Americans Relate to Founders, Not Progressives

June 28, 2010 07:04


Michael Barone – We still live in an America like the America of the Founders, and unlike the America of the Progressives and the New Dealers, in which a majority of citizens are or have every prospect of becoming property owners. And a nation of property owners is less willing to plunder the property of others in search of some promised gain than a nation where most people don’t and will never own significant property.

Michael Barone at Townhall.com

Democrats are reportedly planning to raise $125 million for a campaign to sell Obamacare to the voting public. Apparently, the idea is that what 50-plus presidential speeches and statements and months of congressional debate could not do can be done by $125 million spent on everything from TV ads to community organizers.

Maybe. But there seems to be a more fundamental problem here. The Obama Democrats didn’t set out to produce an unpopular stimulus package, an unpopular health care bill and an unpopular cap-and-trade scheme.

They thought these initiatives would be popular. In their view, history is a story of progress from small government to big government, and as historians of the New Deal wrote, that progress is especially welcome in times of economic distress.

The massive unpopularity of the Obama Democrats’ programs suggests that view of history is defective. Let me propose another, starting with the Founding Fathers.

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