Reply #52: Where they are similar is that both Jack and Obama [View All]

[nadinbrzezinski]

inspired their followers to believe (and so did Reagan by the way)

With Jack we never quite saw the end game... because he died, so Jack was enshrined in US history as a martyr. In some ways so did bobby for the same damn reason... they both died.

Obama has inspired a new generation... but where this is dangerous is that Americans don't know jack, generally speaking, about history. You do... but you are not the average and I spent six years in college getting both a BA and an MA, not that I have been able to do JACK in the field... partly because the field is a mafia, and partly because in the US we don't appreciate history

If we did, our historic swings would not be that dramatic, or even predictable

Obama, if we have a CRASH and a major one I mean. if he saves the country... he will be put in the same pedestal as FDR... not that people understand why... but the lessons of WHY we ended there will be quickly forgotten and in a generation or so, perhaps two if we are lucky, we will have another predictable swing to the right.

Trickle down is not new... and in fact in its modern form started with Grant, well before Reagan was even a gleam in his mother's eyes.

And yes I keep reminding myself, as we need a PROGRESSIVE president and Obama ain't one.. that FDR did not run on a progressive agenda either... and he was also fairly young... and the New Deal was VERY PROGRESSIVE

So if Obama finds himself in the same pickle (similar) and his solutions come from the same recipe book, the comparisons will be made to that great traitor to his class, FDR... and they will be far more proper than Jack

But as a historian I have also become a very deep cynic, and I don't expect anything out of the next president, beyond a change in the White House curtains.