Allergy to Antithesis, Again

Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal, declares that Obama is trying to destroy the Republican party using a Marcusean strategy of ‘liberating intolerance’.  But in the previous term, Obama was trying a policy of including the Republicans and everyone he could possibly include.  Has Obama changed completely?  What is the connecting link between this Obama and the previous one?

Well, in the first year of Obama’s administration, I posted on “Obama and the Allergy to Antithesis.”  If you have an “allergy to antithesis,” you can either try to include your opponents in your camp by stretching your boundaries wide, or you can try to destroy them.  What you cannot tolerate is a long term fight against a more or less permanent Manichean enemy, because that would be recognizing the possibility of an antithesis.

Henninger’s Marcusean rhetoric may be a bit overdone, however.  To find fault with me, or to call me nasty names, is still to tolerate me.  When they throw me in jail, or I get fired, that’s when I’m no longer tolerated. The threat of firing has begun  [though I wonder if he should ask to do some volunteer work at Exodus!], but that is mostly coming from the private sector.  Real ‘intolerance’, so far, is mostly happening in the private sector of employment, not in the criminal law.

In response:  “Obama’s Thunderdome Strategy” by Daniel Henninger at WSJ.com

And to:  “Culliver to have sensitivity training, youth help” by Janie McCauley at Washingtontimes.com

 

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