November 26, 2013 If You Like Your Tyranny, You Can Keep It By Daren Jonescu
2013 has been a banner year for damning self-portraits of American progressivism. Just when you thought no one could top Hillary Clinton's agonized "What difference, at this point, does it make?" -- perhaps the most concise account of the leftist strategy of incremental subversion ever recorded -- along comes President Obama's revelatory time bomb, set ticking back in 2009 for detonation on October 1 of this year: "If you like your plan, you can keep it."
With her "What difference" outburst, Clinton told the world what the progressive elite think of their subjects. They think you are stupid, morally shallow, and have the attention span of three year olds -- exactly as progressive schooling and entertainment are designed to make you. Hence they need only wait you out, until the haze of time dulls your capacity for outrage about whether your leaders knowingly took the phone off the hook as your fellow citizens called for help with killers closing in on them. Hence they need only bide their time after passing rights-violating, spirit-diminishing legislation, and weather the storm of criticism until the majority of you get used to the new shackles, and carry on with your little lives. Hence, in all things, they need only embrace the necessity of working through their totalitarian dreams gradually, so as not to allow any particular "transformation" to seem fundamental enough to disturb your equilibrium.
Obama, not to be outdone, has matched Clinton's bid for Self-exposed Authoritarian of the Year, and raised it several degrees of amplification. "If you like your plan, you can keep it" gives clear expression to one installment in the multigenerational bait-and-switch strategy with which progressivism has undermined modernity.