The Comfort Zone

If Barack Obama defeats John McCain on November 4, it will prove, once and for all, that America is not a conservative country.

Yes, it will be galling for conservatives if Obama tops McCain on the 28^th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s conquest of Jimmy Carter.  However, in some ways it will be altogether fitting. Since Reagan’s victory, some conservatives have fooled themselves into believing that the country is fundamentally conservative, and that thinking Americans stand firmly against left-wing principles. An Obama win will finally put such a shortsighted view to rest.

Obama may well win for the exact same reason that Reagan won in 1980: not because he is an ideologue, but because Americans are looking to him for perceived comfort. Most Americans do not vote based on ideology:  if they did, we would have been spared two Clinton administrations, and Al Gore and John Kerry would have suffered George McGovern-style blowout defeats. Americans largely vote based on who they think will do something positive for them.

In 1980, America was mired in an economic slump, and the country’s pride had been severely damaged by the ongoing Iranian hostage crisis. Average Americans were frustrated, anxious, irritated with the condition of the country—and turned to Reagan to fix Carter’s mess.

Twenty-eight years later, we are in another period in which average Americans are troubled by economic news and bothered by the ongoing Iraq War. Numerous polls indicate the country’s extreme discomfort with President Bush (although Americans don’t have much love for the Democrat-controlled Congress either). One can’t deny that the current American social climate is ripe for Obama to exploit in the fall, just as the social climate of 1980 was ripe for Reagan to exploit.

For conservatives, the prospect of an Obama victory is disturbing—not because of the color of his skin, but because his victory will (at least in theory) represent the dominion of celebrity politics and mindless liberalism in this country. Conservatives will view an Obama victory as a sad step in America’s history, a pathetic moment in which a man gets elected only by spouting left-wing platitudes and delivering empty but well-delivered speeches.

This will be, of course, the wrong context in which to view an Obama victory. If Obama wins, it will not mean that the country has gone “moonbat.” Rather, it will simply mean that the country wanted comfort from President Bush, and didn’t think Bush delivered it.

Ironically, Bush was once a beneficiary of the same desire for comfort that could destroy his party in the fall. Both of Bush’s wins were based on the country’s psychological needs: the need to have a President who didn’t embarrass the country with his perjury and sexual licentiousness in 2000, the need to have a President who would work tirelessly to prevent another 9/11 in 2004. Bush needed the support of America’s evangelicals to win both elections, but ideology did not have a great deal to do with his twin victories. Heck, back in 1999-2000, there were some conservatives who regarded Bush as a RINO, just as many conservatives regard McCain as a RINO today.

For four decades, America’s Presidential elections have been won by those who positioned themselves as attentive to the country’s need for psychological comfort. In 1968 and 1972, Americans troubled by the counterculture and a lack of “law and order” in the nation’s major cities turned to Richard Nixon. In 1976, Americans horrified by Nixon’s lack of ethics embraced Carter. In 1988, Americans took George H. W. Bush at face value when he spoke of his desire for a “kinder, gentler nation”; in 1992, Clinton won after asserting that the felt the voters’ pain.

If Obama wins, he will continue a long (and, depending on your perspective, ignoble) tradition of appealing to people’s emotions in order to get the keys to the White House. Obama knows that because Americans are feeling nervous right now, he has a chance to become President despite his ultra-liberal social vision. While there are voters who will take ideology into account before making their choice, they could well be outnumbered by those who don’t think in terms of conservative vs. liberal, but think in terms of comfort vs. discomfort. “Hope” and “change” are empty slogans--but when people are in a ticked-off mood, those slogans suddenly become profound.

I’ll vote for John McCain, but I do not envy him. By surviving Vietnam, he became a military hero. If he defeats Obama despite the colossal odds against him, he will become a political hero.