When Barack Obama was elected president, many liberals were ecstatic, because it would mean the end of the George W. Bush policies and practices that they hated so much. With few exceptions, though, Obama and Bush have pursued courses that are remarkably similar.
When Obama said at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, “I have put forward a plan that will get our troops out [of Iraq] by the end of 2009,” liberals believed him. He represented “hope” and “change.” But the truth is that we live in a one-party state that simply presents two faces at election time. Despite major rhetorical differences and a few remaining real differences, what you get under a Republican president isn’t a lot different from what you get under a Democratic president. (Health care is the biggest one I can think of, but Bush was responsible for the biggest single long-term expansion of government since the ’60s when he pushed a program to give free prescription drugs to older people.)
The Humble Libertarian has put together a list of 100 similarities between Bush and Obama in office, some major and some minor. Can you read this list and believe that Bush and Obama are substantively different on the very many issues?
For conservatives, here’s the real question. Do you honestly believe that the next Republican president is going to give you something substantially different from what you got from Bush? Why is it that so many still believe the political system is going to deliver change?