Fifty-three percent of Americans have made up their minds that Obama is innocent and Republicans guilty before the thing has even happened
And that really explains an awful lot, doesn’t it?
The negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” (can somebody please suggest a good alternative way to refer to that topic?) are ongoing and really have just begun. Bob Woodward (no conservative he) wrote an entire book about the previous set of negotiations and made it clear that although neither side was entirely innocent, “particular blame” fell on the president.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that this has not played itself out yet, 53% of respondents in a Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll, say that Republicans would be to blame if we go over that fiscal cliff:
While 53 percent of those surveyed say the GOP would (and should) lose the fiscal cliff blame game, just 27 percent say President Obama would be deserving of more of the blame. Roughly one in 10 (12 percent) volunteer that both sides would be equally to blame.
Those numbers are largely unchanged from a Post-Pew survey conducted three weeks ago and suggest that for all of the back and forth in Washington on the fiscal cliff, there has been little movement in public perception.
Well, of course there hasn’t been. Republicans present and past are always to blame, even for things that haven’t happened yet. Everybody knows that.
And people seem to think it won’t affect them personally, as well, although it will affect the country as a whole:
Roughly two-thirds of all Americans say that not meeting the Dec. 31 deadline would have “major” consequences for the U.S. economy, but just 43 percent believe that it would have a “major effect” on their personal finances ”” despite the fact that taxes would go up on the vast majority of the population on Jan. 1 if no deal can be reached.
You may note also that, if you look at the poll itself, although 27% gave Obama the blame, the rest (20%) said “both equally,” “neither,” or “no opinion.” Also, if you look at the more detailed breakdown of the demography of respondents, more Democrats than Republicans have made up their minds already, and the most even-handed and/or open-minded (although the majority of them still blaming Republicans) were Independents.
Said it before: Libs can’t learn from experience because the lessons don’t penetrate. No matter how stupidly they vote, and no matter how predictable are the catastrophes for which they vote, the ability to blame the repubs/conservatives/greedy rich blunts the sharp edge of the lesson.
I have a niece who voted for Obama and, no connection you understand, will probably lose her health insurance. When I suggest this would have been part of her voting calculation and she must have figured a fallback plan, she’ll look at me blankly.
All the more justification for the good guys to just vote “present” when the time comes, and give the moron electorate what they voted for.
Tough love.
When Reagan sat down with Tip O’Neill, the media told us it was the president’s responsibility to come to a settlement. When the government closed down in the 90’s, though, that was Gingrich’s fault. And now, of course, our poor put-upon long-suffering president can’t be expected to talk to the other side.
Plus, you’re all racists.
Ignore the polls, this is too important. Stephen Douglas was a good man who was attempting to compromise on Slavery. Lincoln lost that election but won the issue in the end. Churchill fought through the 1930’s for stronger British defenses which were barely adequate when war struck.
The democrats know that people barely notice taxes due to the wonder of weekly witholding, but Republicans forget that they will barely notice spending cuts as well unless they are on the government dole.
Republicans are going to be thought guilty and blamed no matter what they do, or do not do.
Tepid acquiescence? Not enough. Exasperated withdrawal? Evidence of malice and a subversive intent.
It’s your lack of demonstrated commitment to a program of unconditional self sacrificial allegiance to the collective, which is the root of the problem as they see it.
We’ve clearly reached the point where a zombie population will readily agree with the collaborationist media that a mere insufficiency of enthusiasm for Lord Obama’s reign constitutes prima facie evidence of treasonous wrecking.
They race toward a brick wall; and blame you if you do not interpose your own flesh between them and catastrophe.
After all, they are entitled.
I think many people now recognize – as one of your recent links indicate – that the left has so fundamentally rearranged their own sensibilities when it comes to the concept of making demands on others (those whom the left views as being obligated to love and serve them unconditionally), that the point of reasoning with persons holding such views, is effectively past.
They are convinced that they are entitled to your life. The only open question is your strategy for dealing with it.
I’m beginning to think that the House Republicans would be best served by passing a bill which freezes all tax rates for a year and which includes reasonable spending cuts. They could explain that any tax increase would be bad for the economy and jobs. Obama could take it or leave it. If he vetoes and we go into recession the Republicans can pin it on him.
L.i.F.B.
As much as we believe in and long for the demise of the power of the MSM, it seems that it is still very powerful in swaying the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans, and I see no way of changing that in the near-term.
How long do we stand by and let the mini-Chavez living in the White House take us down the path of Venezuela?
Mark asks:
How long do we stand by and let the mini-Chavez living in the White House take us down the path of Venezuela?
The short answer is as long as most Americans think it will be good for them. The prognosis is not good.
Libs can’t learn from experience because the lessons don’t penetrate.
This.
Liberals seems to be the inspiration for “Groundhog Day,” continually experiencing the same phenomena, but never drawing the connection between what they did and what happened subsequently.
I see this all the time in CA. Liberals here bitch about high taxes, oppressive regulation, and high unemployment, but continue to vote Dem, and speak wistfully about moving elsewhere (invariably a red state), where they will doubtless vote for the same policies that bankrupted CA. It’s maddening! Will they never learn?
would ya like to go back to the earliest discussions before obama and note what people said about my not being “positive”?
the worst part of it all is that people don’t even know they lost and that there is no more chances in the future… none.. period…
this win set the stage for everyone to be part of the new kind of state, like in germany, or risk being a target of that state..
now you all know how everyone got in line in germany. not the goose steppers, not the guns, because that came after… Gliechshaltungs final move was the writing on the wall that told the players that there can never be two sides again…
now all the machine moves in the same direction..
there is no other way to go as in Germany
while waiting for the signs that come AFTER, everyone let the condition change, and are still waiting.
you all are sitting in deck chairs watching everyone run to the same side of the ship, and forgetting what happens when they all get there and its side heavy that way.. it overturns…
the republicans can never get office unless they abandon the one group that is on their side…
so that group has no more representation here, in europe and uk… which is why in every crisis country, the fascists are gaining ground fast.
we are in the mode of choosing up sides!!!
and those without experience cant even identify the place they are in the flow of things and what comes next, as they imagine the next election.
from the holocaust glossary
Gleichschaltung
coordination” (German) – Reorganizing all social, political, and cultural organizations to be controlled and run according to ideology and policy.
and they used Stalins “popular fronts” methods
and the policy of the comminerm
Popular front
since no one learned this, no one sought to argue to break up these groups… you know… the groups you talk about… women, minorities, illegal immigrants, academics, the press… the popular fronts.
so basically, we were defeated by a very old concept which we woudl not be defeated by if we were not so ignorant of it, and decided not to learn from it but rather to try to guess and figure a way out, while not even touching those things…
The Popular Front has been summarized by conservative historian Kermit McKenzie as
“…An imaginative, flexible program of strategy and tactics, in which Communists were permitted to exploit the symbols of patriotism, to assume the role of defenders of national independence, to attack fascism without demanding an end to capitalism as the only remedy, and, most important, to enter upon alliances with other parties, on the basis of fronts or on the basis of a government in which Communists might participate.”
feminism was and is a “popular front” as its popular, and the cargo cult front of it does not let its followers know what its about and what it does with their power after taking it from them…
James R. Barrett writes about the Communist Party USA’s strategy of the Popular Front during the Great Depression and the Second World War:
too big to copy
http://mymill.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/the-popular-front-and-feminism/
unions, race, feminism, immigration… all popular fronts… and all being applied against the FASCIST republicans the party of white guys (And by extension jews)
this started in 1933 – this has now moved to the verge of war in 1939… when the leader has already been a man of the year (i mean person of the year)…
of course it cant be the exact same.
but because it isn’t exact, everyone let it happen..
they never wondered what would happen if their guesses were wrong, and experience was right…
even now they talk of another chance ignoring the demographics and so on… this is why they didnt care if their guesses were wrong, they thought they could set em up to try again… no. thats video games, not reality… even if you could they would not reset fast enough for most people reading… would they?
The people will follow Obama right into another depression and they still won’t learn because people are hard wired to seek saviors rather than solutions. It will be up to another generation to pick up the pieces; this generation has already learned the wrong lessons.
How’s this for a nickname for this generation; generation dolt.
Mr. Frank @ 1:45,
Were the House to pass such a bill as you suggest it would never get to Obama. Any bills originating and passed in the House must then go to the Senate.
Any bill favorable to Republicans will either be rejected or the Senate will pass a greatly modified bill and send it back to the House which will then reject it.
Any legislation that arrives on the President’s desk has to have passed both Congressional chambers.
As long as Obama enjoys a majority in the Senate he is never going to have to veto any bill and thus will never suffer the onus of responsibility.
Also, 60% of people are complete complete morons.
Closed minds cannot be changed. Absent absolute and undeniable proof by independent and unimpeachable sources, of collusion and betrayal of the public by democrats, that 53% will not blame them.
The 2012 election proves that assertion beyond rational dispute.
Without those ‘extenuating conditions’, they would have to face their own gullibility, pigheadedness and arrogance. Many would rather see the nation go down the tubes, some will even collaborate with tyranny before admitting the totality of their personal failure.
I was listening to Dennis Miller discussing this today (the dilemma of the GOP, not the poll), and his advice is to give him everything he wants; taxes, Rice, etc. Leave no GOP fingerprints. It’s finally time for him to own this.
Mr Frank is right about the Senate. No bill reaches his hands, no accountability.
The more the GOP fights him, the heavier the millstone he hangs around their neck.
Let’s try the positive approach:
53% ? We only need to change the minds of ~4%. Now that I’ve done the hard part, I will go about my usual business of letting the rest of you figure out how to convert a few million morons into conservatives.
Mark mentions the continuing power of the MSM. Most people know this and yet somehow the repetition of cases of amazingly flagrant bias–such as the media non-event of Benghazi under Obama and the Democrats versus the non-stop, ear-splitting scandal had this occurred under a Republican president/administration–seems to fade into a meaningless drone, like white noise in the background.
Given their nearly total support of Obama for the last 4 years and especially down the election stretch, I have little doubt that the MSM has just CHOSEN OUR PRESIDENT for us (surely they convinced at least 5% of voters). Now they’re determining how bloated our government will be and how much taxes we’ll all have to pay–simply by swaying the squishy 20% – 40% whose worldview is largely dictated by TV news, resulting in the high likelihood that the Republicans get blamed no matter what. And the case for smaller government and less taxes is pushed out beyond the pale of reasonable discussion.
It truly disgusts me to ponder the fact that the ninnies in the MSM are OUR MASTERS. Do you realize that? Doesn’t it make you ill???
The Popular Front has been summarized by conservative historian Kermit McKenzie as
“…An imaginative, flexible program of strategy and tactics, in which Communists were permitted to exploit the symbols of patriotism, to assume the role of defenders of national independence, to attack fascism without demanding an end to capitalism as the only remedy, and, most important, to enter upon alliances with other parties, on the basis of fronts or on the basis of a government in which Communists might participate.”,/i>
This is why the discussion on the leaked JournoList postings about establishing a “popular front” were so disturbing. Who else talks about “popular fronts” except committed Communists? How many Americans are even aware of the phrase?
The mysterious silence
As I understand it: Obama and the Dems asked for, and got, $850 billion for a one-time, emergency stimulus plan. Then they simply added most of that ($700 billion or more) to the budget baseline! Why didn’t the Republicans–and conservative/libertarian commentators–scream bloody murder? Hey! That was a ONE-TIME, emergency waste-of-money, not something we repeat EVERY YEAR! Remove it from the budget now! (Gee, ya think that extra $700 billion has something to do with those huge deficits?)
And why aren’t they screaming bloody murder now? Something like 20% – 24% of this budget monstrosity simply doesn’t belong there. It should be pruned off like a dead branch. Instead, they’re arguing about how to generate more revenue and who’ll be forced to pay it.
This makes no sense to me. Is there something I’m missing? Can someone explain it?
Tactically, go with Glen Reynolds.
However, I’d lift the tax rate much higher on crony capitalists.
1) The Reynolds tax on Federal appointees — and elected officials moving on down the lane to K Street.
2) A surtax on the cronyist class — those making more than a million dollars per year — up towards 90% — but in stages.
This particular tax is going to apply to Hollywood and Wall Street and other crony businessmen.
3) A surtax on giga-estates — those beyond $ 100,000,000.
4) A termination of cell phones as Chicklets.
5) A provision for future educational loans to be entered into bankruptcy — right along with other personal debts.
[ Free financing has permitted a scalping bubble in education almost as extreme as the CRAPolicy real estate funding bubble. ]
6) Inclusion of in-kind benefits as taxable income — to be imputed by schedule determined by Congress. This can be designed to eliminate the cliff-function/ tax ramp/ benefits cut-off that is currently causing recipients to shun even part-time employment.
Consequently, such individuals NEVER rack up enough experience/ labor market credibility to gain full-time employment — ever. Welfare, for them, becomes a monkey-trap.
7) Include some surtax to stop mortgage servicing banks from gaming the system. As it stands, they do even better when properties under their tender care default than if they don’t. (!)
[ The boiler-plate in all of the mortgage pass-throughs provides bonus profits for institutions — only during the recovery phase. They are FAT monies.]
8) Include some legal sanctions against foreclosure mills engaging in RICO fraud. Call it out by name. Clarify that fake affidavits are RICO fraud — not just plain old error.
9) Establish a DOJ department directly tasked with ferreting out such players.
10) Require all educational institutions receiving Federally sanctioned student loan funding to Web-publish, in database format, the employment out comes of their graduates / drop outs.
In particular, the default rates for each and every institution must be a Web-public record.
[ SEC style Ks and 10-Ks ought to be imitated. An EDGAR system is what I have in mind.]
The House ought to toss those money-linked notions into their bills.
Gary
Please. This is a political blog, not an accounting forum. Trying to make complex budget issues easy to understand just isn’t helpful.
The surtax on giga-estates would be an Alternate Minimum Tax — which would force the estate to re-congeal back into one entity — for the purpose of this Alternate Minimum Tax — so that no amount of estate planning/ splitting could obviate the Federal cut on giga-estates.
=======
The ORIGINAL rationale for the estate tax was to terminate any hereditary class that might arise. Such social classes are not constituted by even medium-sized business estates.
It takes a Gates, Ford, Jobs, Rockefeller, Lucas to bequeath a gigi-fortune so massive that it re-directs society decades after ones death.
As we have seen, the net result has ALWAYS been to enable the meddling class.
Jobs didn’t believe in such players. That’s the real reason why he never enabled them while alive — or by his estate.
Other than Carnegie, I can’t think of a single giga-fortune that has not been perverted into the exact opposite of what the granter intended.
At the top of the list is the MacArthur Foundation. He must be spinning like a lathe, in his grave.
A short history lesson. Reagan and Tip O’Neill made a deal. Tax cuts with 2-1 spending cuts. The tax cuts happened, the spending cuts didn’t. G.H.W. Bush (“Read my lips, no new taxes!”) agreed to increase taxes for 2-1 spending cuts. The tax increases happened, the spending cuts didn’t.
No matter the deal, as long as democrats have any power, they will never, ever cut spending. Even now the cuts offered by Obama are not true cuts, they are decreases in the planned increases. There are people on the right who keep pointing this out, but their voices are not heard by the masses. (The MSM does not let their voices be heard.)
Speaking of masses, here’s a video of some Obama voters on Black Friday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O6IMYSSs7c
That’s what it’s come down to.
I’m beginning to believe the fall over the cliff is unstoppable. The best the Republicans can hope for is to try to get Obama in a position where he is obviously responsible for the fall. Give him a 1% tax increase on the 2%, plus some entitlement cuts, and real discretionary spending cuts. My guess is that he will balk and ask for more. Then who will the “people” blame? Gotta do something like that, IMO.
Guys, the game is rigged! No matter what the repubs do or say, that info will never get to the public without MSM spin that completely distorts the repubs actions and message.
Not that the repubs are particularly savvy but even if they were, the left will simply tell bigger lies and the MSM will report it as fact and put a blanket of silence over the repubs. Just look at Benghazi, for the best example possible.
Geoffrey –
I still contend that Boehner has always intended to protect defense spending at all costs. He will cave, and always planned to. Ohio has hauled in $64 billion in defense spending over the last 12 years. He has no intention of cutting defense because he’s out of a job if he does.
As for they could have done nothing, I also disagree, and have for a long time. The republicans under his leadership are the most unimaginative dummies in recent memory. Guy Benson at Townhall has a few good suggestions about how they could play the PR gameto their advantage :
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/12/04/anatomy_of_a_flop_gop_cliff_counteroffer_fizzles
But that won’t happen under the republican establishment. This a battle Boner wants to end one way, the rest of us be damned. He will protect his pork at all cost. He’s already thrown the conservatives under the bus- the game he’s been playing is to protect his cronies and their seats. He gets to have it both ways. He gets all the pundits and the right seeing him as a statesman, a governor, and a victim of the media, while saving his ass and getting rid of the only people in his party that challenge the status quo. Poor John.
I don’t see a victim or a principled leader, I see a calculating politician who has no interest in winning control or leading us out of this. When they lose the house in 2016 because he’s caved in, he will go on as a congrssman, safe and happy, winning kudos from the media for his bipartisan nature, and pretend to give a damn about big spending democrats as the minority leader. He’s a joke and a phony.
A bold, imaginative, principled and dynamic leader COULD find a way to win at PR, but that’s not what he wants.
My message to the House republicans: fire Boner, Hire a marketing firm, hire PR professionals and pull your heads out your asses. As GuyBensonpointout, it’s all about stagecraft. For Christs sake, even Harryareid is mocking you idiots.
Occam,
“Popular Front” is late to the game. I believe “Politically Correct” is also a communist term, and it has been in common usage here for at least 20 years. I recall hearing it about the time of the Thomas hearings.
I am sure you know or can guess what it means. The truth must be abandoned whenever it stands in the way of political aims (power).
But I must have first encountered it in Darkness at Noon or something Solzhenitskin wrote.
Best, Sefton
That is the entire problem in one sentence. We have only calculating politicians. We have no
“bold, imaginative, principled and dynamic leader.” And so, we’ve been screwed, are being screwed, and will continue to be screwed by the very people elected to lead us.
Boehner has been systematically cutting Tea Party representatives out of committee positions. He is acting much more forcefully against conservatives than against Obama and the Democrats.
At a time when the radical Left has seized almost all of the levers of power, the so-called “opposition” could not be more craven or feckless. The Republican leadership simply wants to hang on to their perks, the country be damned. They have no principles at all. They seem to be content with minority status, as long as they have a seat at the table of power.
I predict that the Republicans will lose the House in 2014. The base voters will continue to melt away, as they see no reason to continue to support such a pathetic joke of a party.
More and more, I’m coming to agree with Libertarians who say that there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them.
rickl, 12:35 am —
I agree with your entire argument right up until the very end. My only quibble there is, the “R” party is the only game we’ve got. The “L” party is good for one’s political purity and moral hygiene, but by the time an “L” party could ever make a ^genuine^ difference, we’ll already have been the USSA* for decades.
* United Socialist States of America
For my children and their children, I don’t want to give up that easily.
It’s a messy, complex world we’ve been handed. The “L” party just strikes me as too much of a dodge.
MJR…
The RNC signed a consent decree that makes it essentially IMPOSSIBLE for that entity to stop the 0bomba political machine from stealing elections — like the last one.
It dates all the way back to 1982 — and is still in force. It will not lapse until the DEMOCRATS decide it’s okay.
And Hell freezes over.
In the meantime, the RNC cannot actively stop voter fraud — especially fraud committed by ACORN and its successors on behalf of the Democrats.
Google around on Consent Decree, 1982, RNC, and New Jersey.
You’ll fall out of your chair.
The Tea Party needs to launch a new political party — and then caucus with the Republicans in the House/ Senate — obtaining committee seats that way.
Only a new party can get out from under the insane consent decree that the RNC penned, decades ago.
A new party would not be held back from pursuing the corruption that abounds in the Democrat ranks.
It really is that simple.
The Republicans are as dead as the Whigs in 1856. They just don’t know it, yet.
BTW, the Consent Decree is entirely loaded against the RNC — and for the DNC. It was drafted by the Democrat Machine of New Jersey.
blert . . .
Just fell out of my chair.
For anyone else still following this thread, here’s a key link:
http://www.examiner.com/article/consent-decree-from-1982-prohibits-the-rnc-from-combatting-vote-fraud
I/we may have occasion to re-post this at an opportune time in an opportune context.
neo . . . I hope you follow this one.
Thanks, blert.
Our goose is cooked. Oh My Gawd.
http://www.examiner.com/article/consent-decree-from-1982-prohibits-the-rnc-from-combatting -vote-fraud
Consent decree from 1982 prohibits the RNC from combatting vote fraud
By: James Simpson
The Examiner
November 19, 2012
The news gets worse every day. Apparently in 1981 some really stupid New Jersey Republicans played games with minority vote challenges that really did amount to voter intimidation. Much like the 2008 Black Panther Party voter intimidation case, they allegedly recruited off-duty police officers to wear “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands and walk around polls with firearms visible.
The Democratic National Committee sued and won a consent decree that would from then on severely restrict the RNC’s ability to engage in any meaningful way in activities to assure voter integrity. Among other things, the decree states that Republican Party operatives must:
“…refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities there and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting; and the conduct of such activities disproportionately in or directed toward districts that have a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic populations shall be considered relevant evidence of the existence of such a factor and purpose.”
In 1986, Louisiana Republicans were sued again, resulting in a modification to the consent decree in 1987 that added language defining ballot security to mean: “ballot integrity, ballot security or other efforts to prevent or remedy vote fraud.” The decree also added:
“…a preclearance provision that prohibits the RNC from assisting or engaging in ballot security activities unless the RNC submits the program to the Court and to the DNC with 20 days’ notice and the Court determines that the program complies with the Consent Decree and applicable law.”
So the DNC gets to see what Republicans are planning to do and can alter their strategy accordingly. Presumably they can also appeal to the court to prevent Republicans from doing anything that might interfere.
This court decision, flying under the radar for decades, explains why the RNC has done little to support voter integrity measures, and has given Democrats carte blanche to run wild with vote fraud in inner cities for years.
Republicans have repeatedly attempted to get this ruling altered or vacated but have as yet been unsuccessful. The judge who originally heard the case, Dickinson R. Debevoise, a Carter appointee, has been retired since 1994, but until 2009, came out of retirement repeatedly to decide against any appeals the RNC put forth.
The latest attempt was filed in March 2012, and was turned down by a three judge panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Two of the three judges were appointed by Democrats, Sloviter (Carter), and Greenaway, (Obama). Stapleton was appointed by Nixon.
Blame for this is meaningless.
Of course, Republicans will get the blame because they represent “Congress” collectively, even though the Senate holds the majority. That means little or nothing, because…
Statewide seats will be won based on local politics, not national issues like this.
The next Federal election will be, as it always is, a base election where congressmen and senators are elected, and those will be won by successful incumbents or good challengers untethered to national level decisions. Remember that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t care what the nation thinks of her as long as she can get reelected.
The ensuing economic condition will be blamed on the president after it takes hold and not be blamed to the economic cliff. But this won’t hurt Obama because he’s not running again and Joe Biden doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected.
Republicans need to stick to their principals and appeal to their base. If that means going over the cliff, then so be it.
Wait a minute. I though the Bush tax cuts were only tax cuts for the rich. That’s what the left has been saying for over ten years. Now they are somehow truely tax cuts for everyone??? Does this mean the Democrats lied to us for ten years? So who was right the Republicans or the Democrats?