Obama’s Shared Prosperity: A Euphemism Wrapped in a Lie

(See also: “From the Giving Pledge to Totalitarianism“)

Those who believed, in 2008, that Obama’s off-the-cuff “spread the wealth around” line was indicative of his real, socialistic intentions, rather than simply a poor word choice, can now relax. The president has finally clarified things, this time with the benefit of a script, so at last we can understand his true plans.

As it turns out, his remark to Joe the Plumber was merely a gaffe after all. For we now know that when he said “spread the wealth,” what he really meant was “share the prosperity.” See the difference? No? Then allow me to unpack it for you.

“Spread the wealth around” sounded like the casual remark of a tone-deaf authoritarian, someone used to speaking to rooms full of like-minded leftists. The problem lay chiefly in the word “spread”: so impersonal, it gives the impression that someone — Obama obviously meant government — should just forcibly disperse the successful citizen’s property to others, willy-nilly.

Government will spread your wealth around. Aside from completely addle-minded, entitlement-besotted slugs, what American would approve of reconfiguring America in accordance with such a principle?

Four years on, Team Obama has refined the message considerably, or at least kept the spokesman on script. First of all, the impersonal external force implied by the word “spread” has been replaced with the modern moral euphemism “sharing.” Obama puts it this way:

The question in this election is, “Which way do we go?” Do we go forward towards a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared, or do we go backward to the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place? I believe we have to go forward.