If you’re looking for a positive spin on the opening year of the Obama administration, don’t ask Cal Thomas for his opinion. The author, syndicated columnist, and Fox News analyst recently shared his thoughts about the administration with a John Locke Foundation Headliner audience in Winston-Salem. He also discussed the administration with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Thomas: We are in the midst of the most radical transformation our country has ever seen, and I do not believe that is overstatement. There has been a coup in Washington. We have elected a bunch of people who have appointed a bunch of people, and nominated and had confirmed a bunch of people who are more left-wing and ideologically opposed to the fundamental principles of this country than have ever run it in our entire history. It is a time when we ought to be frightened because of where they want to take us.
Kokai: It sounds as if you definitely think the country is moving in the wrong direction.
Thomas: Well, I think it’s just beginning. I think this country is going through an extreme makeover, and I’m sure that most of the public doesn’t think that this is what they voted for — those who voted for Barack Obama. The polls certainly show that we are getting ready to transform the health insurance industry, and the way we receive health care, unlike anything that we’ve ever seen before in this country. A lot of people are calling it socialism. I don’t know what you would call it, but it’s certainly being done without the permission of the public. We don’t elect dictators in this country. The best advances are done by consensus, and by bringing the public along. I think we have a complete novice who knows nothing about foreign policy, who’s never led a war, who’s never done anything except community organizing, and who now is going to revamp the economy, and is in charge of fighting the war on terror. I think it’s a very scary time.
Kokai: Are you surprised?
Thomas: Not really, because you’re known by your associates, and from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers to a whole lot of other people that he’s surrounded himself with, I think all of this was predictable. He didn’t hide it. I mean, he’s a hard-core leftist; that’s just a fact. You can’t deny it. There’s no consensus. There’s no bridge building. There’s no feeling that the Republicans or the conservatives have anything that he wants to embrace, and I think with — from Cass Sunstein to some of these other people who he’s surrounded himself with — Sunstein believing that animals should have lawyers — my cat thinks that’s a good idea, but I’ve told her forget it, she’s not getting it.
I think we’ve got a bunch of social reprobates in office, and I’m very, very worried about it. I’ve not been worried as much about the future of our country, from any president, Democrat or Republican, in many years. This guy is a potential disaster, and what can happen, I think, is that there will be things put in place that will be nearly impossible to reverse, and, of course, that’s what the Democrats are doing with their power, and they want to do as much as they can before the 2010 election.
Kokai: You said Americans didn’t sign up for the policy choices we’re seeing today. Is American distaste for these policies enough to kill them?
Thomas: Well, the problem is we live increasingly in an entitlement environment. If you look at what happened in Detroit [recently] — that 5,000 people lining up for handouts from the government — the local station up there went and interviewed a woman in line and said, “Where do you think this money is coming from?” These were homeless people or people supposedly on the verge of being homeless. Well, the woman says, “Well, it’s coming from the city of Detroit.” And the reporter asked, “Well, where do you think that money is coming from?” “Um,” she thinks a minute, “Well, President Obama’s giving it to us.”
See, that’s the idea. This is totally foreign to me. I grew up with the value and concept of taking care of myself, making decisions that would allow me to live a rather successful, or modestly successful, lifestyle if I played by the rules. Now, the rules are that if you make more money than I do, you owe me to make it fair. Well, that’s stealing. There’s a commandment against it, but when government does it, it’s taxation — same thing. And so we’re now going to tax and penalize success, and we’re going to subsidize and encourage failure. This is not the value system that built and sustained this country through World Wars and the Great Depression. And it’s depressing me, I can tell you.
Kokai: What do we do about these problems?
Thomas: Well, I think you have to vote, and get your dead friends to vote like the other side does. You know, democracy, a Constitutional republic, freedom, liberty, are not the natural state of humankind; otherwise, everyone would be free. Dictatorship, top-down government — these seem to be the natural order of things, in a dysfunctional world. So we can’t just coast along, thinking things are going to remain as they’ve always been, with our parents, our grandparents, and going back many, many centuries. That’s not going to happen. We have to take our government and our politics seriously enough to be engaged not only at election time, but between elections — in fact, daily.
These are people who can change our way of life. They can tax our businesses and regulate them. They can take more and more money out of our pockets. Now, Nancy Pelosi’s talking about imposing a value-added tax to go along with the federal, the state, the local taxes, all the fees. Seen your phone bill lately? Take a look at the five, six, seven lines. I just bought an international airline ticket. There are at least eight levels of fees and taxes for this country, and the one to which I’m going. Entrance, exit taxes, security taxes, fees — all sorts of things. They never run out of ways to find to take our money: lotteries, gambling, everything. They never have enough of our money, but they never ask us if we have enough.
We have to fight this, by electing people who have strong conviction, and principles, and a track record. Too many people go to Washington with promises, and they get transformed like Jekyll and Hyde into something else, something different from what they ran on. Term limits is an answer; get these people out. Don’t make them career politicians and subject to the kind of lobbying and temptations that go with staying in office too long. That’s just for a beginning.
Kokai: Do you see any signs of encouragement in these tea party rallies and in town hall meetings?
Thomas: Well, the key of course, is not just to rally the base, and we are increasingly — I say we, those who are conservatives, or libertarians, or people who believe in self-control, not government control — we’re increasingly a minority. You’ve got to win the mushy middle, so it’s OK, it’s fine to have the tea parties, and get together and convince us all that, boy, we’re going to change America, but you’ve got to win the moderates, the independents. That’s the key. In every election, they are the key. I wish they had more convictions. And you’ve got to do it on the basis of self-interest.
One of the encouraging signs to me — you asked for encouraging signs — is that seniors — who have been pretty much in the pocket of Democrats who have given them everything they wanted, and scared them to death on Social Security, any time the Republicans want to try to reform the program — are not signing on in very large numbers to this so-called health care reform. I think the last figure I saw was only about 24 percent of seniors. When you talk about paying for this new health care bill, so called, by taking $400 billion out of the Medicare program — when seniors find out what that’s going to mean for them, I think you’re going to see a mass exodus from the Democratic Party, and I think there’s a lot of hope in that, for Republicans and conservatives, if they play their cards right.