Deluded Susans

I'm seeing a good bit of harping from left/progressives and democrats' base about Obama. For many folks it seems Barack is not the president they thought he would be. He has not delivered enough of whatever they thought he was carrying.

One pleasant late afternoon in the late summer/early fall of 2008 I was in the front yard, dead-heading rose bushes, taking cuttings from my jungle of houseplants which I put outdoor every year, when an older white lady walked up the driveway. About my age so we were from the same '60s era. She carried Obama's Dreams of My Father, and wore Obama pins. I'll call her Susan.

We sat on the porch and she asked, no, she assumed I was an Obama supporter. When I surprised her by stating that I was not impressed with Barry, wasn't voting for him, she began a spiel about "hope and change" Ooh ooh ooobama. She asked if I had read his book. Yes yes, but I sped read as I didn't really find the book interesting.

When she realized I was not going to gush with her over the potential "first black president" she sat back puzzled (ain't all folks in the 'hood votin' for Obama), then continued her chatter about the charisma and charm of Barry O. His life, his achievements, his anti-war stand, his proclamations to end petty grievances and false political promises, and how we will walk this common good journey with him. Electrifying. All the Susans across the land inhaled.

She gave the standard excuses for Obama's connections to Ayers, Rev. Wright, his inexperience, his connections to Blago, Rezko, the Chicago political machine, and a myriad of nagging little insulting lies that seemed to bother no one but me, i.e. Barry's attempt to portray himself as a typical black child of a single mother on foodstamps, abandoned by his daddy, an embarrassment to his grandma - rather than a child of privilege, private school, ivy leagues.

I stared in amazement at Susan.

This woman on the surface sounds intelligent - but has poor judgement and understands little on how the social and political system works. She gives me the phrases of her latest favorite pundit, author, blogger, news channel, or political comic. For the Susans of the world, the solution is simple - take from the obscenely wealthy and redistribute to the tired huddle masses.

It will be these white women, many who had flings as '60s flower-type children, who put Obama in the White House. Gone is their fall (hairpiece), the Mandarin style collar on an orange dress, and go-go boots. Their bloom has faded. Now the hair is neatly trimmed every 5 weeks by the gay guy at Blades, now wearing Crocs and beige Chico bermuda shorts. Her brief toe-in-the-water experimentation with drugs and promiscuity from the past are "youthful follies" which she either never admits to or uses as a badge of victory and recovery. Sort of like her hero's excursions into pot and cocaine, and "community organizing."

On and on she talked about her heart knows, just knows, Obama is who we've been waiting for.

Susan probably holds a college degree or at least a couple of years of higher education. But her life is more like her mother's than she originally wanted - 3 bedroom house in a mostly white neighborhood, 2.5 kids, drives a van or SUV, married to her second husband for 35 years, vacations at Disney or Mazatlan or Yosemite. This woman, and many like her, have always lived in a fantasy of "hope and change." For them, reality has always been dull and unfair. For them, electing Obama (or any educated attractive black male) is a validation of progressive whitedom. As if all those years of their struggle to preach we are all "equal" - will once and for all be proven under Obama's wise and caring governance. He will erase our differences and we can all just along. She may even be silly enough to have believed that only a black man could bring true social justice to America.

Susan reminds me of a quote of Libertarian Robert Heinlein who said "Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well." And only a "... tiny fraction think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion..."

Now what Susan? As the one you've been waiting for continues the policies of the last dozen ethically bankrupt presidents and sinks the nation deeper and deeper into dysfunction, now what?