While Obama is riding high after being elected to a second term, history tells us that it may be at this time in his administration that he pushes Americans too far, resulting in a rejection of him and a rejection of Democrats in general during the 2014 elections.
There appears to be a point in most administrations that has tripped up U.S. Presidents in their final years in office. Obama may be vulnerable just as those who have come before him in modern times. His belief that he can ram through his progressive legacy could eventually see his policies rejected by a majority of Americans.
Writing in PJMedia, author Victor Davis Hanson points out that a rule of the modern age is that all confident, reelected presidents trip up on the second term. For example LBJ was sunk by Vietnam. Reagan faced Iraq-Contra. Bill Clinton had his comeuppance with Monica. Geroge W. Bush was overwhelmed with the Iraqui insurgency and Katrina.
LBJ’s landslide led to Nixon four years later, whose landslide then led to Carter in 1980, whose supposed new politics of humility and apology led to Reagan, whose small government-paradigm nonetheless by 1992 gave us Clinton, whose “middle way” after eight years gave us Bush, whose “compassionate conservative realignment” ended with Obama.
Hanson writes that Obama may have misread his reelection as a mandate however unlike most second-term presidents, he received fewer votes than in 2008. For example, it is turning out that on the gun control issue most Americans value the right to buy guns and appear to be unconvinced that new gun laws will abate violence.
In regard to taxes, 2013 already sees new taxes on the middle class, a new loss in deductions, new blue state income tax hikes and negative changes being felt by all voters, including those that supported Obama in the last election. Hanson asks how long will American’s put up paying another 10% of their income so others will have free things that are superfluous.
Will Obama’s progressive radicalism with its new regulations, higher taxes and dismantling of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights’ Second Amendment create a tipping point from which he and the Democrats cannot recover? If history is right, a backlash and the 2014 elections may provide the answer.
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