Jurassic President

Interesting analysis. [Link]

Jurassic President starts with the soft-lighted comparisons between Obama and FDR leading up to the 2009 swearing-in. People who weren’t on board with the ethos of Obama’s campaign rolled their eyes and mumbled things like depression chic and there they go again, but I submit to you that Obama believed it. He not only thought he was the new FDR, he thought the world wanted and needed a new FDR. He knew FDR was the change we’d all been waiting for.

Other reports followed, such as that he had decided to run for president to undo Reagan’s presidency and get us back to where we’d have been if Carter had been elected a second time.

I know right about this time, you’re scratching your heads and wondering how he could mean this nonsense. I think the sheer absurdity has kept us from seeing Jurassic President for what he is. Because here, in the early 21st century, we have our doubts about how good FDR was for the country after all and, frankly, we’ve been making jokes about Jimmy Carter since — well, since Jimmy Carter was president.

But Obama is not in the early 21st century, or not in the same 21st century the rest of us inhabit. Instead, he’s preserved in the amber of an echo chamber where the romanticized version of the thirties seen through the new-agey 1970s is paradise. In his circles, denying this vision is akin to insisting the sky is made of cheese.