I didn’t want to chat about this, but after the Democrats got pretty much shellacked last night, I figure it’s worth a word or two.
First of all, the national Democratic party is, in a word, stupid. Rock stupid. You don’t win elections by having the other party control the message and make the headlines for two years and then hope that people will just understand. The government got a lot done, a lot passed in two years and no one knew about it. Apparently touting your success is some sort of Democratic faux pas because instead of talking about what worked, they got bulldozed into conversations about the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and the evil health care bill. The whole thing with TARP would have been on that list too, until the Congressional Budget Office came out and said that TARP essentially worked and saved the country from a second depression and 15% unemployment. Once that news was out, the GOP dropped their hammering of that point and moved to their old stand by of “tax and spend Democrats”, the old chestnut that never seems to die.
Also ridiculous and somewhat insulting was President Obama’s plea for young people to come out, vote and help them this year. Obama did get some youth oriented desirable legislation with expanded Pell grants, extending insurance child care to age 26 and other provisions in the health care bill, but the plea was an eleventh hour cry for help. The GOP has been working on getting elected for two years. Obama asking a whole voter block for help a mere month and a half before the election not only reeks of desperation, but is a little insulting. The thought here is “why didn’t you engage the youth vote for the last year instead of just depend on it and take it for granted”.
Obama himself was far too invisible this election year. Where was the message from the man himself calling out private business to get off their ass and start hiring. Wall Street numbers returned to their previous glory, business profits were up, productivity was starting to drop–a sign that you need to hire, and cash reserves were way up. Government can only carry the ball so far, so where was private business to make these hires? Where was Obama to get out on the road to challenge these people to hire? This was a conceded point to the GOP.
The last jab I want to offer up is to the voters themselves. The GOP message this year was quite simple. They were angry and they didn’t want to spend money. Voters have incredibly short memories and apparently respond to sound bites. To put things in context, in the last two years, the GOP has offered no major legislation whatsoever…which was part of their plan. They cynically, and correctly, wagered that by denouncing all major legislation from the Democrats and keeping their message a broad, indistinct rant about how government spends too much, that they would gain seats and perhaps take over Congress, setting the agenda for a 2012 run at the White House.
Voters quickly forgot that the GOP had control of all three branches of office not long ago and were at the wheel of the economy when everything went to shit. The economy is not a high performance speed boat that can turn quickly. It’s a gigantic cruiser run on sails, one that if you want to turn in a direction, it takes effort. Even though there is a lot of activity, the boat doesn’t noticeably turn until much later. If you don’t know what to look for, then you don’t notice a change until you’re almost fully turned. Short memories, my friends. Very short memories.
It’s hard for me not to be cynical about politics as a whole. I don’t trust the Democrats, trust the GOP even less and independent parties just can’t seem to get off the ground. This year is particularly depressing as we see the utter power of simple messages, no substance and the influence of media buys. This is a situation that is likely to get worse before it gets better and our government is likely to flip-flop parties because things really aren’t getting better for people as a whole.
2 Responses to “Post Election Thoughts”
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I’m trying to decide if I should respond. I deeply disagree with much you wrote here, but don’t want to hijack your blog.
I’m similarly cynical about politics, but probably for different reasons.
Well, it’s not like I’m going to delete your comment or anything, so it’s your choice.
And honestly, I could have written a lot more but I just don’t have the connection now (hopefully Monday).
I didn’t include many of my critcisms about the Tea Party but it’s hard to dismiss their politcal clout right now, so I bypassed that as well.
In light of that though, one of these days, someone is going to have to be the adult in Congress, man up and make some hard decisions. One of the things I was glad to see Obama do was finally include the war costs in the general budget which when most people saw the size of it freaked out before checking the details. Bush had all of the war costs passed off in a supplimental bill and it was never figured into the yearly budget to make the ecomomy look far rosier than it actually was.
Well now if the GOP is actually serious about cutting the budget and they only look towards the social programs and not touch the military appropriations budget (with the intention of killing off unnecessary and unwanted programs), then it’s safe to say that they are not actually serious about cutting the budget.
And I think it’s ultimately fair to criticize some voters here. The government can guide the economy part of the way but business has to hire. And when you look at the fact that real wages have not risen in thirty years, remaining largely static, something is wrong with the way working compensation is currently working for the average person. Trickle down has been thoroughly discredited and yet remains a strong part of the GOP platform.
And the GOP is likely to take credit for the jobs which will start returning soon, something they really had no control over anyway.
As you can tell, I’ve got a lot of axes to grind here (corporate personhood, electoral monies, economic priorities, government’s role in welfare, etc.) but I could be here forever.
A lot of our real problem is that people of different political stripes don’t talk to each other anymore and there’s no sharing or compromise of ideas. The system is broke, perpetuated by the parties who do nearly everything to insure your choice is either black or white. We’d be so much better off if we had 535 people elected who are reluctant to be there but determined to work together the best they can. That’s a government I think I could live with.