A neutered presidency

Victor Davis Hanson writes:

The European Union is stagnating and America is working, not because Obama championed the U.S. model of free-market capitalism, but because his efforts to emulate Europe proved politically and culturally impossible.

Obama feels he has new leverage with Iran and Russia. But if that is true, the opportunity did not derive from his heralded reset policies, which offered outreach while blaming the prior administration for the tense relations with those two countries. Instead, the oil-price crash of late 2014 — brought about by private American drillers and conniving Middle East oil sheiks — robbed Iran, Russia, and Venezuela of hundreds of billions of dollars in income.

That shortfall meant internal instability, smaller subsidies to terrorists, fewer cut-rate arms sales, and less direct aid to America’s enemies. In contrast, as far as his own initiatives go, Obama does not brag much about the bombing of Libya, the pullout of all troops from a once-quiet Iraq, supposed red lines and deadlines in the Middle East, or the expected calm in Afghanistan after he has sent home all U.S. constabulary troops.

Some polls have shown a recent upsurge in Obama’s persistently weak ratings; if so, they coincide with the collapse in gasoline prices, the decline of unchecked federal spending, the long holiday when Americans were too busy to worry much about politics, and Obama’s own long absence golfing in Hawaii, when he was neither seen nor heard.

Cheap energy, a falling deficit, a roaring stock market, and the fact that America still survives as the freest and most open economy in the world explain why the U.S. is belatedly resurgent after six years of stagnation. It is hard to Europeanize America in six years; and the Obama effort to do so will make it difficult for progressives to see it attempted again for some time.

All this is not to say that Obama did not make major changes in American life. Health care is in turmoil. The national debt will have nearly doubled during the Obama tenure. Racial divisiveness is worse than at any time in the last three decades. The number of those on federal and state entitlements is also at a record high. Defense spending in real terms is lower than at any time since the 1930s — and we know how that turned out. America is seen abroad as hesitant, unreliable, and confused.

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