Sunday Morning Rant

Yesterday I listened to NPR while I ran errands.  One of the shows they offer on Saturday was having fun with the a billboard that has appeared outside Wyoming, Minnesota:

I got this photo from The Guardian, so the billboard has been making international waves.  Glenn Feldman, emcee of the show, asked people to call in to tell him if they had seen it.  Several people called at once:  all were from the midwest, and all claimed to have seen the billboard somewhere on their travels.  Feldman asked them whether or not they missed George Bush, and only one, a truck driver, said he did not, that he had been proud when the nation elected Barack Obama.  But he joined all the other callers in saying that he didn’t like Obama’s fiscal policies.  One woman called Obama a socialist, right there on NPR.

This bummed me out for the rest of the day.  Fact is that the hard economic times we are now experiencing can be laid at Bush’s door, not Obama’s.  You know all this, Trep, but I’m going to rehearse it anyway:  Clinton left Bush a surplus, but he squandered that and then ran up a 1.3 trillion-dollar deficit on his wars and tax cuts for the wealthy.  His unfunded mandates like the medicare supplemental established structural deficits that kicked in after he left office.  And then, near the very end of his term, the Republicans’ refusal to regulate big finance brought the country (and the world) to the brink of depression.  So BUSH, not Obama, bailed out the banks to the tune of 700 billion dollars.

No, I don’t miss Bush at all.  In fact, I regret the fact that he ever ran for office.  I detest the Supreme Court decision that allowed him to take office, and I was nearly suicidal when he was re-elected (that’s the term during which he suspended habeas corpus.  Habeas corpus!  The backbone of our constitution, the right that protects Americans from unlawful imprisonment!).   I asked my hairdresser why she voted for Bush a second time.  She didn’t know why.  Nor did anyone else in the salon who was listening in on our conversation.  They all freely admitted that they were puzzled by their own vote for Bush.

Somehow, people have forgotten all of this.  Even worse, they blame Obama for it.  Somehow they think he could have magically disappeared the long-term economic damage wrought by Bush.

Granted, Obama wrote and got passed a pricey stimulus bill.  But this bill included a tax break for most Americans as well as money to repair broken roads and bridges all over the country.   Hear that, Americans?  Obama DECREASED your damned taxes.  Yes, I am shouting.  Ninety-five percent of you got a tax break from Obama–not just the rich, whose taxes Bush cut, and cut, and cut–income, sales, estate, property, you name it.

Obama also bailed out ailing car companies, but he saw to it that they and the bailed-out banks paid back nearly all of the money we lent them and now he is trying to get back the rest by fining their executives.  At his urging, the Democrats passed credit card finance reform, and repealed some of the more odious bankruptcy legislation passed under Bush. Obama and the Democrats are trying to pass health care reform, finance regulation, and a jobs bill, all of which would help restore the economy.  But they are being stymied at every turn by the Republicans and their “just say no” policy.  Which is working a lot better here than it did in the so-called “war on drugs”–also Republican policy (don’t get me started on how trade in crack cocaine benefits the wealthy and powerful).

So how can it be possible that people think Obama is at fault for the hard times we are all experiencing?   I think there are two reasons.

First:  Fox “news” and the spider’s web of conservative talk that dominates radio.  One reason I listen to NPR is that aside from sports news, music, and Christian holier-than-thou ranting, it is all that is available where I live.  Conservative talk radio is all over the dial, and conservative talkers trade in lies.  Yes, lies.  Facts and evidence are useless to them, because the hatred they preach has nothing to do with reality or empirical truth.  I have tried for several years to figure what motivates contemporary conservatives, and I’ve finally decided that it is naked desire.  They want.  Those who are rich want to be richer.  Those who are not rich, and never will be, want to lash out, to hurt others as payback for slights, real or imagined.  They are angry that white supremacy has been questioned, that Christianity is not the law of the land, that the grip of patriarchy has been weakened, that heterosexism no longer goes without saying, that the North won the Civil War–who knows.  They resent those of us who are still in touch with reality and who insist on accuracy.  They call us “elitist” and “arrogant” because we read and listen and see, because we know stuff, and if we don’t know, we find out.

I’m sure you heard about the Daily Kos poll that turned up evidence that Republicans buy into the Christian endtimes crap, the birther myth, and the Obama-is-a-socialist meme.  In the ensuing flap, almost every commentator tried to undermine the poll results but almost nobody noticed the truly salient point:  the hateful rhetoric spewed by Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson is working.   They’ve managed to turn a great swath of ordinary Americans into uninformed and angry schleps who are being fleeced by the very people they vote for.

Second:  there are real philosophical differences between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives.   Liberals do believe in the redistribution of income, as charged.  We would like to place controls on those who own the money and assets so that they cannot bring about world-wide depression;   we would like wealthy people to pay their share of the tax burden;  we would very much like for people who haven’t got enough to eat, or clothing, shelter, or health care, to have access to same.  We would like cities to have enough money to support schools and police forces and firefighters and libraries and swimming pools and airports and yes, football fields.  We would like states to have enough money to build and repair highways, keep state parks open, and do their share of funding Medicaid.  We would like the federal government to care for the environment and the infrastructure and to support a military large and efficient enough to care for people when disasters strike and to fend off attacks on native soil.  Most liberals are not socialists insofar as they do not wish to take away all money from the rich;  we just want them to carry their fair share of the maintenance.

Republicans and conservatives want none of this, of course.  They believe in an utterly free market.  If that means that most people are poor and starving while the few party on, fine.  They all hope–assume–that they will be among the few, which is what motivates the poor deluded Teabaggers.

Dear Trep, I read your post below after I wrote this one.  I guess in a way this post is about the human need for myths as well.  I ought to be more understanding, I suppose, but the myth I’m decrying here is doing real damage to real people.