Motley Moose – Archive

Quick answer: pretty much everything.

When I was phonebanking in 2010 for OFA (Obama For America) in Wisconsin, the unified campaign effort was tasked with electing a Democratic governor, re-electing Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), and electing Democrats to the House of Representatives. The phone script included this: “Please vote to send people to Washington DC who will help President Obama advance his agenda”.

On the list of people we were calling were those who had voted for President Obama in 2008, people who should have been interested in advancing his agenda because, in theory, they voted to do just that only two years before.

But mid-terms are funny things. Many of the people I called said they only voted in presidential elections. Some of them were unhappy because they didn’t get their pony so much of the president’s agenda had to be set aside to deal with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression … a parting “gift” from Worst President in History George W. Bush.

Well, Democrats were not enthused but Republicans were because they had two things firing up their base: a black man (who was not even born in ‘Murica!!) had stolen the election (ACORNNNN!!) … and the Affordable Care Act had been passed, ushering in death panels and government-run health care and frightening all your doctors into fleeing to the libertarian paradise of Somalia.

So turnout was low and we ended up with Scott Walker and a solid Republican legislature here in Wisconsin. And we sent Ron Johnson to the Senate and Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble to the House of Representatives. Elsewhere, Michigan got Rick Snyder, Ohio got John Kasich, Pennsylvania got Tom Corbett, Florida got Rick Scott, Iowa got Terry Branstad, Maine got Paul LePage … and America got Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner.

The past twenty months, since January 20, 2008, have been a very traumatic experience for those who follow politics. The polarization of the American political process has never been greater. Raw hatred spews from Right and Left on a daily minute-by-minute basis. It looks like things are only going to get worse before they get better.

One of Barack Obama’s campaign slogans was, “Change we can believe in.” In retrospect, that may have been a very poor choice for a slogan. Any change that didn’t go far enough was only going to anger some on the Left. Those on the Left that are mad at the President have turned this anger into a feedback loop where any change is bad, because it can never go far enough to satisfy them.

It’s worse on the Right. There is one thing all conservatives have in common and that is a fear of change. They cling to the status quo or pine for a time that change has passed by. That is the essence of conservatism. Talk of change to a conservative is like a waving a red flag in front of a bull. Trumpeting your intention to bring change is guaranteed to bring them running to man the ramparts of status quo.