A meme that we ignore at our peril is rapidly gaining traction. It is disturbing for its inaccuracy, but infinitely more so for its potential impact on the body politic. As with most disturbing political memes, it began with right-wing radio and Fox News (at least that's where I first heard it). But it has now seeped in the culture more broadly.
It is: "Barack Obama blames EVERYTHING on George Bush....HAHAHA"
I only heard this on the aforementioned right-wing mouthpieces until recently. Late in 2009, though, I began to hear it from a friend of mine who had actually VOTED for Obama. I didn't pay it much heed at the time.
But then I read Dave Barry's Year in Review 2009. Now I must admit that up to this point, I've always been a fan of Barry. True enough, he's not a lefty by any means, and he's a bit bourgeois; but I find him generally funny and usually willing to skewer the right maybe a bit more than the left.
How many people read Dave Barry? Not many, I suppose. But this is how it starts. And I'm hearing this sort of talk more openly from my aquaintances just in the last month. "Obama's been running things for a year - when is he going to take responsiblity? When is he going to stop blaming Bush?" THIS is what I'm hearing now from folks who never liked Obama, but have been too humbled to say much to me in the past year on political matters. The right clearly feels emboldened to attack.
A depressingly slim majority of folks, according to the polls, still blame Bush more than Obama. But if things don't turn around quick, a meme like this can push that number the other direction - which is how it is already trending - precipitously. Now, a comic penning a piece such as Barry's of itself isn't such a big deal. But we all know that when a notion like this takes root, it can snowball.
The question is: What do we do?
The truth is - THIS IS ALL BUSH'S FAULT! Expecting Obaman to undo the damage he did to the country in 2 short years is ludicrous to put it mildly. Everyone here knows the hows and whys, which I don't want to belabor. But how do we make this case in light of a zeitgeist that seems increasingly likely to muck us - and Obama - as buckpasses and blameshifters. I submit that unless the employment situation picks up significantly in the next 10 months, we had best have a coordinated counteroffensive to this meme. And we better have people working on it now! Alisky was 100% right about the effectiveness of ridicule as a politcal weapon and I don't want to see it used, ironically, to take down all hope of progressive action on the climate, economy and health care for another generation - which a GOP victory in November would do!
Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?