How the President Lost the People in 2010: Part II

At a high school reunion in the spring of 2009, I visited with a woman I remembered as being sweet, sensitive, and impassioned about social issues. She remarked that for her entire adult life, she’d always voted for the “pro-life” candidate in every election. The presidential election of 2008 had left her confused, she said, because neither of the candidates seemed to be unequivocally anti-abortion.

In other words, neither candidate promised what so many had promised before: to reverse the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade and, once again, make abortion illegal in America. (No president or politician could possibly do that, but reality is not an issue here. It’s the promises that count.)

This woman’s fixation on a single issue—a complex issue made simple by the clever GOP spin machine—means that she voted twice for George Bush. She seemed untroubled by his two deadly wars (in which many thousands of former babies had been sacrificed), policies of torture and imprisonment without due cause, and failure to provide basic medical care for mothers and babies throughout the land. She also seemed oblivious to the fact that neither Bush nor his advisors ever mentioned the topic of abortion—which was clearly nowhere on their long list of concerns—except during campaigns.

By and large, Americans aren’t deep thinkers when it comes to politics. This is something Republicans understand and Democrats do not.

Gun rights are another wedge issue that the GOP has historically exploited with great success. In the recent elections, there wasn’t a great deal of national news about guns (there being no actual threat to gun rights to report about). In targeted mailings and Internet campaigns, however, the extreme right continually prods hunters and militia types with conspiracy theories, stoking their fears about having their weapons confiscated by . . . somebody. Hence the impression some Alaskans ended up with that Attorney General Eric Holder was out to get their guns. And a number of the faux Palins during the last election made sure to be seen taking aim, “locked and loaded” against any imagined transgression involving their “Second Amendment rights.” (Which reminds me—who’s in charge of watching Sharron Angle these days—the woman who spoke ominously about “Second Amendment remedies” if the last election didn’t go her way.)

On the issue of gay rights, the right-wing coalition has a cozy deal going. Libertarians (who, by the way, tend to actually think about what they believe) and religious fundamentalists (who don’t) are both up in arms about gays. Libertarians are angry because Obama hasn’t exercised his executive power—or waved his magic wand—and unilaterally ended “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” (Never mind his reasoned and repeated arguments about how much better it will be for all concerned if Congress does away with the silly law it created.) The radical religious, meanwhile, are mad about gays gaining support for basic civil liberties, including marriage. While it’s unlikely that either of these camps went out en masse and voted for Republicans for this reason alone, their noisy complaints helped to stoke the nation’s discontent and drown out the few reasoned voices trying to celebrate the administration’s many accomplishments.

Simplistic thinking, conspiracy theories, and intolerance. Take away voters who respond to these, and who do you have left?

People who are well educated. People who read. People who think deeply, trying to consider important issues from several different angles. People, in other words, that the Sarah Palins of the world scoff at for being “elitist.”

People like the president.

One of the things Obama failed to do during the first two years of his administration was to take monumentally complex issues and break them down into small enough bites for the American public to swallow. In a country in which a relative few are willing to do real intellectual work, it’s hard to inform the populace about issues like global climate change, credit reform, and why tax breaks to the middle class stimulate the economy while tax breaks to the rich do not.

It’s hard. But it’s what the president and his advisers must do if they want to win in 2012.

Tomorrow . . .Creeps in Its Petty Pace . . .

Regarding my promised "Part 2" of the last post, the word "tomorrow" was an estimate. That discussion will continue soon.

Meanwhile, from conservative commentator David Frum, here are some interesting remarks about the GOP's "just say no" approach to health reform.

How the President Lost the People in 2010: Part I

In general, people who are upset with President Obama fall into one of three categories: namely, those who are

1. confused and hurting because of the economy (e.g., out of work, in debt, and/or threatened with the loss of their home),


2. upset about social issues and individual liberties (including guns, gay rights, and abortion), and/or


3. addicted to hate radio and radical TV (e.g., Rush Limbaugh and Fox News).

In days to come, we’ll discuss the disaffected Americans in Categories 2 and 3—as well as what responsible, progressive thinkers in this country ought to do about the situation. Today we’ll begin by discussing members of the electorate who fall into Category 1: those embittered because they are directly and adversely impacted by the struggling economy.

Like all human beings who are frightened and hurting, people who are out of work, out of money, and out of options will generally vent their anger on someone. As leader of the country, the president is bound to be a lightning rod for some of that anger. It goes with the territory.

There’s not much point in trying to reason with desperate people; understandably, they want to see success, not listen to economic theories. (Nevertheless, many liberals are upset with the president for not doing a better job of explaining things to the public—as though the man doesn’t have another job to do, other than politicking.)

Republicans, well aware of this natural tendency of people to blame the party in power, has spent the past two years trying to ensure that things don’t get any better—not under Obama’s watch.

That’s why, under the shrewd but morally indefensible leadership of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, Republicans have steadfastly refused to say “yes” to anything that might help the economy, including public projects to improve infrastructure, extension of unemployment benefits, and tax relief for those who really need it.

That’s also why they’ve routinely lied about the positive effects of Democratic accomplishments, including

• the stimulus (which, by the most conservative estimates, created over 2 million jobs),


• credit reform (which ended unfair and dishonest practices, such as arbitrarily raising interest rates on money already spent), and


• the Affordable Health Care Act (which, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, “would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010–2019 period”).

To increase their political capital, Republicans in the minority have wanted the economy to stay as bad as possible for as long as possible so people would blame the Democrats.

It worked.

Now that they represent the majority in the House of Representatives, however, the people will expect members of the GOP to say something other than “No.”

As demonstrated by the Great Recession of 2008, the Republican Party has long been bankrupt when it comes to ideas for how to build a strong economy. And by usurping the energy of the Tea Party, they have aligned themselves with many individuals—including some newly elected members of the House, like Rand Paul—whose main concerns are other than ensuring the economic privileges of big business and the very, very rich.

Will these right-wing groups—the fiscal and the social-libertarian conservatives—be able to work together to piece together any kind of coherent national policy? Will they be successful in continuing to discredit the president and blame everything on the Democrats?

It should be fun to find out.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss more about Obama and the social-libertarians.

The Ultimate Double Standard

So . . . Rupert Murdock donates $1.25 million of corporate money to Republican candidates and organizations—which, for a publicly traded company, is against the law. The consequence? Tch-tch-tch from a few mainstream media pundits.

Keith Olbermann, as an individual, donates the maximum individual contribution—$2,400—to three specific Democratic candidates. The consequence? Indefinite suspension without pay.

Will Fox News jump to his defense, as they did for Juan Williams (who immediately got a $1 million contract)?

Stay tuned.

The Majority Party Always Loses Seats in Midterm Elections

Nevertheless, these remarks by Mary Mitchell are worth pondering.

Great News about Jobs . . .

. . . 151,000 added in October! Economists are saying this is a strong indication the economy is growing again.

John Boehner will be busy all day figuring out how to take credit for that.

Buying Barbados: The $4 Billion Election

The astronomical sum of money being spent on the 2010 midterm elections in America—at least $4 billion, by most estimates—is greater than the entire GDP of many of the world’s countries, including Barbados, Montenegro, and the Isle of Man. (And we’re closing in on Mongolia.) Virtually every man, woman, and child living on American soil has been exposed to thousands of images, slogans, and arguments—mostly produced by expensive ad agencies—designed to get them to adopt a particular attitude toward a candidate or an issue.

Much has been said—and much more needs to be said—about the ability of the rich to buy elections. But let’s face it: if the American people weren’t so gullible and generally uninformed, it would take a lot more than scary music or a slick slogan to sway them. Politicians and their message machines would have to provide actual information, specific action goals, and coherent plans for implementing those goals. Then they’d have to deliver on those promises.

Regular readers of this column know what I think: I think President Obama and his team have delivered on their promises to America, accomplishing more than anyone could have expected—especially bucking a severe and unrelenting headwind of lies and obstructionism from the Republicans in Congress. From ending combat in Iraq to reforming health care to implementing Wall Street and banking reform, the current administration has done much to improve American lives.

I also think it’s appalling that most Americans seem to have already forgotten what the Party of No accomplished on its watch: two wars, general devastation of the economy, confusion about climate change, a $1.3 trillion deficit.

Be that as it may. Jon Stewart (oddly, given his profession) blames the media for America’s current problems. The Tea Party blames politicians and “elitists”—a category that often seems to include anyone who is well educated, well informed, and experienced in public office (unless, of course, they’re Republican). But it’s clear where the real blame should lie in a Democracy like ours: squarely on the shoulders of those—sadly, the majority—who either cast a vote based on a single bias, remaining willfully ignorant about everything else, or don’t vote at all.

For awhile last January, mesmerized by televised images of profound suffering, Americans seemed to care about the people of Haiti. The cameras have moved on, but hundreds of thousands of Haitians still live in crowded, stinking tents, and hundreds are dying of disease. Think what the $4 billion wasted on these midterm elections could do for them.

Never in the history of human civilization has it been so easy to find out what’s really going on in the world. With an open mind and a good mix of media (including books and articles, as well as radio and television), anyone can learn a great deal in a short time about virtually any subject.

Now that so many billions of dollars have been spent to get their attention, what Americans should do is to continue to learn and to care—not because they’re being prodded by advertising to be fearful or angry, but rather just because being informed is the right thing to do.