Republican doom and Democratic disillusionment

Regarding Obama's SOTU address, E.J. Dionne writes that the president's

diplomacy and self-criticism understated the deep costs of the obstruction directed his way by partisan opponents throughout his presidency. If you wonder why Americans are so dispirited, consider a Pew survey finding that on the political "issues that matter" to them, 79 percent of Republicans and those who leaned that way thought they were "losing," and so did 52 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners…. When nearly two-thirds of us feel like losers, it should be no surprise that the current rage is rage.

It is politically understood that if every Republican and Republican-leaning American had received a 50 percent raise last year, pre-paid health insurance and a government-supported pony, they would still tell Pew Research that, under Obama, they have been "losing." They are "dispirited" not because of their socioeconomic predicament, if valid, but because of the man in the White House. Had President Romney achieved, for instance, the higher unemployment rate (6 percent) he promised us by the end of his first term, then I can promise you that Republicans would say they have been winners — every last, ungracious one of them.

Of more interest are those majority Democrats who, it would seem, more genuinely believe that they're on the losing end of Obama's economy. No doubt, many of them are; even the president concedes, as Dionne quotes him, that American "workers have less leverage for a raise. Companies have less loyalty to their communities. And more and more wealth and income is concentrated at the very top." Still, partisanship normally compensates for such realities; that is, just as Republicans are in false despair, one would expect to find most Democrats in friendly denial. Instead we find bipartisan gloom.

Republican "obstruction" accounts for some of it. Had successive GOP Congresses cooperated with Obama on more stimulus, consumer demand and econometric multipliers would have soared. We all, in general, would be better off. But of course successive GOP Congresses did not cooperate, since the nation's welfare is always subordinate to the base's primary contempt for President Obama. Job One is reelection — not you.

I suspect, however, that our national, bipartisan gloom stems at least as much from Republicans' ceaseless doom-saying. It is everywhere, it is pounding, it is inescapable. Seven unrelenting years of Republicans' sulfurous, hyperpartisan America-Is-Hell-In-A-Handbasket has exhausted the optimism of even most Democrats. In a way, they have been brainwashed as much as their partisan counterparts. And while that may be a good thing for Bernie, it's not particularly good for the country — in that "subdu[ing] the furies," as Dionne frames it, can be nigh impossible when the furies have lost their perspective.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

Any Democrat is the White House would have done I think. They've been selling if only nirvana for quite a long time. If they dominated the Supreme Court? If they dominated the Court and the House? If they dominated the Court, the House and the Senate? Each promised conservative progress (by which I mean reversing progress) that just never appeared. That's the source of their angst. Adding the executive office, so close and yet so far, might have made their dreams possible. But since those dreams consist largely of crushing the majority of Americans that conservatives so deeply despise it seems democracy will persist in standing in the way.

[lawrence]

Sometimes I wonder how Sotomayor and Kagan ever were appointed to the court.

[Bob]

The president's address Tuesday wasn't the usual. It included denunciation of obstinate rather than loyal opposition and finally taking credit for his successes. It was also part FDR-style fireside chat to stiffen our backbones and cheer us up. At times it verged on self-serving sunshine blowing but in the end came off as genuine.

One theme he stressed was that we're in a time of change. He probably understands the extent of the inevitable change more than we can imagine. Add up all the disappointment and anger toward government across the political spectrum and it could indicate the shape of our current government and social contract are inadequate for the times. Boosterism, capitalism, manufacturing and militarism don't fit together as they did during the post-war boom and Cold War. The world stage is more crowded and we can no longer afford things like a health care system that was designed mostly to draw top talent from Europe or state colleges supported only by the states.