We need to be clear: Obama is buying votes, and he is getting his money’s worth. I saw a black couple in the grocery store tonight, in a fine mood, locating all the WIC products. They obviously voted for Obama, and will vote for his designated “continuer of the gravy train”. But they looked to me like working poor. Long term unemployed have a different look. When these two lose their jobs–and people at the lowest level are usually the first to suffer–and the Bush tax cuts are ancient history, Obama is President and the Republicans haven’t done jack shit in two years, MAYBE, just MAYBE, they will listen to someone saying “taxes don’t create jobs in the private sector, they TAKE them.”
Self evidently, we need an informational, a truth telling, educational offensive to put this idea out there. It is being effectively disrupted now, but as I said suffering has a way of opening eyes, and Obama is not in FDR’s position. Bush was no Hoover. Unemployment under Bush was under 5% for virtually all of his time in office, whereas Hoover got his crash in his first year, leaving three years of increasing difficulty easy to blame on him, even though he did many of the same things FDR did, and started the New Deal in all but name.
We also need to get Obama on record, telling us what the “fair share” of the rich is. He is slippery and dishonest, but if I were Boehner I would tell him “look, we’ve got the votes, but I have people asking basic questions. Answer them and this is done.”
We need smart people in the drivers seat. I don’t think we have them, but maybe they will emerge over the next while.
Few thoughts. I think some Aikido is in order for the near and mid-term future. Oppose nothing, but redirect it.