If Barack Obama wins a second term and Democrats gain big in Congress in 2012, we will all look back to September/October 2011 as the launching pad for this rocket to significant change in the United States.
I say this fully aware that Liberals have a unique ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory so this is, in some ways, a cautionary tale.
But many things changed in this pivotal two month period to redirect the philosophies that guide our nation. Four key factors are transforming both the conversation and the conventional wisdom in America. These factors have all come together this autumn, 2011, to create this significant pivot point for America.
From the summer Health Care Reform battles of 2009 through the 2010 mid-term elections and up to the Debt Ceiling Debate, President Obama and Progressives found themselves playing defense, their typical position on issues from the Stimulus to Health Care Reform to debt to the ‘weak on defense’ stereotype.
Then the air started to cool, the leaves began to saturate with color and the all powerful Conservative movement began to weaken and wilt.
Here’s why:
Factor 1: The Jon Stewart/ Stephen Colbert/ Bill Maher/ MSNBC phenomenon. Laugh if you must but these people, using everything from brilliant satire to well researched facts to a barrage of video taped busts of conservative hypocrisy, have leveled the playing field with Fox “News” , helping viewers on the liberal side codify their arguments. Progressives have long had the frustrating tendency to try to explain economic conditions in the most professorial terms while Conservatives were brilliant at creating bumper sticker ideology.
Bless his heart but Barack Obama never stood a chance trying to convince the American people that Health Care Exchanges were something to rally behind when Sarah Palin was scaring the bejesus out of everyone with her fake Death Panel accusations (the modern day Welfare Queen).
The relentless pursuit of, not just the truth, but a new way to convey the truth, by Stewart, Colbert, Maher, Olberman, Maddow, Mathews and O’Donnell, have given Liberals a new way to talk that put matters into perspective. And the fact that they never relented, never gave up the argument as liberals so often do has had a long term effect.
It’s very difficult now for a Conservative like Eric Cantor to make a statement, say, calling Occupy Wall Street Protesters a ‘mob’ without one of these communicators pulling up the video of racists slogans, guns and the heckling of the disabled from Tea Party rallies and town halls that Cantor has supported from the very beginning.
When Michelle Bachmann slams the Stimulus, it takes less than one news cycle for a Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O’Donnell to pull a quote from Bachmann lobbying for Stimulus funds for her district because she knows it will create jobs. While it’s tragic these “Infortainers” are doing the jobs journalists should be doing, their efforts are no less effective because they expose the ugly truth.
And now all these entities have longevity and mainstream credibility. Maher has been at it since 1993 beginning with Politically Incorrect and then Real Time on HBO. Stewart is beloved and his brilliant satire is usually replayed by all the morning shows the next day like David Letterman’s Top Ten List used to in the 90s.
The information they are presenting is out there. Conservatives can no longer cloak their misinformation and hypocrisy behind the frightened, under resourced and lazy journalism industry.
Factor 2: The face of the Conservatism: When we think of the conservative movement these days, we rarely think of Reagan, Kemp, Eisenhower and Dole. Instead the face of this movement is Palin, Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Beck and Limbaugh. With the people in Factor 1 leveling a daily barrage of truth, the face of conservatism has lost respect from independent and middle of the road thinkers who could be easily swayed one direction or another.
The Republican primary debates have been a disaster for Republicans. Americans don’t hate gays and lesbians anymore. Most people know someone who is gay or lesbian and understands they are humans who are biologically born that way. So when Bachmann’s husband tries to convert them, or audience members in a Republican debate boo a gay soldier who is putting his life on the line for the American flag, that’s not inspiring anyone.
And it’s being replayed and replayed and replayed for all to see.
When Herman Cain says people who don’t have a job and are not rich must be lazy, the millions of men and women who have been trying desperately to find a replacement for the job they lost when CEOs of a large corporations found it more profitable to lay off thousands at a time, don’t just disagree, they are insulted. And what’s more, they understand now more than ever that the Republicans are representing the richest 1 percent in our society, the largest corporations and not the other 99%.
Sarah Palin is one of the keys here. Tea Partiers absolutely love her. They worship her. 50+ Conservative men have the hots for her. Conservative women see her as an inspiration. But Sarah Palin proved to be a woman of little substance, extraordinary ignorance, high school level pettiness and, frankly a liar. From the Bridge to Nowhere lie at the 2008 GOP convention to death panels and lies about Obama being a pal of terrorists, Sarah Palin has lost her allure. When someone speaks passionately of family values and abstinence while everyone knows she let her daughter’s, boyfriend stay overnight in the house while impregnating her, then her arguments become nothing more than a house of well coiffed cards.
Replayed and replayed and replayed by the Factor 1 crowd and spread like wildfire on Facebook. .
Sarah Palin still represents, in a spiritual and cultural way, the modern Conservative movement. That’s very bad for conservatives. Palin’s credibility was all but destroyed among middle of the road thinkers a few nights after the horrific shooting in Arizona that left a 9 year old bright and engaging girl dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords with a bullet in her head.
Hours before President Obama gave one of the most calming and galvanizing speeches of his life; a memorial to 9 year old Christina Taylor Green, Sarah Palin was bemoaning the fact that she felt everyone was blaming her for the shooting. Sarah made it all about Sarah, while her sworn enemy, President Obama made it all about that little girl and the brave Congresswoman and asked us as a nation to stop belittling and insulting each other.
From booing Iraq War soldiers, to the applause from Cain when he blamed joblessness on the jobless, from the audience members cheering the idea of letting a hypothetical uninsured man die, these debates have been an absolute disaster for Republicans. They may very well recover with Mitt Romney, the only sensible candidate in the entire race, but he will not get the support of the Tea Party crowd and most importantly, Rush Limbaugh in the general election. Those voters will stay home.
Besides, Rush makes more money when a political opponent is in office.
Factor 3: Obama the Steamroller: Many of us who are used to President Obama following inspirational speeches with months of badly played negotiations behind doors, were surprised to see him standing in front of the Brent Spence Bridge that borders’ Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky and John Boehner’s Ohio, demanding that the bridge and other public works projects be fixed. We were equally surprised to see the President call out McConnell, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by name in shaming them for their obstruction of his Jobs Bill.
But the President didn’t stop there. He has been touring across the country making statements that are nothing less than left hooks to the jaws of the right wing. "Well you know what? If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or teacher makes me a warrior for the working class, I'll wear that charge as a badge of honor…Because the only class warfare I've seen is the battle that's been waged against the middle class in this country for a decade."
Those kinds of statements are a complete transformation of the conventional wisdom in America. For so many years progressives have taken defensive stands on the class warfare accusation. The President has given a very clear signal that those days may be over.
Obama has been relentless; moving across the country, from Texas to North Carolina, from Virginia, from Colorado to Nevada; a state with low taxes, very little regulation and perhaps the most depressed economy in the nation.
Then the President and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made a very smart strategic move. Yes I said it. They made a smart strategic move.
They broke up the bill and forced the Senate to once again filibuster a segment of the Jobs Billl; this one called, “Teachers, First Responders Back to Work Act.” denying funding for provide funding for Teachers, police officers and first responders. To pay for it every millionaire would pay a 5% increase in taxes for every dollar earned over a million.
Reid will no doubt put more of these bills up for a vote. They will lose every one of them to the GOP filibuster, adding to the absurd record of more filibusters than at any time in American history. Americans will continue to see Republicans vote against building and fixing roads and bridges, electrical grids and sewage systems. They will see Republicans obstructing the hiring of teachers and police officers. And they will see Republicans` railing against tax hikes on the likes of millionaires like Eric Cantor.
Once again the President channeled the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt in a visit to conservative leaning Chesterfield County, Virginia; the heart of Eric Cantor’s district. “If they vote against these proposals, if they say ‘no’ to steps we know that will put people back to work right now, they’re not going to have to answer to me. They’re going to have to answer to you.”
Polls show the President’s relentless verbal attack is gaining significant traction. An NBC News/Wall Street journal poll that asked about a bill that “would cut payroll taxes, fund new road construction, extend unemployment benefits, and that it would be paid for by increasing taxes on the wealthy -- 63 percent say they favor the bill and 32 percent oppose it.”
And then of course there were the photos of the bloodied and now dead brutal dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Not only did every single Republican of significance berate President Obama when he moved forward with his strategy of the United States’ involvement in the NATO action to protect the Rebels and civilians in the overthrow of Libya’s government, they also continued to criticize him after his strategy was as clearly vindicated as vindication gets.
The following day the President announced plans to get America the hell out of Iraq by the end of the year. Once again the GOP went after him, giving Americans a stark reminder of how so many were called unpatriotic for not believing George Bush and Dick Cheney in their buildup to that foolish and deadly war.
40 years of Progressives playing defense on Defense ended at the same time the Colonel’s heart stopped beating.
Factor 4: Occupy Movement: This movement is becoming more and more powerful every day. From a small group we read about in Facebook in early September to massive protests of hundreds of thousands of people across the world, Eric Cantor’s description of these people as “mobs” did not appeal to middle of the road thinkers.
As Fox “News”, Limbaugh, Cantor and the rest of the righty crowd tried to use the same old tired tactics to paint a negative portrait of these protesters, more and more Americans who are struggling every day in the wake of Wall Street greed, ignored those insults and quickly identified with the protesters.
Limbaugh had several gems in describing the senior citizens, construction workers, police officers, working parents and young students in the Occupy movement that spread quickly across the nation.
"Pure, Genuine Parasites,"
"Bored Trust Fund Kids"
"Perpetually Lazy, Spoiled Rotten, 99 Percent White Kids".
The red meat Dittoheads in Rush Nation loved it. The rest of American ignored him. John Stewart ridiculed him. And Rush’s ludicrous insults were played and replayed and replayed to equal ridicule.
As the Occupy Protests have grown and gathered attention, something else has happened that hasn’t happened, frankly, since Ronald Reagan came on the scene and created a 3 decade long
conventional wisdom; the Conservative side of the conversation is no longer in the forefront.
Journalists and modern day Democrats are no longer accepting the Conservative conventional wisdom that liberals want to give hard earned middle class tax dollars over to lazy people who don’t want to work.
The new narrative is now in the forefront. The top 1% have followed the immoral philosophy of greed to the tipping point, putting the rest of the country on a path to economic devastation.
And now all of these hard working and devoted parents and grandparents, soldiers and police officers and teachers, construction workers and students working their way through school, are no longer distracted by birth certificates and death panels.
Autumn, 2011 may well prove to be the shot of real change heard around the world.
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