And part of it is that people don't "get" what's going on. They blame the Democrats as much as the Republicans. (I blame the Democrats for trying to BE Republicans, myself. I thought I voted for a Democratic president, but I was wrong. I got a Republican. That's another post.)
Paul Krugman, in the NY Times:
Watching our system deal with the debt ceiling crisis — a wholly self-inflicted crisis, which may nonetheless have disastrous consequences — it’s increasingly obvious that what we’re looking at is the destructive influence of a cult that has really poisoned our political system....the cult of balance, of centrism.THis is absolutely true. We were talking to The Boy the other night. He is a 19 year old college student, disengaged from politics, who roundly blames both sides. No, we said. No, the Dems have given away the store and nothing is enough for these madmen.
Think about what’s happening right now. We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion.
So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship.
Krugman continues:
You have to ask, what would it take for these news organizations and pundits to actually break with the convention that both sides are equally at fault? This is the clearest, starkest situation one can imagine short of civil war. If this won’t do it, nothing will.
And yes, I think this is a moral issue. The “both sides are at fault” people have to know better; if they refuse to say it, it’s out of some combination of fear and ego, of being unwilling to sacrifice their treasured pose of being above the fray.
It’s a terrible thing to watch, and our nation will pay the price.
4 comments:
Another reason at least for me is paralyzed grief over what has become of of both parties. I used to be a Republican and left over over the crazy religious influence - and now the Dems -- losing all in trying to be "reasonable" in the face of the demonic.
30 or 40 years ago, you could count on the mainstream news reporting organizations (Big 3 networks, major newspapers, national news magazines) to report "That's the way it is" (in Walter Cronkite's famous tagline. And, as we all know "Reality has a liberal bias."
But now, no matter how many people rally in the street, 40% of the population or so are going to hear about it as "Muslims, welfare cheats, overpaid/unneeded bureacrats, homosexshuls, and illegal aliens {and *sotto voce* N-words} are Taking OUR Jobs and OUR Money via THEIR Taxes!" from FOX.
The indoctrination and DE-education of the American people via FOX is the new roadblock here.
Yeah, as w/ the homophobes, I think "Generation FOX" will eventually die out . . . but will their even BE a USA "with liberty and justice for all" anymore by then?
Here's a spot of good news: defying predictions, the (first US) IKEA plant in *Virginia* voted to unionize!
My story is a lot like Ann's. I gave up on the Republicans in the 80s. I generally voted Dem after that, but have registered as independent since. I cannot stand the rhetoric from either side, but really am worried the Dems have sold out.
Post a Comment