What's next

So the charismatic demagogue has won the election by a rather convincing six point margin. Not nearly as impressive as Reagan, but better than anyone since. What happens next?

Back in August at the Dem's convention, Michelle Obama recounted how she first met BO. She said that BO was talking about "the world as it is and the world as it ought to be" and saying that we should not be content to let the world remain as it is when we could be working to make it more like the world as it ought to be. Inspiring words. BO may actually have said that, but he is not the first one to say it. He was quoting from Saul Alinsky's book "Rules for Radicals: A Manual for the Overthrow of the American Government." That book has served as BO's guide and playbook from his community organizing days in Chicago, to the state and national legislature, and through his campaign for President. His actions and strategies can be mapped point for point to the instructions Alinsky laid out.

Aliksky once said that "If you want to fuck your enemy, you must first seduce your enemy." BO's pattern of teaming up with anti-american radicals, including racist hatemonger Jeremiah Wright, domestic terrorist Bill Ayres, Bernardine Dohrn, Rashid Khalidi, Michael Pfleger, James Meeks, Michelle Obama, ACORN, the New Party, and the Gamaliel Foundation and his rhetorical attack on America in his campaign indicate that he views America itself as his enemy. As of today, the seduction is complete. The wining and dining is over. Alinsky makes it clear what comes next.

Here are my predictions for what BO will do as President, now that he no longer has the option of voting "present" and he actually has to lead for the first time in his life.

He will pull a major shift in his policy on Iraq. BO wanted to get out of Iraq because he wanted Bush to lose. Once he is President he certainly won't want to be the one to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Joe Biden laid the foundation for this shift in policy, warning that there would be a crisis early in the BO Presidency, and it would not be apparent at first that their response would be the right one. It certainly would not do for BO to simply announce that he suddenly is in favor of victory rather than defeat, so the change will presented as a response to some event which provides new information. This will serve as BO's excuse to do what he is already planning to do: launch a major new offensive in Iraq. It is hard to know what the outcome will be. Based on BO's lack of understanding or experience with military matters, it could be a disaster. But if he lets the military leaders make the important military decisions, it may work out well, but only because we have spent five years doing the hard work to get to the point where such a thing is possible. His promise to begin withdrawing troops immediately and bring almost all of them home in a matter of months will fall by the wayside. There will still be more than 100 thousand troops in Iraq 18 months into his term. As Joe says, "Mark my words."

The economy will trend downwards into the summer, and then will begin to recover. This would have happened regardless of who was President. It is a normal cycle which has repeated itself many times. BO's promise of tax cuts will never happen. With a trillion dollars going to the bailout, continued costs of the war in Iraq, and BO's trillion dollars in new spending, taxes will go up. He will hike capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, payroll taxes, and income taxes on people making far less than the $250,000 he promised. He will claim that his wealth redistribution program is a tax cut because it will be implemented as a tax rebate to people who pay no income taxes. But that is not a tax cut -- it is confiscating what I earn and giving it to someone who did not earn it.

The same media which spent twice as much money travelling to breathlessly cover BO campaign events as they spent covering McCain events will continue to fawn over their chosen one. The honeymoon will last four years. The tough questions will never be asked.

BO will make minor changes to the medical system, not even attempting something as sweeping as what he proposed in the campaign. He will claim victory based on the assertion that "it is a step in the right direction" although it will simply amount to a bit less freedom and a bit more government intrusion into our lives.

Disillusion will sweep through America as people who had been promised the sun, moon, and stars, projected all of their hopes and dreams on BO thinking that he was the answer to all of their problems, and ate up the image carefully crafted by his campaign that BO is the messiah come down from on high to usher in a new golden age of heaven on earth. When BO fails to deliver on the hype, people will come to realize that experience and integrity really do matter and that lofty rhetoric doesn't go far in leading a country apart from real, workable policies.

But don't worry. We survived Bill Clinton. In fact we thrived in spite of him. BO makes Bill Clinton look like a screaming moderate, but that is what we are here for. Conservatives will continue to push back against encroachments on freedom and liberty, fight for justice, advance free market capitalism, and oppose the tyranny of socialism. You can call us "Conservatism Underground". For the time being we are forced into exile, but we won't give up. Unlike BO's long-time ally Bill Ayres, we don't advance our agenda with bombs and murder. We do it peacefully, with powerful ideas and convincing arguments built on the foundation laid by Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. The principles set forth by these great conservative thinkers have been largely absent from presidential politics for twenty years. Bush certainly did not adhere to any kind of fiscal restraint, as spending spiraled out of control, and McCain was still further from anything resembling conservatism. I said it in 2006 and I'm saying it again: we need to get back to those principles proven for two hundred years. So let's take off the gloves and fight for the future of America.