After decades of being cast in strictly GOP-friendly terms, the nations’ long-running debate about taxes and spending has abruptly shifted from a right-wing frame to a left-wing frame. Practically overnight. And for this, we can blame Obama.
Follow me over the fold to understand why:
In 2010, after two years of an intransigent Senate dragging its feet on the Obama agenda, the voters who were unable to see or comprehend who was dragging the entire recovery process down rewarded the GOP with the keys to the House. Obama (like the rest of us) saw the Teabaggers as nothing more than a bunch of ignorant loonies bent on political revenge and personal self-aggrandizement.
Smartly, he ducked out of view for a few months, and let the GOP do their thing. The radical, extremist nutjobs elected as governors in several states immediately led the charge with vicious assaults on unions, lavish tax breaks for the wealthy, ruinous cuts to education, public works and assistance, and hand-outs (and –jobs) for themselves. The public saw. Millions were outraged.
Then, he let the GOP have a compromise to avoid government shutdown. We here on Kos railed, but the compromise wasn’t for the benefit of us on the left. It was to show that Obama was a reasonable guy, who could meet a fella halfway.
The GOP, acting like unhinged Nazi freakazoids, immediately disowned their own compromise, shrieked like crack-addled harpies that it wasn’t enough, and proceeded to put their really big ticket items on the table, thinking that now that they’ve got Obama in a corner, he’s just gotta fold.
Instead, Obama then stood up, and was able to completely change the subject. After the nation watched in some astonishment as huge tax giveaways to the rich were almost always matched by ruinous spending cuts in the same amounts for the rest of us, he put them in the spotlight as the main problem. He made it plain that Medicare and Social Security are off the table. The GOP spent 4 months winding their own nooses out of hatred, bigotry, and revenge-based politics. And Obama just let them.
Now, 2012 is going to be about the tax rates on the upper 1%. It’s going to be about the middle class, and when do we ever get to stop carrying those fat useless fucks on our backs. It’s going to be about actually balancing the budget. And I even think more Defense cuts could be on the table. Because, let’s face it, that’s the only budgetary item that hasn’t been put up for review by the GOP. The public is starting to catch on. Even the poll numbers show it. The GOP has shown themselves to be unhinged extremists, and unwilling to compromise. Obama has done the "bipartisanship" thing, and it seems like that is now past (for the time being, at least). It is now the Republicans who must compromise, and if they can't the public will have a clear example of Obama being reasonable, and the GOP being arrogant jerks.
Pretty smart, I’d say. I don’t subscribe to the 11-dimensional chess Obama. More like a poker player. And those stupid fuckwits in the GOP showed their weak hand too soon.