A recent survey by the UVM Center for Rural Studies found that 77.1
percent of the eligible voters in Vermont, up from 74.3 percent a year
earlier, believe that the U.S. government has lost its moral
authority. This is hardly surprising when you consider the fact
that our government is owned, operated, and controlled by Corporate
America. National elections are bought and sold to the highest
bidder. It was the loss of moral authority that brought down the
apartheid government of South Africa, the communist regimes in six
Eastern European countries, and the moribund Soviet Union.

According to this same poll, 48.7
percent of Vermonters think the United States has become unsustainable
(politically, economically, militarily, and
environmentally).

And a recent New York Times/CBS News poll indicates that the views of
Vermonters differ little from those of most other Americans.
“Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at
any time since the 1990s.” Eighty-one percent of the respondents
to this poll said that they believed “things have pretty seriously
gotten on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago.

Even though most Vermonters believe
America is going to hell in a handbasket, 87.2 percent of them still
believe that the country is governable and 93.6 percent think it is
actually fixable. How is this possible?

And who do they think is going to fix it? Barack Obama.

 Most left-leaning Vermonters are convinced that Obama represents the Second
Coming of Jesus Christ. With his feel-good message of hope and
change he can surely walk on water. But is it really
so?

For example, few Americans realize that Obama’s 2002 speech, in which he expressed
opposition to the pending war in Iraq, was, in fact, a pro-war speech,
not an anti-war speech. His opposition to the war stemmed from
his fear that it was the wrong war and that Americans might become
disillusioned by its failure, possibly turning them against all
wars. Obama is a strong supporter of the war in Afghanistan.

Even more revealing is Obama’s principal foreign policy advisor – vehemently anti-Soviet
cold warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski. Not unlike Bill Clinton, Obama
is a military hawk disguised as a liberal. Furthermore, there is
little evidence that he could stand up to the Israeli lobby. In
other words, as far as foreign policy goes, it would be business as
usual.

Although Obama is an articulate, intelligent, charismatic speaker, who is long on
political rhetoric, he is short on hard-nosed, specific solutions for
America’s plethora of extremely complex, interdependent problems.
For example, how will he deal with soaring crude oil prices, the
collapse of the real estate bubble, the subprime loan crisis, the crash
of the dollar, failing infrastructure, and turmoil in the Middle
East? These are very difficult problems.

Barack Obama is not going to prevent
the ship of state from going down. At best, his touchy-feely
message is illusory. At worst, it represents a cruel hoax.

Thomas Naylor, economist, businessman, and author, is co-founder of the Second Vermont Republic.