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Like so much that goes on in Starboardville, it makes no sense whatsoever. Unless, of course, you realize that the real logic is actually about avoiding sense. Hence the tenacious embrace of dogma, the facts be damned. In this particular case, what the facts show is that regressive economic policies drove the economy off the cliff, and are still now causing enormous pain for huge numbers of people worldwide. How unbelievably cheeky is it, therefore, for the Neanderthal Set to come along and trash the very people who have rescued the economy from the mega-crisis they themselves bequeathed to all of us? You'd think that after all the damage they're responsible for creating these nice folks would have the decency to go crawl off into the closet and hide for a century or two. Ah, but that would be to misunderstand profoundly the movement we're dealing with here.
The facts show that regressive policies drove the economy over the cliff, alright. And what the facts also show is that the only thing that prevented it from smashing headlong into the ground 300 feet below was the federal government's intervention. Meanwhile, what was the right's prescription to deal with the outrageous mess they themselves had made?
That's a third way in which their critiques of the current government's policies are so obscene. What is their alternative? Near as I can tell, it's do nothing. Or, give some additional huge tax breaks to the wealthy -- which also means do nothing, but while adding even more to the national debt.
Isn't it bad enough that these lovely folks and their lovely policies have wrecked the country? Isn't even worse that they get so agitated at the people trying to repair the damage that they foam at the mouth in rage? Yes and yes. But it's a still greater crime yet that the folks shredding the folks fixing have absolutely no solutions of their own to offer as alternatives to the nightmare they've created.
It actually gets worse from there, however. It isn't a nightmare they've created, but rather nightmares. The economy is only Problem One. Then there are the wars, the environment, education, infrastructure, debt, human rights and lots more.
We are talking here about a country deep in multiple crises. Maybe Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt had more on their plates when they assumed the presidency. Maybe. But if they did, only they did. Obama came into office with the country just about going off the rails in just about every way possible. And the people who gave him -- and us -- these disasters have done nothing but criticize him in the fiercest manner from the get-go.
Worse is that their reckless critiques are gaining traction everyday, and the Obama presidency is sinking rapidly. This is chiefly because Obama seems incapable of mounting an effective communications strategy, incapable of advocating for his policy preferences, and incapable even of defending his administration against the most scurrilous and deceitful of attacks.
That adds salt to the already grievous wound, but worst of all is that he really is one of them. A close examination of his policies quickly reveals that they run the gamut from regressive economics to regressive foreign policy to regressive human rights and beyond.
Maybe that's why the president has such a hard time defending himself from the insane and obscene critiques of the hypocritical, historically myopic, and alternative-lacking regressive right. He's merely the kinder, gentler version of them.
Lucky us. Once we had a choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Now it's Tweedle-Destruction and Tweedle-Disaster.
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