The Problem Is That You're Scared And Stupid, Redux...

Washington Post reporter and Obama lapdog Steven Pearlstein reminds us that, well, it really is us that's the problem:

It's one of the great fallacies in politics: Candidate Jones says X, Y and Z during the campaign. Candidate Jones wins the election. Ergo, the public agrees with X, Y and Z.

Certainly there are times when that may be true, but just as often it is not. After all, if that were always true, then voters should now be ecstatic that President Obama delivered on his campaign promise of health-care reform, while being mad as hell that nothing's been done about global warming.

So maybe that wasn't what voters were really thinking way back in 2008. Maybe voters were simply angry about the lousy economy and looking for a new team to take the country in a new direction. And maybe that's the story this year as well.

That's assuming that voters really believe that Obamacare is actually going to solve - rather than exacerbate - the original problem. Same goes with Cap-and-Trade. What Pearlstein conveniently ignores is the competence issue that has arisen -  the feeling amongst many that what we got in Obamacare and "Wall Street reform" was bad legislation.

Beyond that, let's remember the extent of the economy's difficulties didn't really become clear until after the election. Obama and the Democrats quickly passed a porker of a "stimulus package" and then went back to the good-times issues. For them, it's been two years of business-as-usual. This is the part that Obama and the Democrats don't get:

When the economy is bad, nothing else matters.

They pursued an agenda that was no longer relevant to large portions of the electorate, despite ample warnings that in doing so they were setting themselves up for serious problems come November, 2010. (Remember the Summer of Discontent at the townhall meetings, Steven?)

Anyway, none of that matters to Pearlstein, because that isn't the root of the problem:

As for the details of that new direction, it's not at all clear what voters have in mind. Most voters - particularly the swing voters - aren't as well-informed as they might be on major policy issues. What they do have are experiences and instincts and emotions that politicians play upon in order to win elections. Rarely, however, do the election results add up to a mandate. More often it's nothing more than a temporary license to govern.

The root of the problem is this: You're stupid. People like Steven Pearlstein are smart. If you don't listen to people like Steven Pearlstein, things will get real bad. Then you'll get scared. Or more scared, as the case may be.

Pearlstein continues:

Americans, it is said, are suddenly recoiling at the dramatic expansion in the reach and power of a federal government that is "taking over" the economy. Topping this list of alleged voter grievances is a new health-care law that requires every American to buy health insurance, a new consumer protection agency for financial products and the government bailout of the auto industry.

Now ask yourself: Do you think the results of the coming election would be tilting in favor of Democrats if the "individual mandate" had been omitted from health reform, if the consumer protection agency had been dropped from financial regulatory reform and if General Motors had been left to die. Somehow I doubt it.

Well of course you doubt it, Steven. But that isn't the issue. The issue is that, contrary to your expectations, lots of voters don't share your doubt.

It's worth noting Pearlstein's dishonesty here. General Motors, left to its own devices, would not have "died". It would have filed bankruptcy, reorganized and continued to do business. The Obama Administration's rescue wasn't a rescue of General Motors, it was a rescue of the United Auto Workers. That's what it was, and that's exactly why it was unpopular. And much like the competence issue that is so much a part of the dissatisfaction with Obamacare, Pearlstein understands this, but since it doesn't fit his narrative, it is omitted.

Then we get to the heart of the matter:

The dirty little secret is that most Americans don't really know what they think about the issues that so animate the political conversation in Washington, and what they think they know about them is often wrong.

Always remember: You're stupid.

You're stupid because, according to Pearlstein, the U.S. is going to make money bailing out the U.A.W., and A.I.G., and the deficit, well, that just happened... because, you know, the economy is bad. And the stimulus packages? Worked wonders. Foreclosures? What foreclosures?

See? If you weren't so stupid, you'd know that. Never mind that there is ample factual evidence that could lead one to doubt that taxpayers are going to win in the bailout lottery. Or that the stimulus package has done much of anything. Hell, G.M.'s already teamed up with the Feds to cook up a series of transactions to give the appearance that bailout monies are being repaid, but that's about all it is... an appearance of repayment. Pearlstein knows that (or, at least, should know that), but as it doesn't fit, it doesn't get mentioned.

Finally, Pearlstein wraps it up:

The simple truth is that Obama and the Democratic Congress were dealt a lousy economic hand, and they've played it about as well as anyone could. Along with their predecessors and the holdovers at the Federal Reserve, they prevented a collapse of the global financial system and a 1930s-like depression. But given the magnitude of the financial crisis and the global imbalances that gave rise to it, a prolonged period of slow growth and high unemployment was almost inevitable.

Hey! It's Blame Bush time. Boy, have I missed that...

The political reality, however, is that voters are unwilling to accept that economic reality. They want to believe that government has the power to control the economy and fix it quickly when it breaks down. They are encouraged in that belief by politicians and special interest groups, by the media and by too many economists.

Translation: Voters are stoopid...

That said, trying to convince voters that things could have been worse was not a viable political strategy for Democrats in 2010. Against a backdrop of stagnant incomes and declining home prices and 10 percent unemployment, toting up the number of jobs saved, mortgages modified or bridges repaired was never going to be a winning argument. What voters needed was a broader vision of where the country needed to go and how we could get there, a credible story of how shared sacrifice today could lead to shared prosperity tomorrow.

I'll give Pearlstein credit, he did get one thing right: Trying to convince voters that things could have been worse isn't a viable strategy. Especially when, for so many people, things really can't get any worse.

What a twat.

Comments

[Mike C.]

Feh. Everybody (the political/chattering class, I mean) ignored the industrial harbinger back in 08. Even though it was an economic bright spot. It spoke volumes, just in a language those folks don't understand.

I'm referring to the still-ongoing very strong sales of ammunition and damned-near anything that will shoot it. You would think astute political types might pay more attention to something like that.

[richard mcenroe]

I dunno. I THINK I'm reasonably better informed, for example, about the healthcare bill than the Speaker of the House who smirked, "We have to pass it to find out what's in it."

I'm also pretty sure I'm better informed than the three Congressmen in my city who admitted they hadn't read the bill, including the one (Brad Sherman) who literally laughed in his constituents' faces when asked if he had read it.

I'm also pretty sure I'm better informed than my own Congressman, (Howard Berman) who told his audience we were making progress with Iran on the day they fueled up the Busehr reactor and put it online.

But that's just superficial of me, I'm sure. Hey, wasn't Bristol's ass fat on DWTS?

[mojo]

They have no idea what's coming for them. It's just a big, dark shape in the night - until the scaled fist closes around their windpipes on Nov. 2...

[Allen]

What a fucking idiot. Oh yeah right I'm really concerned about the Consumer Protection part of the "Wall Street Reform" bill. Of course having a viable local bank that doesn't have to eat the losses caused by shoddy investment banking practices, which are now nicely baked into the system, might pop up on my radar.

Of course a premium jump of 20% on my health insurance makes me swoon with pleasure.

Christ, the very idiots who created this mess are supposed to fix it? I guess if arson is a fancy new form of home remodelling that might be true. I guess I'm just an ungrateful moron.

[Richard mcenroe]

Just remember... In whoopi-speak, it's a mandate, but it's not a mandate-mandate.

[aelfheld]

"[...] nothing more than a temporary license to govern."

Isn't that all they're intended to have?

"They want to believe that government has the power to control the economy and fix it quickly when it breaks down."

I don't recall many politicians of either stripe doing much of anything to dispel that misconception - and I do recall quite a lot of them doing everything possible to foster it, the current president being primus inter pares.

[A. R. Jones]

I'm a lot more bummed out about my racial cowardice than I am about my inbred stoopidity.

I mean, being a moron is the only thing that lets me get up in the morning, ya know?

/snark/

You know, it occurs to me that nobody in Barak Obama's circle of frien... political networ... sphere of influenc...fellow travell...nobody he's ever known ever exhibited leadership skills beyond being a moderately effective con artist.

They know how to scam people who can be scammed. But the Left forgets that 99 out of a hundred victims of scams knew they were onto something too good to be true in the first place. They think they know people. But they don't.