Thursday, February 18, 2010

Won't Take Win For an Answer

The economy's improving, Republicans are moving the goalposts back, having realized that maybe November won't be the shoo-in they convinced themselves it would be, so what else can progressives do but bitch about how Republicans always win because the Americans who support Obama and his policies are too stupid to support Obama and his policies?  Sigh. 

Carpetbagger was writing about how Rove is now furiously spinning the positive economic news, in a futile hope of convincing people that Obama's policies aren't to blame for the recovery.  So progressives had no choice other than to spin furiously, in order to find some way of showing how this is bad news for Obama and Democrats, who are too weak to ever fight back.

Here are some highlights from the comments section:
"It may be sad, but it's also dangerous. Unfortunately most American sheeple accept the spin as fact."

"But guess what? Doing this kind of thing works.  When's the last time you saw Congressional Dems "laying the groundwork" or engaging in "preventive rhetoric" months in advance of a goal they wanted to work toward?"

"Obama gave the American public too much credit for being smart, he knew his policy would bring the economy back from the edge, and thought the masses would see this. That was his mistake - having faith in the American people, it is a sad fact that they would rather accept a lie than the truth."

"Democrats need to educate voters so fewer ignorant folks vote for the GOP."
 
I agree - preemptive spin is needed. Obama seems to be taking it up. Rachel Maddow is too. How to spread the word is the problem - but the Dems seem incapable of propaganda.
And mind you, these weren't random quotes I cherrypicked.  These were from the first five comments on a post which had a positive message for Democrats.  It's all about how stupid Americans are and how sucky Democrats are for not being able to convince them of anything, even though polls continually show that people support Obama and his policies, and still remember that Bush was to blame for our economic woes.
 
And that's the thing: Republicans did this in the 90's, when they tried to give credit for Clinton's economy to Bush Sr.  And they did it in the 2000's when they tried to blame Clinton for Bush's economy.  And they're doing it now.  The only thing is: It didn't work then and it's not working now.  People credit Clinton for the good and blame Bush for both recessions he caused, and the only people who don't realize that are conservtaives and the progressives who insist that Democrats are weak and always lose.
 
And so they see good news from a liberal blogger and immediately have to pee on everyone's parade.  Not because they're too blind to understand poll results, but because it damages their egos to realize that their naysaying input is no longer needed.  In a world where a moderate-liberal black man can become president, these people need a Karl Rove to foil our victories.

3 comments:

Betsy said...

Again, I appreciate you talking me down. Over the last few years I had decided (I DO live in Texas of course) that not only the American people but humanity is irremediably stupid. I really need another point of view as often as possible and I appreciate your providing it.
by the way, your word verification is "ingrical". I am sure that must mean something deep.

woody45 said...

In the history of this country we have had surprisingly and thankfully few outright maniacs in charge. And the credit for that belongs exclusively to the American people.

There are stupid people lots of them there always has been. Probably more so during the "good old days". But consistently stupid people don't create and sustain the greatest country in the world.

Don't mean to go all John Phillip Sousa over here but what can I tell you? Frank Capra convinced me.

Doctor Biobrain said...

I couldn't agree more, Woody. Even Bush wasn't a madman, and knew which side his bread was buttered on. He may have been a bullying egomanic asshole, but he wasn't crazy. I feared a McCain presidency far more than I feared Bush.

I've always felt kind of bad for Bush, as he really was too clueless to understand why things didn't work out better than they did. I'm confident that if he had been surrounded with competent people who were willing to tell him the truth, he'd have been a much better president.

McCain, on the other hand, has true psychological problems and we could have been in for some scary times with him in the Whitehouse.