You can see how the Republicans win by losing if you examine some findings from Gallup’s latest polling. People hate the Republicans, but in the bigger picture they are beginning to hate the federal government in general, which benefits the GOP.
82% of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job.
69% say they have little or no confidence in the legislative branch of government, an all-time high and up from 63% in 2010.
57% have little or no confidence in the federal government to solve domestic problems, exceeding the previous high of 53% recorded in 2010 and well exceeding the 43% who have little or no confidence in the government to solve international problems.
53% have little or no confidence in the men and women who seek or hold elected office.
Americans believe, on average, that the federal government wastes 51 cents of every tax dollar, similar to a year ago, but up significantly from 46 cents a decade ago and from an average 43 cents three decades ago.
49% of Americans believe the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. In 2003, less than a third (30%) believed this.
This is most strikingly demonstrated by looking at the trend lines on how the people rate the legislative branch of the federal government. When George W. Bush took office in 2001, roughly 68% of the people expressed confidence in Congress. Today, the numbers are flipped, with 69% expressing a lack of confidence in Congress. The number steadily eroded during Bush’s two terms in office. Sometime around 2007, the people reached parity (50%-50%) in their opinion of Congress. The financial shock of 2008 is what turned things in a decisively negative direction. The midterm elections of 2010 reflected this new dissatisfaction, but things have gotten much worse since then.
Despite the damage conservatives have done to the country and to the reputation of Congress, and despite the fact that people really do blame the Republicans for our problems more than they blame the president or the Democrats, the people are also increasingly sympathetic to the argument that the government is too big and cannot be trusted to solve our problems.
By making people hate the government, the Republicans are winning even if they wind up losing in the short-term.
Benen had a post this weekend (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_09/the_1983_example032418.php ) that inspired this comment:
TCinLA on September 25, 2011 11:57 AM:
We’ve reached the point at which Republicans have pushed the basics of governing to the brink, in ways unseen in American history.
The last time politics were like this in a democratic government was 1931-33 in Germany, following the victories of the Nazis that made them the largest single party in the Reichstag (though not a majority). They proceeded to flummox the process in the same way the Republicans have done here with making everything a filibuster and passing legislation they know has no chance of proceeding past the House. The Nazis used this governmental dysfunction (which they had created) and forced an election in 1932 where they campaigned against the dysfunctional government (which they had created). They came back with more seats and created more dysfunction. Then in January 1933, holding themselves out as the only party that could solve the dysfunction (since they would stop it). The outcome of all that is history we know too well.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, history may not repeat itself exactly, but it sure does rhyme a lot.
I remember this famous quote: “I welcome their ideas.”
That was Obama in 2009, almost immediately after his inauguration providing aid, cover and succor to those Republicans. He wasn’t just talking, either. He really does endorse many of those ideas and is making many of them his own domestically and internationally. The Republicans were literally moribund. That was the beginning of the end.
By not illuminating a stark difference between himself and those Republicans, he now looks like one of them.
Yes, this is all quite obviously the president’s fault.
If this is sarcasm, whose fault is it then? The professional left, liberals, “f*cking retards,” progressives? It’s never Obama’s fault! And when he’s not reelected next year, it’ll be our fault again. Booman, you’ll be the first in line to castigate us for not clapping loud enough. Whose fault is it that Obama’s four million-strong army of contributors was dismantled?
Obama made some snide comments this weekend about progressives who have had enough of his BS and all this sudden, recent, transparent pandering.
Yeah, that’s it! We voted for him because we mistook him for god. LOL.
The President chose his initial path for many reasons. First, he said he would, and many elected him precisely because he was sincere in hoping to improve the discourse in DC. He also did it because the “centrist” Dems were always the leverage point for every legislative action and Obama understood that the “centrist” Dems would cut him off at the knees if he spoke in progressive rhetoric. As they are doing over the really quite moderate AJA and deficit reduction proposals right now. As long as there was any hope of accomplishing anything, President Obama tempered his rhetoric so that the “centrists” would not make legislating impossible. Is this really so very hard to understand?
He also did it because the “centrist” Dems were always the leverage point for every legislative action and Obama understood that the “centrist” Dems would cut him off at the knees if he spoke in progressive rhetoric.
You forget something, which I’ll repeat every day till the cows come home. Who enabled HolyJoe Lieberman? The President!!! What would have happened if Susan Collins(or Olympia Snowe) campaigned for Obama in ’08? They would have been thrown out of the GOP, no matter the consequences. The Democrats? The kiss HolyJoe’s ass after he comes back. What about the ads($500,000 worth) that the DNC ran for Bad Nelson after the failed Cornhusker Kickback? Do I need to remind you about a quote widely attributed to Von Clausewitz?
It turned out that he needed Lieberman to pass the Affordable Care Act. So, your criticism that he wasn’t ostracized seems kind of stupid to me.
Really? Why? Would HolyJoe have bolted to the GOP at the time? I doubt it. Would HolyJoe have voted against a bill, that in the end, makes health insurance companies richer?
Yes.
Absolutely.
Yes, it is difficult to understand.
Obama was elected with a huge mandate. This fact is conveniently fallen down the memory hole. Obama was far from the powerless functionary that many of his apologists dress him up as now. However, the power that was given to Obama to “change” things was tempered with his “Aw, shux, I’m not so powerful,” shtick during his Inaugural speech. Campaign Obama suddenly morphed into St. Bipartisan Obama. It was puzzling. Obama rejected his mandate for change and became what he is today: mealy-mouthed and meaningless. 2009 Obama had so much power that he could have forced those “centrists” into embracing his mandate, or else risk their reelections. Obama went the other way, he chose to usher the status quo and to reinforce Reagan Republicanism.
Obama gave the centrists power and leverage, not the other way around. And the liberal electorate wretched in 2010 to what it saw as betrayal and stayed home.
And I will follow Obama’s advice and “compare him to the alternative” to “the Almighty.” He couldn’t be worse than the devil himself.
I can’t wait for the headline: “The Left Fails to get Obama Reelected.”
“Obama was elected with a huge mandate.” Yes and no. He got 365 of 535 electoral votes, but only 53% of the vote. So, a mandate yes. Huge? Depends on your definition.
“Campaign Obama suddenly morphed into St. Bipartisan Obama.” Again, depends on your perspective. “Campaign Obama” talked a lot about bipartisanship as well. Go back and check his 2007-08 speeches, and the coverage of the campaign. Also check out the accomplishments of his first two years in office. Insufficient to reinvigorate the economy? Yes. The most progressive legislative session in 35 years? Also yes.
“2009 Obama had so much power that he could have forced those ‘centrists’ into embracing his mandate, or else risk their reelections.” Not true. Not for Ben Nelson of Nebraska who’s not up for reelection until 2012. Not for Joe Lieberman who’s not running for reelection. (I could continue.)
The biggest factor out of Obama’s control limiting his power is the Senate’s supermajority rules. Republicans have effectively used their power to block and limit progressive accomplishments. Senate Democrats have proved unwilling and/or unable to change those rules.
I close with the words of the late, great Molly Ivins: “You got to dance with them what brung you”. A lot of liberals weren’t happy with Bill Clinton in 1995-96—but knew that 4 more years of Clinton would be better than 4 (or 8) years of Bob Dole.
The word “stupid” is thrown around on this site to anyone who doesn’t toe the Obama line.
We’ll see who and what stupid is!
I’ve been convinced for a while that if the Democratic Party could figure out how to manage without its left flank, it would do so. The hostility towards its left has been quite evident since at least the 1970s. Always amazes me that the party’s leftists (I use the term loosely) continue to take it.
Speaking just for myself, I “continue to take it” because I know too many people who will get badly hurt (or hurt worse) when/if Republicans take power.
To cite Molly Ivins again, primaries are the time to “vote with your heart” and general elections are the time to “vote with your head”.
I’ll take an inefficient ACA, an insufficient Recovery Act, a too-slow winding down of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and a delayed repeal of DADT over the alternative—which, as we all recall, was the public policy agenda of Pres. McCain and VP Palin.
P.S. (And I’ll keep working for a more progressive agenda—both within the Democratic Party and outside it.)
P.S.S. If you’ve got a better strategy for the left, please share.
To keep it brief, I’d say study what made other successful leftist efforts work and adapt them to our present social and historical context – and expect a long slog.
Regardless of who is running things, expect a REALLY long slog until we are living a normal existence again. We got fucked and no one went to jail for raping our asses. Blame who you want but until we get their money out of our politics, we are screwed. Orange Jump-Suits for everyone on Wall Street, I say. For at least 30 years…
I don’t really buy this. It seems to me what you are actually doing is restating the republicans’ own rationale for what is essentially a scorched-earth policy, the behavior of a group that has no ideas for actually helping the country, no respect for actual facts, and that appeals to a minority of voters and is trying to scare the rest. They will also be trying a number of other tactics such as voter suppression and, perhaps, changing the rules of the electoral college.
As you point out, these tactics depend for their efficacy on the thesis that they will hurt Democrats more than they hurt Republicans. But you don’t provide any convincing evidence to support that thesis, especially if the Democrats go into a more populist mode, which I think they know they have to do. There is lots of evidence for the more common-sense conclusion, that this is a Hail Mary game plan from a bunch of evil clowns whose only real advantage is a complete lack of shame or scruples. (A significant advantage, admittedly, but maybe their only one.)
I also want to make a meta-comment about something that has been bothering me lately. There is some sort of viral mood-swing effect I’ve been noticing on blogs, not this blog in particular, but almost all. The way the media works with the two-party system makes every political context look like a horse race. The analytical tendency of the left makes many of us try to understand our opponents’ rationale. When we do understand it, we realize it has a certain putative validity, as any logical idea does. (I am not speaking of morality here.) In this analytical way of thinking, we have to find a rationale even for “teh crazy” — and of course we will find it. When we do find it, we see the crazy rationality, the satanic, “crazy like a fox” quality it will necessarily have. The ideas of the present GOP are scary. Having these ideas clearly in our mind, opposed to us in what appears to be an equal horse race, is therefore scary. The result is that we seem to go into a viral fear/despondency mode beyond what is justified by actual circumstances, especially when anything, and I do mean anything, happens that is, or can be interpreted to be, advantageous to the GOP or deleterious to the Dems. It is justified rather by the POSSIBILITY, which is not sufficiently countered by our own will to resist. Why is that? I think it’s some kind of mass-mentality phenomenon, and there is a 24/7 quality to it not unlike cable news, and to a large extent actually emanating from the MSM. We’re always looking for something that portends the apocalypse. Obama’s date for a joint congressional address had to be moved by a day — that had to be Obama’s Katrina Moment. Anything could be Obama’s Katrina Moment, or ours. People are psyched into the idea that the script is already written and we are mere spectators. This is not a healthy way to live, and it’s not true.
Furthermore, I believe there is a self-negating bias on our side against perceiving things the Dems do as positive: rather we will often be blasé, skeptical, cynical, or perfectionist/idealist. Nevertheless, some actions of the Dems will be perceived as “wins”, and then we are fine. For example, the day after a GOP candidates debate.
This results in a dynamic that is a series of often violent mood swings practically from day to day, which seems to be rarely commented on as a phenomenon in itself. Personally, it’s not good for my own equilibrium and I’m sure it’s not good for our political equilibrium. I think there is a viral, reactive mode (on some sites aided and abetted by attacks of trolls) that seems to be inherent in the form of commented blogs and that we need to be more aware of and do more to counter it.
It would help to have more suggestions for positive action, even in the style of the Intertubes such as, go to this site, find out what you can do, you can contribute here. I mean, you do see it, but not enough.
The phenomenon I’m describing manifests itself in different ways and to different degrees on different blogs. It is actually less evident on this blog than most.
The bottom line is that even if, for the sake of argument, the Republicans are succeeding brilliantly in their fiendish plans, it is not helpful, in the long run, to just sit there contemplating teh horror; it is helpful to counter it. Blog communication should provide not only fact and opinion, but also morale building and action, i.e. to organize for political goals. The political goal I refer to now is to defeat the GOP.
That sounds like an extremist statement a Tea-hadist might say (and honestly believe.) And I only changed a few words.
Ditto to what massappeal said.
That was supposed to be a reply to Don Durito’s comment
Whoops.
So we’re playing word games now. Association fallacy. Always a classic.
Just turning your own words on you. While I may agree, I was disturbed at how similar the words of our extremists are to theirs.