Go ahead and shoot the messenger. See where it gets you.
Whatever it is you think you're accomplishing, to object to Cenk's argument on these grounds is to affirm and entrench what's really objectionable about its premise, which is that disillusionment is going to significantly if not critically depress turnout for Dem candidates. Even if you buy it as a prediction about November -- and I'm not sure I do -- the claim pertains properly to the wishy-washy apolitical middle of the Obama '08 votership, not to the Kos-reading, MSNBC-watching activist base, who we're supposed to believe will be contaminated and paralyzed at the mere mention of voter apathy. Believe me, Cenk Uygur and his audience are not the people we need to worry about.
The point, obviously, is not to celebrate the prospect but to ask -- in characteristically flamboyant talk-radio style, if you're Cenk -- inevitably unpleasant questions about how we got here in the first place. I'll do you the courtesy of assuming you don't think, as Fox would have us believe, that Democratic candidates are struggling because they and their legislative agenda are hopelessly captive to the radical socialist granola-munching base. So, what happened here? Did the landslide majorities of 2008 collapse because a few relatively obscure media figures have criticized the President from the left? Or did it happen because the Democratic Congress and White House, however well-intentioned and capable you credit their leaders with being, ultimately haven't given voters much to get excited about? Or at the very least, that they haven't made any credible effort to communicate to voters exactly what it is they should be excited about? Seriously -- if you honestly believe Rahm has done a bang-up job with either of those things, I'm very keen to hear your explanation for why the outlook for November is so grim. Cenk may have a big mouth, but Glenn Beck has a much louder megaphone. So does the President, last I checked.
Look, if you truly think there's a potentially decisive number of committed Democratic voters out there who will not merely piss and moan, but will actually choose not to vote because of anything Cenk Uygur says about Rahm or the WH -- and not because of anything Rahm & the WH have done, or have failed to do -- sorry, but you're not insulting Cenk, you're insulting Democratic voters. You're also insulting Barack Obama, who in your version of events is getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of bloggers and YouTube ranters who on a good day will reach one millionth of a percent of Beck's audience. And if you think the hypothetical nonvotes of a few disgruntled lefties will decide these elections, over and against the prevailing sentiment among those teeming unemployed masses of panicky independents, teabaggers, hate junkies and assorted low-information voters who make up the 2010 electorate, you don't understand simple arithmetic. Worst of all, if that's really and truly your read on the situation we face, you're not only deluded about electoral math and human psychology, you've ceded any remaining common ground might still exist between you and the handful of folks who share most of your political goals and actually care enough to want to be involved in what's left of the discourse around here. Seriously, who's sowing the seeds of division?
And anyway, if you really believe there's a vote out there to get out, why aren't you busy getting it out? Whatever you may think of Cenk's analysis or his rhetorical style, he's on TV and radio every day attacking Republicans and fighting for strong progressive Democrats -- including President Obama, on those occasions when he acts like one. What are you doing, other than preemptively assigning blame to people who had no hand in the inept politicking and ineffectual policymaking that brought us to this sorry state?