The Government You Love to Hate
Rumor has it that night crawlers al dente will be featured in the congressional cafeteria this month. This comes on the heels of a new Pew Research Center poll showing that fewer people than ever trust their government. I’d like to feign surprise in the interest of a good headline, but this isn’t exactly shocking or new. The first elections I ever took part in came on the heels of Watergate, so I’ve seen mistrust of beltway denizens spiking and receding more than a few times over the ensuing decades.
But to find examples of Americans questioning their elected leaders we don’t need to dig through the history books as far back as Tricky Dick, Iran-Contra, or Monica Lewinski. As Amy Walter points out in the National Journal, Pew found an almost identical trend only four years ago.
In the Pew poll, respondents who described themselves as angry with government jumped from 13 percent in 2004 to 20 percent in 2006. What fueled that increase? Democrats. Some 28 percent of the angry respondents four years ago were Democrats, 21 percent were independents and just 7 percent were Republicans. Today, the overall percentage of people who say they’re angry is basically the same, but it’s Republicans who are the angry ones.
It would be easy — not to mention lazy — to make the leap from those numbers to a claim that this is nothing more than partisan party hackery infesting the homeland. Democrats are angry when a Republican is in the White House and vice versa. But when you mix the reaction of the independents and unregistered voters into the mix, that argument begins to sag around the edges.
So, to borrow a page from the vice president, what’s the big effing deal with all these people grabbing their pitchforks and questioning their betters in Washington? Over at the American Thinker, Neil Braithwaite thinks he’s nailed down the answer. Put simply, we’re seeing a perfect storm as America plunges headlong toward socialism.
The current economic and social conditions of not only our country, but also the world, have culminated in a perfect storm for seeding a European style socialist government here in America. In the midst of these unprecedented conditions, many citizens, businesses and political leaders are being overtaken by this powerful storm, leading them to sometimes abandon rational thought and accept the unimaginable — a socialist style government in America.
Today, the overall percentage of people who say they’re angry is basically the same, but it’s Republicans who are the angry ones.
Despite the claims made by conservatives on these pages that tea parties are agreed with by most Americans etc it appears that the statistical case looks like tea parties aren’t having any real voter infuence at all.
In a CNN article re tea parties Tom DeLuca from Fordham U. says that these have more of an impact on republicans than voters taken as a whole.
Both the Walter and the CNN article suggest the same thing.
If the economy doesn’t improve soon and/or the price of gas goes up, sure, we can expect to see democrat losses as the result. This of course is the expected result; flip party affiliations and have the same economic woes and the republicans see losses. No surprises here.
In sum it appears the tea parties overall aren’t having any sort of major league effect. Back to the drawing board for the partiers.
Whistling past the graveyard. Go on thinking that; you’ll be stupified in November when your leftist world comes crashing down around your ears.
Trust in govt is down to 22%.
“trying to do too much”
How about “trying to control too much”?
I think Mr. Shaw misses one important point (at least for me, anyway). I think Americans are so angry right now because they feel that their opinions don’t matter anymore. This is supposed to be a representative republic and our elected officials are supposed to do what WE want them to do, not the other way around. Our Founding Fathers created our government that way to prevent any elected officials from taking over the government. And, for the most part, Washington listened to public opinion. Even when Clinton tried his health care plan, it was dropped after public opinion ran heavily against it.
So what happened recently to sour the American public on Mr. Obama? Perhaps that in every, yes EVERY, poll that was taken on Obamacare the people who supported it were in the MINORITY. In fact, a constant high MAJORITY opposed the plan. Then there were the massive town hall meetings, the Tea Party revolts, not to mention all the letters, phone calls, and e-mails to our elected officials, almost all of them going AGAINST Obamacare. And what did the Democrats do? They simply ignored us. They just “flipped the bird” to the American public, didn’t care what we thought, and pushed it through, even though about 60% or more of the American public did not want this legislation to pass.
And you wonder why Americans are angry at our government? You wonder why there is massive unrest out there? You wonder why the Tea Party movement is gaining steam and not losing it? You wonder why people are so passionate and motivated today about throwing these selfish bums out of office? Hmmm, let’s see, what major piece of legislation was just rammed through Congress against the will of the people? You’ll find your answer there and it was the last straw. November is coming ladies and gentlemen, then you really will be able to have your say again.
Doug Loss — Go on thinking that; you’ll be stupified in November when your leftist world comes crashing down around your ears.
I’m expecting voters to turn out a number of democrats. I even said this. And thanks again for proving the point I made in other threads that many conservatives are so wrapped up in far right ideology that they’re unable to distinguish between republican moderates and communists.
#3 Libertyship46 — This is supposed to be a representative republic and our elected officials are supposed to do what WE want them to do, not the other way around.
Representatives are supposed to use their judgement to work for your interest; they are not sock puppets.
Nobody in their right minds thinks ObamaCare is in the people’s interests.
It is not, it is designed for one purpose only, to increase power of govt over the people.
G.L. Alston #4, nice try but no. You said they are supposed “to use their judgement to work for your interest,” but who do you think tells them what our “interests” are? WE DO!!! They are supposed to represent us and through our communications with them (either through protesting, written communications, or any other means) our representatives are supposed to do what we want them to do. If this not the case, then Congress becomes a tyranny and can pass any laws they see fit, turning this republic into an oligarchy or dictatorship. They may not be sock puppets, but that’s why they are called “PUBLIC SERVANTS,” because they are supposed to heed the will of the public, NOT their own.
Except when 47% of workers end up paying no federal taxes and a percentage of that 47% get money back in excess of what they didn`t pay you can see why people would vote for the democraps and Obama. It`s ironic that BHO says we should all have skin in the game (as if we didn`t already) and VP Dummy says it`s `patriotic` to pay taxes I suppose they were only talking to we fools who do pay taxes.
For those of you who will be taken in by the upcoming leftist rhetoric regarding legalizing the illegals, if this is allowed to happen, it is YOU and your children who will ultimately be paying the price either through ever increasing tax burdens or simply having no job to go too. Your standard of living will suffer. Everyone`s standard of living will suffer and to what end?? The Left will throw the `R` word around like candy and demonize anyone who doesn`t agree.
Obama wants to `level the playing field` not only within the US but without. He wants to bring the US to its knees economically for no other reason than his own warped sense of social justice. Personally, I`m not willing to live on my knees and bow to a Master for a paltry gov`n handout…
Hey, Jazz, I think that you got it about right. The right and left take turns being outraged depending who is in power, but government always gets bigger. “Socialism” may not be quite the bogey-man to young Americans that it is to PJM types. They don’t gasp or curse when they hear the word. (See many young tea partiers?) Actually, it seems inevitable that we move in that direction and in our context, it is a direction more than a place. Yes, I hope that the whole thing does not fall apart, but don’t see how the small government movement would in any way actually keep our economy/culture from blowing up, (if such a thing is about to happen.) Maybe we could cure our problems by putting about 5-10 million government workers out of work; hard to see exactly how that would work, though. I guess that it would be cheaper to pay them unemployment than their inflated wages, but that’s also a lot of folks who would not be buying much.
Mr. Shaw misses the point of the current anger—as do many such writers today who quote polls and percentages as their context for an analysis of Americans’ response to government actions.
Yes, Americans are angry and the anger is real. But it is not the number of people who are angry, nor the percentage of the population, nor even the intensity of the anger that is important and unique to these times. What is important and unique is the knowledge behind the anger.
It is clear to most Americans—which includes most Tea Partiers—that government officials and their coterie hold agreeing philosophical ideas and that those ideas are what is threatening Americans’ freedoms and their individual rights.
Americans know this because they are reading Ayn Rand’s masterpiece Atlas Shrugged. These are the numbers that count. The publishers, for instance, report “Total annual sales of Ayn Rand’s novels reached 1.1 million in 2009 . . . Nearly half of those total sales were Atlas Shrugged, which sold 520,000 copies.” During the first quarter of 2010 the increases have not slowed.
The contemptuous manner of Fed Chairman Floyd Ferris
Bernanke and the sullen nature of Treasury Secretary Wesley Mooch Geithner are the best visual displays of government officials’ philosophy. But Mr. Obama is incomparable. No American president has shown such overweening ignorance of the connection between the protection of individual rights and the achievement of prosperity. “The goods are here,” Mr. Obama has more than once indicated. And then goes on to propose legislation that will confiscate, strangle and penalize drastically any further production of such goods. Americans hear this. They read this. They know this.
And they know an antidote is in sight to Mr. Obama’s injection of gangrene into the mind and body of the nation. The antidote, however, is not yet widely grasped, nor fully understood. A proper analysis of today’s anger against government officials would have to consider the growing awareness of that antidote.
Meanwhile, know that it truly does not matter if the percentage today of Americans deeply angered by government is 18%, or 34%, or 67%. Always, from prehistoric times to now, only one individual or at most a very small group of individuals have changed the direction of a culture and of the world. The challenge today is to make certain that the group advocating individual rights is the group that wins.
Libertyship46 — G.L. Alston #4, nice try but no. You said they are supposed “to use their judgement to work for your interest,” but who do you think tells them what our “interests” are? WE DO!!!
We tell them by voting for them. Don’t like their record? Vote for someone else or campaign yourself.
It sounds to me like you don’t much care for representative government. Oh my, it has warts. Get over it.
Take a look at this, and the comments: http://ezralevant.com/2010/04/protecting-canada-from-obama.html
To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, I know the United States, and what is in leadership
in Washington, and what follows it, isn’t the United States.
“Congress shall make no law respecting … the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
— Amendment 1, US Constitution
“I’m sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic.
We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.”
– Hillary Rodham Clinton
- April 28, 2003
When individuals fail to act responsibly, government must step in for the common good.
For example, take the FDA regulating the amount of salt in our diet. It is clear that Americans in general are refusing to reduce the amount of salt that they consume, thereby increasing medical costs, which affect everyone.
I look forward to the day when those who exceed the optimum government established BMI will be prohibited from purchasing so-called “fast food,” and will only be permitted to purchase low-fat, organic food stuffs at the grocer.
Wouldn’t you agree?
Keep this in mind, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/04/21/border-drugs.html the next time some windbag rises up on his or her haunches, and wants
a thicker border: Whatever is shipped to the US can be shipped elsewhere.
#1 G.L. ALLSTONED:: What are you on? It’s denial inducing! .Please explain how Crist,and Brown defeated demtards in states that are deep blue (from choking taxes no doubt),if the anti-government feeling tea parties promote have more of an impact on Republicans, than on democrats. Ditto Virginia.Now go and take your methadone!