealing such things in his speech, which is reasonable to withhold.
I think a good deal of it is under wraps for national security but such is to be expected with a new strategy. I am sure we will get many more specifics over the next few weeks and months but the outline is sound and I think avoids the pitfall in Afgh as looking anything like an occupier.
“I think a good deal of it is under wraps for national security”
Agreed. As with intelligence, why reveal all our sources and methods, as well as “telegraph” our tactics as well as strategy to our enemy in Afghanistan?
What the President has decided makes sense. Afghanistan has now been settled (for now, at least) and Obama can return to working with Congress on health care “reform” and then resume work on other pet issues that have been deferred. (That includes finding a place for the prisoners currently in Cuba, which arguably might be more important or better for him to resolve before year's end than health care “reform.”)
I have no interest in argument and I call no one names. I just disagree with Obama and with all who support him in this move. We are already occupiers, double occupiers,actually. I don't believe there is anything noble in it, will continue to provide opportunities for people to come out of the wood work to support those who fight the “great Satan.” I do not believe anyone will be happy with the result within the time table and will lead to more decision, more troops, more timetables. It will not yield wonderful results. I also disagree that the left supports him in this. I am no spokesman for them, but I believe if they do, it is with a great reluctance. Even though he said he would do this if elected, a lot has changed in one year, and people are sick and tired of war on a form of war in areas of civil war, where are soldiers are caught between and betwixt…………and will likely continue to come home wounded, in body, heart, and mind………..gone crazy fighting ghost wars with unclear enemies who disappear and disappear in the shadows.
Last I heard they would likely end up in Illinois but the most contentious part still lies ahead though, getting the legislature behind him on the issue.
I do understand where you are coming from but the most important part of the speech for me was the time table and when he spoke directly to the Afgh people. The only way to win a war in the graveyard of empires is to not act talk or look like one in anyway. If we stick to his plan I back it because Afgh will get their country back and we will have a more stable region which ensures the Afgh people keep control of their nation in the future. I will not ask you to agree with me or the POTUS on the matter but I do think those are important goals and failing to meet them since 1990 is what has us in this situation at this time, I am also pretty positive were we to leave in 10-20 yrs we will be back anyway unless we fix this issue. Speaking of Iraq or a new invasion I would agree but not on this one.
“Last I heard they would likely end up in Illinois but the most contentious part still lies ahead though”
Part of what Obama is doing smacks of another PR stunt. But, something must be done, and he's proceeding to do it. What smacks of PR is that he's doing it in his home state, to Show Everyone Who Is Concerned That There is Nothing to Fear. Behind the facade, I suspect he knows it also amounts to a pork-and-stimulus prize, and that has led me to remark before that, if Illinois says yes, all the NIMBYs (of both parties) and other obstructionists (largely GOP) who are in the way will sharply change their ways once Illinois starts receiving federal assistance and federal money to house the prisoners. (It keeps some corrections personnel employed, and would keep the economy in at least one community, Thomson, in better condition than it otherwise would face.) I suspect, eventually, the money will talk and everyone else will change their stance about opposing housing prisoners (and receiving federal money) themselves. (At that point, there may be
cheap “crony,” “pork” charges leveled at Obama, if the prisoners go to Thomson, but it's just sour grapes by those who made their earlier decision and must now lose for having made it, and who are jealous or just resentful that they can't claim credit for this, for having been NIMBYs before.)
That's how I've viewed it. I've never been a NIMBY about this; I suspect the prisoners would not be a great risk in any suitable prison facility, even less in a “super-max” facility or in, say, Leavenworth, whose failure to be used (for tribunals in US territory) still surprises me. An example of an “ordinary” prison that was a candidate site was Standish in Michigan; I didn't agree with all the posturing against it, when there was interest as well in having this prison be used to house prisoners from other states (who couldn't house all the prisoners they already have), like California. (This was eventually rejected by CA as too expensive.)
I thought it was Durbin's baby but I do not doubt that the PR side was very important as well.
Fair enough, believe as you will. You want to invest your heart stock
in that……….Okay, you have my blessing…..for what it's worth.
I believe we need to let go of trying to control other countries that
have entirely different ways of seeing, thinking and believing. When we
discard our arrogance and our barely hidden greedy intentions and ask
them what or how or when they might like it……….and set out to
please them, something mutual and similar might occur. We currently
occupy, mostly on a mutually desirable basis, but not always, about 120
countries in the world. We sell arms to anyone, with few or no
questions asked, to children in the neighborhood, to soldiers coming
home with PTSD, to foreign powers, friend today/enemy tomorrow. This
notion of transforming the world at the butt of a gun will never work.
It is like trying to get a child to eat his oatmeal at all cost. He
WILL eat the oatmeal if we have to force him through a tube. We will
win, he will eat, but what will have when you're done with him. No
friend I can tell you that.
The zeitgeist today is such that average Americans are saying, “What
about me?” “What about us?” To many are on the rooftops in N.Orleans
and the water is rising, and the levies are failing– lest there be no
misunderstanding, in case it's missed, let me say in my behalf what I am
saying is highly patriotic. We are a dieing nation. We need to come
home and tend to our wounded…..and I don't mean just our soldiers.
Now if only we could get rid of the specter of the federal government as occupier (and displacer of the private sector, when not running it) here at home.
Related to that — no doubt some federal goings-on were involved. (Fun comments, as usual, here, too.)
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/ed-whitacre-to…
I am actually hoping that in 2010 if moderated a bit the GOP will either split the house or re-take it and if not then in 2012 they should have control. I stand on the other side of the fence on many issues like HCR but I prefer a split government and anytime they have too much control bad things happen, like say knee jerk reactions to financial crises(of course bail outs having been going on since H.W. but it would still be really nice to see them stop anytime soon). Of course I prefer Ron Paul or libertarian type repubs but either way if they are willing to be the loyal opposition they are very needed and from my view the things I want that only the dems can deliver should be done I hope, mainly HCR. Then again I am not really a dem, I am an Obama dem so that probably explains a good deal of why a classic lefty I am not.
“if moderated a bit the GOP will either split the house or re-take it and if not then in 2012 they should have control”
I don't see a need for moderation by the GOP (it shouldn't be a pathetic second-rate imitation of the Dems, nice and bland also-ran also-fans of Big Government in Washington, just Kinder, Gentler, and More Compassionate), but the opposite, “seriousness” (even if it results in something like Heritage Foundation, which isn't the way I am, but at least you know what it stands for), and a missing purposefulness and coherence I believe (and want) the GOP to regain to become a viable alternative.
As of now, the Dems could go even farther left, alienating even more of the public, and there still, I believe, won't be another 1994.
* * *
“I prefer a split government and anytime they have too much control bad things happen [...] [I]f they are willing to be the loyal opposition they [the GOP] are very needed[.]“
Yes, either someday when back in the White House or now, to counter the excesses of Obama and the lib Dems in Congress.
Note that on another thread I posted a work recently by Hardin (deceased), one of a number of people whose works I've enjoyed on constitutional (and “mechanical” or systemic) reform of government, that addresses this issue of “the Opposition” (deliberately capitalized here). Now, I'm not a fan of Dem or of GOP low-IQ obstructionism, nor (more importantly here, actually) am I enamored of anything that, as I've put it before, “enshrines” (advances formally, and augments) the Duopoly we have.
(I'd prefer 4-6+ parties with proportional representation for multi-seat bodies and approval voting for single-person offices. Proportional representation would cause us to form coalitions among diverse parties supporting diverse populations with diverse views, in a politically rich environment like Europe and its “concert” in pre-World War days (and to some extent, still) — a multi-polar arrangement. Note that 4-6+ parties also coincidentally is about the number of nations into which North America could conceivably be divided. FYI.)
But Hardin at least addresses the “Opposition” concept, so if you find that thread (look for “Hardin”), you'll see the work there.
* * *
“the things I want that only the dems can deliver should be done I hope, mainly HCR”
Dispassionately (or “clinically” [chuckle]), something will eventually be done. Presumably you're not like the more impatient people who also moan already that failure to get something done this year or early next year means waiting for the long term again (15+ years, or “another generation”). There are largely academic (but serious) constitutional and philosophical arguments against any federal involvement at all in health care (or with entitlements at all), but the precedent obviously has been set more than 40 years ago with Medicare, we also have VA and Indian Health as well as Medicaid, and entitlements as well as the welfare state have been commonly accepted, supported, and sought for generations as accomplished fact.
More to the point here and now, I believe something is going to happen by next year. Whether good or bad (what problems we get in exchange for replacing others), remains to be seen. And no matter what, it doesn't preclude additional efforts along a conventional far-left-and-greater-fan-base route sometime later, of incrementalist moves toward something like Medicare for everybody (universal federal health care, with a single program eventually). Incorporating VA, Medicaid, Indian Health into Medicare are incrementalist steps I've listed before, as well as expanding the scope of Medicare itself, logically to children (the age-related “pincer” strategy). (Another example is a lower-age Medicare buy-in below age 65, but this should be addressed as a discrimination-related issue for people over 50, not some antiquated idea of a continued reduction in the retirement age below age 65, which itself is obsolescent and too low already.)
* * *
“I am not really a dem, I am an Obama dem so that probably explains a good deal of why a classic lefty I am not”
Or not a Dem voter primarily last year, but an Obama voter (as well as post-Bush as well as anti-GOP)?
If so, understood. Obama had farther-left voters (a lot of kids and kids at heart) but also mainstream Dem voters (they were less vocal or newsworthy, so stayed off the political-argument radar). But many on the far left (who are like Spirasol, so far left everything in the real world here looks seriously right to extreme right — more than the classic far-left “Dem Party is right of center, and Reagan and Thatcher were far right,” itself a gross distortion, obviously) were never impressed with Obama, or are now disappointed to betrayed by him.
I should have been more specific, I think the GOP should moderate its words and political speech while actually becoming what their party platform states(though if they jettison social conservatism as we currently know it they would be very attractive to me if they otherwise stuck to their platform). What I cant stomach in either party which both does is the “corporatist” thing which I think is a good deal of our current crises in the form of public private partnerships which Hoover dabbled with as well. Social conservatism is something I will always probably oppose though since I consider it an abomination to liberty, I just cant think of anywhere worse to allow the gov in.
I do like the multi-party system a good deal more but that would be a rather large change which will probably have to wait until or if we ever melt down politically. As far as opposition goes though I have no issue with them voting for their constituents nor their beliefs but obstructing to obstruct is not really healthy for our nation in any real way. Filibuster in my opinion should be reserved for extreme cases and otherwise all the legislator should work together as best they can to do the best they can for the nation. Having said that HCR would fall into the extreme camp in my book as it is constitutionally questionable even though I support it but the patriot act was another that should have been filibustered.
On HCR I want to be clear because my stance dove tails with my politics in general but it is a bit complicated. I believe only two true fixes exist, single payer, or melt the entire system health insurance companies included and force everyone including the elderly sadly to pay out of pocket, after 5-10 years of pain the market should return and we could return to sanity. Since I know neither of those would be acceptable to voters nor either party I just want costs to come down and the pre-existing condition/denial of service crap to stop. I understand the need to make a profit but it is also a bad industry to try to squeeze a profit out of for moral reasons so that is how I get to here which is really not good but I consider it a feature not a bug of the current legislation that it will be tinkered with for the next few decades because things will change and we need more free market ideas in the plan(plus tort reform and many other GOP ideas as well). I am very happy and proud of Sen. Wyden's big win though as I think that is one of the best things in the current legislation as it begins the needed move away from employer based HC. My politics in general work like this as well, I am a libertarian but I am also a pragmatist. If you leave me alone to do my own thing and keep regulations to a minimum with the dollar pegged to gold or something solid I vote to the right. Our current economy and country from my view are so distorted economically that I now vote to the left to fix the things the left helped to create that the right refused to dismantle. If I were older and owned a house or some property and had the kind of jobs my parents and older siblings had(I am in my mid 30's my siblings are in their late 40's though) I would likely be on the other side but as inflation has risen and my wages have not(general wages vs inflation not so much mine) I vote to the left for what I perceive to be economic survival(mostly fears of health related bankruptcy when bankruptcy laws have been changed).
I like Obama because to me he is a centrist but has yet to be tested in that way by having to deal with a split or repub controlled legislature. I actually would not say I am anti-gop in anyway but I was very anti-Bush/Cheney, though I am livid with the way many in the GOP are now acting but tahts because I want them back as a viable party. Even saying that though I think they were just the wrong team at the wrong time though, much like Carter or Hoover they were at the cusp of an electoral shift and since they came before it they are unfairly maligned and the people that follow get undue credit which was true for Reagan and FDR and I also think in time will be the case for Obama. I began the campaign as a Ron Paul/Obama supporter and only shifted to Obama when RP was ignored but just because I preferred RP's ideas did not mean I did not like Obama's. I could be totally off here but from my view what FDR did for the poor and the least among us(elderly/disabled and the like) and Reagan did for industry and business I believe Obama will do for working people. The reason I think that is his focus on hard work and education. He also has so far been more focused on opening access to people than necessarily “leveling the playing field” which is more a classic liberal stance. In other words the world need not be fair but we also need to ensure that the ladder has not been pulled away.
Reagan was not far right, also my true issues with Reagan were almost all foreign policy ones, his policies and ideas were good, sound and needed but I think they have gone as far as they can without some changes. Much like FDR's before Reagan. FDR's systems worked well for the nation until they ran out of gas under Nixon and Carter and from my point of view we have run out of gas again and just need to shift the ship a bit, not burn it down or change it all. Now if we wanted to go true conservative and go back to a tiny fed gov, I am right there with you though but if I have statists to choose from Obama seems to be the one for my generation because he speaks directly to me as I assume Reagan did to the baby boom generation, my mother was a staunch Dem that loved Reagan. The Dems look center right only because they embraced public private partnerships and trickle down economics much like Nixon was considered a liberal for price freezes and the like, its an accident of history/perspective more than reality but for those that have known only Clinton its actually not to far off though it confuses a few parts for the entire platform. It is kinda like the media which tends to be economically and militarily to the right(at least in my lifetime) but staunchly to the left on social issues to the point of pushing their values down our throats, which of course makes them look very liberal but it is a good deal more complex.
” I think the GOP should moderate its words and political speech while actually becoming what their party platform states”
This is what Michael Medved has written about (I once posted a link to what he stated in a commentary). Last week I was traveling from the eastern to the western USA and while in Oklahoma and Texas (before I reached Amarillo and “High Plains Public Radio” with NPR), I heard some commentary that included a part of Medved's radio show, and he was bashing the “ten unity points” that have made it onto this site in the past days, and noting (with despair or worse) that “we support … by opposing …” does nothing to define and to offer to voters something the GOP is supposed to stand for (if it knows). (Medved went on to take phone calls and was very rude to at least one caller, at a level I've not heard before from, to name one example, an often-combative Thom Hartmann, who welcomes righty commentators as well as callers on his lefty-talker show.)
“Social conservatism is something I will always probably oppose”
I'm not a social conservative, and I oppose much of what is done that is federal overreach, but I find that the attacks on social conservatives ordinarily (or routinely) are much worse than what the conservatives are seeking to do; my normal gripe isn't so much that there's the inherent judgmental nature of what they are trying to do (many of their critics are poorly behaved, and simply don't like hearing “no,” acting like small children or the older equivalent), but that it is governmental overreach, especially if it is the federal government that is the agency for what's being sought. (The federal government should have minimial size, scope, and extent of direct involvement with individuals. Almost all “citizenship,” agency, and other things should be done by state and local governments. It's an additional matter if state and local government, too, is too intrusive or controlling.)
* * *
“HCR would fall into the extreme camp in my book as it is constitutionally questionable”
Many people are ignorant or deliberately contemptuous of this, and have been for decades, which in part explains Nancy Pelosi's imperious response to being asked if there is constitutional justification for it (which includes the mandate to citizens to buy insurance or be penalized). This is a good point, always, but it will draw scorn and worse from a large number of people. It's not what some extremists (including here, on this site) claim with typical hype, but there is substantial interest in and support for a federal role in health care, and even in provision as well as regulation of it, with people in this country, technically legitimate or not. Though many of them will always be ignorant (often by firm choice), I've warned them that if we get government health care, we get new problems in place of the old. I'm (already) anticipating what problems we will have, and what it means for us (in addition to once more having to watch our wallet
and exercise damage control or vigilance as we find we must do).
“I am a libertarian but I am also a pragmatist.”
So am I, but when using this forum I'll emphasize the politics a little more than “on the street” because it is, after all, a political forum (which means “politics” and “argumentation,” not only bland or saccharine “discussion”). I don't mind getting a legalistic as well as political dig in here and there where it's appropriate, such as making an occasional requiem for or reminder about constitutional federalism when a vast new entitlement for everyone from the federal government is currently under consideration, as is so now. (Pragmatic: As I said, “accomplished fact,” “welfare state,” replacement of constitutional federalism with a decades-old alternative, widely popular — that doesn't mean everything should be robotically accepted, and I don't accept everything robotically (obviously).
* * *
“Obama [...] is a centrist”
To me he appears to be starting to remove the “centrist” “post-1990s-Third Way” veneer, as he has aligned himself with the lib Dems in Congress on stimulus legislation and rushing it, and on energy legislation and rushing it. (The rushing as well as support for these things are the key.) Now, he may well only be superficially this way and may shift to be whatever he needs to be to get things done, as you are hinting he may do, so who knows?
“but has yet to be tested in that way by having to deal with a split or repub controlled legislature.”
I doubt next year is another 1994, but it could become tougher, just as it has been now for the Dems with their health care overreach and breakdown. (They seem to be recovering, albeit behaving less ambitiously and recklessly now. Far left complaints corroborate this observation.)
* * *
“FDR's systems worked well for the nation until they ran out of gas under Nixon and Carter”
I would say that hindsight would reveal that while it was well-meant, the overreaches not only of the Great Society (and for that matter, the New Deal) but also those things waiting in the wings (the truly ambitious stuff, like the guaranteed minimum income academics discussed pre-1968 and which Nixon flirted with, himself, the Family Assistance Program) were mistakes. Aside from whether they are wrong-minded in the deepest sense, and the issue of whether it's good to have wanted the federal government to enlarge even more and be even more deeply in our lives, (the “precautionary principle,” referred to inconsistently, ahem, by environmentalists, wisely applied to government, through clear, bitter experience of failures as well as unintended consequences) we have (another irony for environmentalists and other leftists) finite limits to what “we” can spend and what “we” can do.
And it will only get worse, not better, in the decades to come, given economic and demographic change.
The welfare state, crippled and a much larger source of strife as well as dependence or sustenance in the decades to come, will probably remain with us (as well as the concept of government primarily as a service agency rather than a government, and a much larger federal government role than truly legal or desireable by everyone). But it's not going to be the same, or viewed the same, later.
“The Dems look center right only because they embraced public private partnerships and trickle down economics”
That was in the 1990s, a concession to reality, harshly delivered in the form of the 1994 election result of having had the Clintons try to yank the nation too far to the left. Will Obama learn, is the question now, because that's the fear and loathing that has being engendered once more, as if the Dems in Washington simply learned the wrong “lesson” from public willingness to try “stimulative” behavior by Washington that they ordinarily would abhor, giving the Dems a chance given the state of the economy. That chance was abused (and misused). Will Obama learn? (The Blue Dogs, at least, hint that they may learn or be able to learn.)
“the media which tends to be economically and militarily to the right(at least in my lifetime) but staunchly to the left on social issues to the point of pushing their values down our throats, which of course makes them look very liberalbut it is a good deal more complex.”
I suspect you'll find if you pay more attention that they're anti-business, pro-regulation, pro-interventionist, i.e., leftist on economic issues, as well as often peacenik. You have a point in that it's a complex picture inasmuch as the media are also very partisan Democratic and will tailor their message according to how each major political party looks or would be affected by expected sentiment about what they tell us. Often it's not very liberal but “typically” liberal (what liberals there and here misstate as “moderate” or “centrist”).
(I discount heavily the radical criticism by FAIR and “Counter[-]Spin” [sic], ”On the Media,” “Democracy Now,” World Socialist Web Site, etc., of the media, because it'll never be leftist enough for these people, who make farther-left European critics of our media — it seems conservative to them — seem “moderate.”)
You are correct on social conservatives, conversely I think in the past they had too much power due to having larger numbers. The problem they are running into lately is that it is found to be just as intolerable by those opposed to them as they find it intolerable to not live in a socially conservative nation. I think in the end, though it may take a decade or two, we will probably all begin to agree to disagree and hopefully stop trying to regulate it. It is the old libertarian ethos, I may live in a very button downed manner but that does not mean it is any of my business to make you to do the same, and in return you do not make me wear purple bike shorts…we will have a deal lol.
The media I think was extremely that way up until the late 80's early 90's(especially pre-1980 which is probably why people view it as right wing now in comparison to what was a VERY liberal media especially in the 60's/70's) but then they began to ebb and flow with the party in power. Under Clinton they were third way cheerleaders and under Bush we were with the Iraq invasion or we were terrorist sympathizers. To be honest though I think one of my major issues with it is that it is right wing in a manner that conservatives have an issue with as well, meaning they are authoritarian which is classically right but not very US right as US right distrusts authority. That is probably why it generally offends me so much as it pokes both my lefty and my libertarian sides directly in the eye. It also depends on what you call media, entertainment TV is heavily left wing to the point of propaganda but the news divisions tend to trend differently. The other difficulty for me though is that I have not watched TV short of clips in almost 5 years so I am probably also very dated on my info.
The welfare state is a problem in many ways. I think one of my main issues with current conservatism, and the Dems actually for opposite reasons, is that they seem to have only two speeds, mild me tooisim and “charity will fix all ills” but after 30 years it hasn't(neither has the welfare state, and unions were a fix for the industrial age and will not work in the digital). I actually want them to bring new ideas to the table that I think would work be cheaper and hand people back their liberty without shackling them to feeling like wage slaves with no choices. Things like maybe trading food stamps for community family style soup kitchens where it is all free, or maybe helping with funding for community gardens to help feed the poor or a combo of that and the soup kitchens, problem is this would cost local businesses money but that money is a distortion of the market. Maybe fully funding all education including collegiate since that teaches people how to fish. Another one I bring up a good deal is to use tech, like do not pay the poors water bills instead give them water makers, sure it costs ten times as much but they are now again independent and living liberty and until someone experiences that they have no real understanding of it sadly. From my view FDR helped the nation industrialize with the New Deal which free'd up the movement of labor and ended our independent agrarian self sustaining society. Then Reagan brought a slow leak to the New Deal to allow for companies and business to be competitive again and innovative. Currently and since that time when people need help we hear some form of “tough” but they fail to acknowledge that the deal has changed, which is only fair to let people know. If we used tech and ideas of how to get the most bang for our buck in services to help people while minimizing control from a fed level I think we would begin to steer back to our personal responsibility agrarian like roots but we will need a bridge to get there. I think that is why we have the extremes of both sides sounding so extreme now, the deals have changed and both sides fail to acknowledge it publicly or legislatively but the GOP has the chance to take the ball and run with it if they would choose to since the Dem ideas on the welfare state are just as outdated as the GOP's with social conservatism or at least thats my opinion.