Do you remember when one of the big MSM critiques of Democrats was the lack of optimism they showed, how they were always scolding and negative about our future, and how Americans, who are fundamentally optimistic, couldn’t identify with the party and its candidates because of it? I do, but apparently [Eric Cantor] doesn’t, because I’ll be damned if he cracked more than a reluctant smile last night.
It’s not just Cantor and Boehner at the SOTU, it’s also Gingrich, Romney, Santorum and Paul in the debates. Those twice-weekly pissing matches are glum, overly serious affairs contrasting the grim meathook future of another four years of Barack Obama with an even darker apocalypse of program cuts and never-ending austerity under the Republicans….
I remember that critique of Democrats, too, and it wasn’t limited to the media. Recall Poppy Bush at the 1984 vice presidential debate:
Almost every place you can point, contrary to Mr. Mondale’s – I gotta be careful – but contrary of how he goes around just saying everything bad. If he sees — If somebody sees a silver lining, he finds a big black cloud out there. Whine on harvest moon!
But mistermix is absolutely right about contemporary Republicans being decline-obsessed miserabilists — and you really, really don’t want that to be your party’s public posture going into a presidential election, because in presidential elections Americans very much prefer to vote for hope.
And in addition to the people mistermix names, I’d add the guy Republicans think might save them. Really, wingnuts — this guy makes you say, “A star is born”?
“…On these evenings, Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition. But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true….
“In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe. But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade, we have a short grace period to deal with our dangers. But time is running out, if we are to avoid the fate of Europe, and those once-great nations of history that fell from the position of world leadership.
“So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality….
The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing. Listening to them much longer will mean that these proud programs implode, and take the American economy with them…”
Ready to kill yourself yet? I would be if I took this seriously.
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
I didn’t even listen to Bitch Daniels. Who cares what he thinks? His own constituents want to put him on a meathook.
He makes Roger Ailes and Ross Douthat see starbursts.
(This post, on the other hand, is making BT readers see anti-starbursts. I suppose it wasn’t my finest work, but I didn’t think it was that bad.)
Nah, the piece is fine. I’m just making fun of that dour tight-ass.
Daniels is a weasel who, if allowed in the henhouse, would gobble all the eggs he could eat, give the rest to his friends and kill half the chickens for fun on the way out.
All I could think when I was watching him last night was no wonder Republicans are so hateful: look at the grim worldview they have. Bleak.
Not sure why, but whenever I see Daniels I think of the Mole Men on the old Superman TV series (the first one).
Couple of observations:
(1) This Republican approach actually began under “W”. In fact, it began on 9/11/2001, and by 2008 most Americans were heartily sick of it. That’s one of he reasons Barack Obama is president today. But the Republicans have just kept the doom and gloom going. aided of course by the economic collapse that they created. When times are tough, the job of a true leader is to keep Americans feeling as hopeless, fearful and depressed as possible, because the Republicans sure as hell aren’t going to do anything to help.
(2) The difference is that when the Democrats used to bellyache and criticize, they actually had policies and agendas intended to improve things. The current GOP just wants to posture and bloviate.