I don’t agree with Chris Buckley about the merits of financial regulation but this is a perfect description of the politics:
With certain exceptions, such as Senator Olympia Snowe, one is left with the impression that the Republicans would rather kill the bill than suffer the ignominy of another hideous Obama legislative success between now and the November elections.
But if the Republicans succeed in blocking the bill, they may end up electing a supermajority of Democrats in November. For if the Republican message in effect amounts to “No, we must not, we cannot, we dare not regulate the thieving, manipulating swine who caused $9 trillion of your money to vanish! They’re too important to American competitiveness!”—well, whatever the nuances in the bill, it’s hard to imagine that voters won’t punish obstinacy of that order.
I still hold out hope that Republicans will be dumb enough to filibuster financial regulation. But they can’t be that dumb, right?
Xantar
If the media spends enough time scrubbing the GOP’s balls over the next few months, they might just be dumb enough to try it.
WereBear
How many times, over the last decade, have I asked myself that?
Nick
Who Cares when the media will spend the next seven months blaming the mean old Democrats for not negotiating with Republicans and using this very important issue to score political points by proposing a bill that couldn’t pass.
I work in the media Doug, trust me, if Republicans block financial reform, they will be rewarded for it. We’ll make sure of it. After months of “Democrats abandoned bipartisanship for radically liberal bill that will cause more bailouts in a vain attempt to use this as an issue,” the Democrats will have no choice but to drop the issue or suffer political consequences and you liberals will wonder why you lost this argument and blame the Democrats and Obama, stay home on election day, and deliver the Republican majority who will protect the corporations who sign our paychecks.
And who cares if we do it by lying, when stupid people believe whatever we say, we can lie all we want.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
This is why Mitch the bitch Mcconnell went onto the Senate Floor and lied his ass off with Luntz talking points. Dems have the wingnuts between the tea baggers and their plutocrat overlords, with no place to hide. Collins was the last holdout on signing the filibuster threat letter to make 41. Which is more like a love letter to dems on this issue. A last desperate hail mary to try and bluff their way out of this one.
Even hand wringing dems know they have a gold plated winner, and wingers lose any way they go. But being wingnuts, I have little doubt they will flow with the cash and filibuster even allowing a bill to come to the floor, in hopes corporate cash will allow them via United to flood the airways with bullshit when the campaign begins.
Stroszek
I think we’re now seeing an unintended benefit of the horrible, drawn out HCR debate. Finance reform is likely going to the floor next week… all the ugly committee negotiations and uncertainty occurred in the shadow of the HCR. The GOP doesn’t have time to Luntz up the debate.
Instead, we’re going to see McConnell tie himself to a rocket and fly into a cliff face as this bill goes meep-meeping into law and the Dems take credit for reining in Wall Street.
F’n hilarious.
arguingwithsignposts
Filed under Corners, Painted Into.
Mitch McConnell and John Bohner have already shown their hands. Idiots will be idiots no matter what.
aimai
Were Bear beat me to it. I’m wondering, specifically, which Republicans will break and how hard. Scott brown just doesn’t seem to have the suicidal impulse of the true teatard. And really, one wants to say to him, you can’t be a little bit pregnant. You might just as well save everyone the time and switch parties and get re-elected in a landslide as try to temporize on every big vote and still end up voting with the dems because you realize (dimly, because you are very dim) that the Republican line is untenable in the northeast.
aimai
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The more pertinent question is are the American people dumb enough to allow more Republicans in office to prevent regulation of banks. I feel at times the answer to this question is “Yes.”
Lurking Canadian
Once Brooks gets done with the issue, it will seem that Democratic attempts to force the Republicans to let them vote on financial reform make Baby Jesus cry.
Then the story will become, “Are the Democrats dumb enough to make Baby Jesus cry?”
Elisabeth
@Stroszek:
McConnell got hammered by his hometown newspaper. If politics is indeed local then Mitch might be feeling a bit of heat.
PK
Yes they can.
slippy
@Lurking Canadian: I don’t think Brooks receives the wide acclaim he pretends to. His comments sections usually have to be closed quite quickly because they’re so filled with negative dismissals of his uninformed idiocy.
Linda Featheringill
You may get your wish yet. It doesn’t seem logical that ANYONE would be against financial reform but you never know.
As a group, the Repubs seem determined to show that the Dems cannot govern, or perhaps that Obama cannot govern, so they can persuade folks to vote for the GOP in November.
So far, they seem to have gotten away with it. I don’t know if they could fight against financial reform without being labeled “Friends of the Fat Cats.” But I will bet you that they will try.
Jennifer
But they can’t be that dumb, right?
Yes. Yes they can.
What’s worse, the people who vote for them are even dumber, and will vote for them anyway.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Nick: We disagree on this one Nick. HCR was easy to demagogue, this one won’t be quite so, and even the pack media knows the public hates the banksters and won’t try the same shit they did on HCR.
mr. whipple
I’m not so sure the GOP can’t spin this away one way or another. Nor am I sure that if the GOP initially remains united, that the dems won’t cave and weaken a decent bill for vote #60.
DougJ
@Nick:
I think you are underestimating how much people hate banksters.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: correction. Actually, it was a letter from wingnuts pushing a compromise, or what they want, or else.
Brian J
I’d really, really like for that to be the case, but that depends on (a) the public paying (more?) attention, (b) the Democrats fighting smartly, and (c) the Republicans not lying. About that last part in particular, what is going to prevent them from making something up that sounds, to those who don’t follow this stuff like us, vaguely plausible, and then repeating it endlessly until it’s accepted, like the idea that tax cuts stimulate enough growth to pay for themselves?
kormgar
I still hold out hope that the Republicans might have enough integrity left to contribute constructively to a solid and effective financial regulation bill. But they can’t be that principled, can they?
The Dangerman
I expect some watered down Financial Reform in the name of bipartisanship (and because the Dems are taking money from Wall Street, too). Where the game really gets interesting is in immigration reform; can the Right afford to piss off all of the Hispanics in order to toe the teaparty line?
Ash Can
Sure they can. A party that’s dumb enough to run a little-known veep candidate without vetting her is dumb enough to do anything. Pass the popcorn.
Nick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
There’s an easy solution to this problem guys, lie (or give the Republicans like Mitch McConnell free range to lie) and say this legislation is pro-bankster.
And then when the dems water down the legislation to get GOP votes, then we say it’s no longer pro-bankster.
And by then the liberals are pissed, so it’s a lose-lose.
I mean what are people going to do? Read the bill? LOL. No, they’re going to believe whatever we tell them to believe, like always.
You think I’m kidding, you weren’t in editorial meetings this morning talking about this, I was.
Sentient Puddle
Prior to the McConnell letter linked earlier, the reports I was hearing said that McConnell didn’t have the votes to block bringing the bill to the floor for consideration. I wasn’t expecting them to be dumb enough to block it, but guess I misunderestimated them. Though really, if their tactics are as clumsy as McConnell’s lie about the bill earlier this week, they’re fucked.
As for who to watch for a potential flip, I’d personally put more money on Corker than anyone else, actually. I don’t expect Scott Brown to end up supporting it, because he’s as dumb as a sack of bricks.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Nick: If dems cave and water down the bill, then you most likely are right. We will see what happens, as Reid is saying he will likely hold a test vote by the end of next week on Dodd’s bill. So it doesn’t sound to me like they plan to give in to gooper demands with the compromise/watered down bill. I still say even though the media will give wingers the break they always do these days, it won’t be as easy as with HCR.
DougJ
@Nick:
I hope you’re wrong, but it does sound like you know what you are talking about.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
The Repubs are between a rock and a hard place on this issue and the best part is that they put themselves in that position. Teabaggers are against bailouts but the’re for holding the financial market accountable. If the Repubs successfully block reform then that is going to piss off the real independents (not the newfound Republican independents) that they will need to win with this fall. If this passes, contains significant reform measures and yet they fight it every inch of the way then that makes the Democrats look like leaders going into this fall. If they fight it all of the way and in the end vote for it then that will piss off the anti-Obama contingent.
Any way you slice it, it’s win-win-win for us! Especially if the bill is perceived as being effective because of the Democratic ‘hand on the tiller of good government’ perception.
Prof. K&G
At this point, why does anyone still think that objective truth matters to our political process? The republicans made HCR about abortion, death panels, and socialism, 3 things that had nothing to do with the actual bill. They’ve already started claiming that financial regulation bill will require “more bailouts.”
Who cares that it isn’t true? It will be repeated ad nauseum, escalating to “bailouts=government takeover (JUST LIEK GM!!!)=socializm”, and the senate republicans can filibuster without any political fallout. They’ll probably scare a few of the blue dogs and peel them off too.
I know I’m maybe being a wee bit cynical, but look: they don’t want to give Obama a victory, so they will attempt to block the bill. If necessary, they will lie to justify their actions. Based on their past behavior, could this possibly play out any other way?
mr. whipple
Corker is just jerking off. He signed the letter, after all.
Prof. K&G
@Nick: Stupid wordpress ate my comment, but I was basically saying exactly this, probably not as eloquently though.
Republicans want Obama to fail, and they have no compunctions about lying to achieve their goals. They also suffer no consequences from lying. Why should we expect anything different?
encephalopath
“Over a barrel” is the phrase Republicans should meditate carefully on.
gbear
@Nick:
If the GOP believes in anything any more, this is what they believe. And the Washington media gives them no reason to believe otherwise. Ship of fools.
Mnemosyne
@Nick:
I may be stupidly optimistic here but, frankly, you media guys are losing influence by the day. 2006 shocked the hell out of the media because you fully expected the Republicans to keep both houses, if not extend their majorities. You really thought McCain was going to win. You’ve been hard-selling the teabaggers for almost a year now and they now have a whopping 18% of the population on their side.
The media has seriously lost touch with what people really think and, if they don’t get their heads out of their asses and start looking at the world as it is, their influence will continue to shrink until it’s just David Broder and Bill O’Reilly talking to each other.
Linus
Of course they are that dumb. But the real question is whether the Dems will be smart enough to make them filibuster. I’m not talking about Reid agreeing to kill the bill because he doesn’t have the votes. I mean make them actually bust out the
cookbooksBibles and bring Congress to a halt in order to protect the banks.Roger Moore
@The Dangerman:
I’m confident that they will go ahead and do it whether they can afford it or not. Us versus them is the core of the Republican gameplan, and they aren’t going to give it up until they’ve gotten their brains thoroughly bashed in.
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
Actually, no, we didn’t…we knew the GOP would lose both times, but we did our best to get out the vote for Republicans and convince everyone the Democrats better govern like Republicans, or lose again.
gbear
@Nick:
So, how’s that workin’ out foryah?
Mnemosyne
@Nick:
Have you guys thought about forming a new plan since your current one has now failed twice?
DougJ
@Nick:
What you mean “we”, kemosabe? Do you work at Fox?
I didn’t think the regular outlets were that bad in the run-up to 2006 and 2008.
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, serve as the propaganda machine for Republican obstruction. It’s working great now. Every success Democrats have becomes a political liability. We don’t allow Democrats to get their message out and their own base blames THEM! Hell, we can make assertions that the logo of the Nuclear Summit looks like the crescent moon and star on the flags of countries where terrorists are from, thus insinuating Obama is “reaching out” to terrorists and millions of you morons believe us. It’s great!
Nick
@DougJ: Worked for FOX as an intern, then ABC, NBC and PBS. I was a producer for ABC’s election coverage in 2006 and 2008. We knew the Democrats would win, but we wanted a race. We wanted something to cover. So we did things like make hay out of John Kerry’s remarks about “drop out of school, end up in Iraq” and created a false meme that Pennsylvania was a tossup so you’d be on your feet.
Oh, and when Obama finally did win, we had George Steph go out and remidn y’all that Obama won all these Bush states and now has to govern like Bush to keep them…and now it’s perfect. Republicans won’t vote for anything Obama proposes, so we get to bitch that he’s A.) Not working with Republicans, and thus not serving the constituents of these swing states he won, and B.) Passing partisan radically liberal legislation because of A.
And the best part is…the dumb fucks in these swing states believe every damn word of it.
Nick
@gbear: Democrats are likely going to lose in the House in the fall and are one or two seats from losing the Senate, and according to PPP today, Obama is trailing Huckabee and Romney.
You tell me.
Yutsano
@Nick:
I’ll believe it on November 5th. Until then you’re just wildly speculating.
They would have to lose basically every competitive race in the fall, and after a few more victories and proving they can do stuff, I just don’t see this occurring.
And two and a half years before 2008, the leaders were Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. You’re in journalism not futurism, so stop putting so much emphasis on polls and numbers and concentrate on what your job should be, which is the objective reporting of facts.
kdaug
@Yutsano:
Nick’s not a reporter, he’s a producer. Not really interested in facts.
He’s creating the reality, and we’re just responding to it.
He’s got the “real” math.
Mnemosyne
@Nick:
Wow, you really have bought your own hype.
Really? I think you’re going to have to show your math on that one.
And if you really think that Democrats are going to lose the House, you may want to take a peek at every House election in the past year and see if the winner had an R or a D behind their name. It sounds like you’re going to be awfully surprised when you look it up.
Tell you what, I’ll archive your comment and we can check back in November and see who’s right. Since the media hasn’t been right about who’s going to win for at least four years now, I don’t see any evidence that you’re going to break your losing streak anytime soon.
Mnemosyne
@kdaug:
My favorite part was the whole, “Nuh-uh, we didn’t call 2006 and 2008 wrong, we just didn’t tell you that we knew what was going to happen.”
At this point, I trust the accuracy of the media’s predictions about as much as the Amazing Criswell’s. I’d be a hell of a lot more worried if they were predicting an easy Democratic sweep in November.
Bobby Thomson
How quaint. You actually think the Democrats won’t blink. Touching, really.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I hear crow is a very tasty bird in the fall. I even know a couple of recipes that will make the poor thing go down a bit smoother.
Uloborus
@Bobby Thomson:
Alas, we’re more kind of going ‘Holy crud, they didn’t blink on HCR. Can we get second helpings, please?’
kdaug
Seriously.
If what I’m hearing is right, the Dems can win another generation of power (or at least the next several cycles) by cramming down some draconian, medieval, pliers-and-blowtorch nasty shit down on the bankers, the trust-fund crowd, and Wall Street.
Proposing a 90% top marginal tax rate… “Hell, yeah!”
People are really riled on this. It unites the DFHs and the teabaggers. They may not be conscious of the “class war”, but they feel it.
And they’re pissed.
Yutsano
@kdaug: Hell I’d just be happy with applying income tax rates to all investment income. That would put the monied class on the hot seat for sure and would work wonders for closing the deficit. And if they move their money offshore, punish to the wall any bank that agrees to that arrangement so the government gets their due one way or another. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s bitchez.
kdaug
@Yutsano: Yeah I was going to mention the capital gains tax but didn’t want to get too far into the weeds, and the transaction tax (.1%) on stock trades to disincentivize “micro-trading”.
There is a class war underway, folks. You’re losing.
Anne Laurie
@slippy:
You’ve made the mistake of assuming that BoBo Brooks’ intended target is us hoi polloi “readers”, who insist on facts and logic and boring stuff. But he’s actually pitching directly to the tiny minority of Better People, the “aristocrats” who control 80% of GDP and 97% of the traditional media outlets. Brooks’ non-stop scrotal massage of his masters is what gets him the acclaim (i.e., money, column inches, high-paid speaking events) which enables him to go on believing that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds ! ! !
burnspbesq
@Nick:
If you seriously believe that PPP results mean anything, I have a whole laundry list of credit default swaps on CDOs that I’d like to buy from you.
You really are a despicable piece of shit, by the way.
J. Michael Neal
Nick may be right as to how the elite media is going to play this, though I’m sensing someone running his mouth a lot and pretending to great wisdom that he doesn’t really have. However, even if he is right about what he’s hearing in editorial meetings, he’s making some pretty big mistakes as to how this is going to play out. Basically, he assumes that the elite media can completely drive a story and get the masses to believe whatever they want. That is probably true in some cases, but not all. There’s a lot of reasons to think that this is one of the ones where they can’t.
1) As was pointed out above, the local press is a lot less likely to take this line than they have in other instances. Closer to the ground, the anger against the bankers is much more palpable than was the anger against the Republicans in 2006 and 2008, or against the health insurance companies last year. The tea party sympathizer I talk with regularly is much more prone to believe that the financial industry needs to be swinging from lamp posts than anyone connected to health insurance was. This is important, because:
2) Mitch McConnell fucked up royally this week. Through the health care debate, the Republicans were careful to communicate with the interested parties through cutouts. They had all sorts of phony astroturf organizations. McConnell just got caught in a meeting with the big bankers offering his support in exchange for contributions. That’s going to kill him.
3) There is a significant role reversal here. With health care, the Democrats were stuck trying to tell a complicated story that doesn’t turn into slogans very well, while the Republicans got to run off one liners. That’s not true on financial reform. The Democrats’ story is really easy to tell. Hell, it looks like they may have even figured out a way to sell derivatives reform. It’s the Republicans who are stuck trying to explain how it is that the simple story the Democrats are telling isn’t really reform. It may not matter whether or not the GOP tells the truth, but it does matter how quickly they can get their message out. Given the case the have to make, I think that they are going to get lost in the weeds.
4) The Democrats look like they are much more unified here than they were on health care. Name me a single Democratic Senator who has felt a need to express his dismay at the extremism of the left wing of his own party in the last two weeks. Blanche Lincoln just decided to stake out the position that the Dodd bill isn’t tough enough. Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson are the dogs that aren’t barking. I’m not naive enough to think that there isn’t significant disagreement in the caucus, but they are keeping it private this time around.
5) Meanwhile, the Republicans look a lot less unified. They got 41 signatures on that letter, but it took a lot of squabbling. Bob Corker seems like he wants to actually do something. And take a closer look at that letter: it’s pathetically weak. You have the entire Republican caucus squealing that the Democrats are being mean. It says flat out that the Republicans really, really want a compromise. In all the months of the HCR debate, when did they ever unite and say that wanted to compromise? They didn’t. You had a few Republicans saying that they were desperately seeking bipartisanship, while the bulk of them screamed about never surrendering, and killing all attempts at reform entirely. They know that they are playing a weak hand, and it shows. As this plays out, that weakness is going to hurt them badly.
6) Probably the most fundamental problem the GOP faces in selling their case is that it frames differently than the HCR debate does. Then, the line they were pushing was that Democrats wanted to socialize everything, and we needed to prevent them from having Big Government take over our hospitals and clinics. That’s an easy sell, because the natural party dynamics predispose people to believe that that’s exactly what the Democrats want to do. The job of the GOP is to prevent too much government from coming into existence.
This time around, they want people to believe that Democrats are the tool of Big Business and are selling us all out to the capitalists. The Republicans are supposed to be the ones representing the little guy against Wall Street. To say that this is more difficult is an understatement. Whatever misperceptions the general public has, the GOP being opposed to big business just isn’t one of them. They’re not only forced into trying to tell a more complicated story; it’s a more complicated story that also involves overturning fundamental perceptions of the two parties.
Put me in the camp that thinks that the Democrats can flog this puppy to their advantage for as long as the Republicans are dumb enough to let them. It’s full of nothing but win. The urgency of now isn’t as great here; while it’s critically important to retool the finance industry so that they can’t collapse us all again, that’s a fear somewhere down the road.* We can put off actually passing reform as long as we can keep populist pressure high, unlike health care, where people are dying right now.
Finance reform is also different in that an incremental approach isn’t particularly useful. HCR could be well less than perfect, while greasing the skids for future progress, so getting *something* done was critical; the moderates were able to call our bluff so well precisely because it was obvious that we were bluffing (as well as the fact that they were largely content to let HCR sink). The shoe’s on the other foot now.
As someone who was passionately in favor of taking whatever compromise was necessary to get a health care bill passed, *this* is a hill I’m prepared to die on. This time, it’s the other guys who desperately need a compromise so that they can make this whole thing go away. We don’t. Again, I’m getting the sense that the Democrats in Congress understand this. The administration is talking tough, and Senators seem to be trying to one up each other in appearing adamant about not giving in.
Nick is confusing his small world for the rest of the very large universe.
Joe Blowe
@Nick:
The battle is asymmetrical.
On the one hand you have Democrats trying to convince people of something they believe to be the truth.
On the other hand you have Republicans trying to convince people of something they know to be a lie.
Battling for something you know to be a lie frees you up. You don’t need consistency, just repetition. You don’t need logic, just volume.
The Republicans have been very efficient in getting out their message (repeated, and at great volume), thanks to operatives like Nick. They are willing to go balls-out at the drop of a hat for a talking point that is insane on the face of it. Financial Reform Rewards Bailouts. Go!
The Democratic message is better in the sense that it has consistency, logic, and truth to it. But those are not the grounds on which the battle is fought. The open question is whether Democrats are willing to give their message the repetition and the volume necessary. Or whether, once again, they will say something once on the Senate floor and imagine they won because they made more sense. The Democrats need to be ready to crucify Republicans over this, not just bicker with them.
EconWatcher
I think J. Michael Neal nailed it: We Americans may not be the brightest bunch. But the public just isn’t going to buy that the Republicans are standing up to Wall Street, while the Dems are coddling big business. That’s too hard a sell, especially with McConnell making the kind of mistakes he has. Yes, the “Big Lie” sometimes works, especially on complex issues. But only when it fits the public’s preconceptions. This one doesn’t.
Plus, Corker called McConnell on it. If you read Corker’s public comments, while he couched his words a bit for a fellow party member, he actually went much further than I would have ever thought. To pull off the big lie, McConnell would at least have to have his whole team on board. He doesn’t.
EconWatcher
By the way, if ever anyone doubted Coco Chanel, that we all get the face we deserve after 50, I give you Mitch McConnell. When I picture Dorian Gray’s image in the mirror after a life of debauchery, I can’t help but think of McConnell.
Nick
guys really, I’m being facetious, but this is really how those in the media think and it’s working. Our problem is that we consistently underestimate how stupid Americans are and how easy it is to deceive them, and those in my industry are more than happy to oblige them.
Those of you who think this is that one issue the media can’t successfully lie and deceive Americans on, maybe you’re right, but that’s not going to stop my industry from trying relentlessly anyway.
Rhoda
@Nick: The point is that the media is not that powerful any longer. The facts are clear and simple. The bull you’re running only works if the Democrats don’t go out and call out the GOP.
This week McConnell straight up lied about the reform equalling bailouts: straight from Luntz’s memo. So what happened: everyone from the President on down in the party called him out for that shit and Luntz’s memo is now in the Congressional record.
Obfuscate all you want; when the Democrats stand up and call a lie a lie you have to report it as such. McConnell got grilled b/c his lies were called out. Similarly, when you have cowards like Blanche Lincoln freaking Wall Street out then you KNOW this shit is dead easy to sell to your common wingnut.
The only question I have is how suicidal are most Republicans; because running the HCR playbook on financial reform guarantees Democrats keep the House and Senate IMO.
I know you think the MSM controls the world Nick; but they don’t. They really don’t. I think you also underestimate what it means that the Democrats still control DC til November and have the President’s megaphone.
Nick
@Rhoda:
No we don’t and we haven’t and I’ve actually been reamed out for suggesting we should have more liberal Democrats on our political shows. I mean have you like WATCHED the news recently?
We very often cut out Democrats or only put in opinions of Democrats like Lieberman or Nelson to call it “balanced”
Nick
@Rhoda:
I don’t know how to tell you this, but the HCR playbook is working nicely…it’s less popular now than it was before it was passed.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/04/brown_shoots.php#more
mds
Actually, guys, Nick is performing a vital service. Dems have been known to start popping the corks on domestic sparkling wine prematurely. When victory depends on Congressional Democrats getting the word out and making a clear argument for something, then victory is anything but assured. So why not presume that Nick’s view of the current state of play is correct, and fight as if we were on the edge of a precipice? Because when the potential outcome is increased power for the GOP, which has spent its time in the wilderness becoming more insane rather than less, we are on the edge of a precipice.
jwb
@Nick: “No we don’t and we haven’t and I’ve actually been reamed out for suggesting we should have more liberal Democrats on our political shows.”
Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: who is calling these shots? Who is the “we” here? At Fox, you can more or less figure it out, but when you go to the others it becomes a lot less clear why they’d all be so willing to push the Gooper line.
Joe Blowe
@EconWatcher:
Time to pull out the Mencken: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
We have to understand the asymmetry of the conflict. You say the public just isn’t going to buy that the Republicans are standing up to Wall Street. Why? Because the American public has a preconception that the Republicans are traditionally the party of business?
Preconceptions require memory, and the American public can’t remember a damn thing. The teabaggers are out there protesting taxes that Obama lowered to the lowest in 60 years. They bought that, and why? Because they have no capacity to remember and compare something that is happening in the present with something that happened in the past. They follow the current narrative that is loudest, and that they hear the most. If what they hear the most and the loudest is that Barney Frank caused the meltdown, they’ll believe it. If the most and loudest is that Chris Dodd is in bed with the banks, they’ll believe it. If the TV says 500 times that Republicans support the good red-blooded American kind of business, and the bailout was about the socialist pinko kind of business that Democrats support, they’ll believe it.
Don’t hold out hope for a Perry Mason Moment in Congress, when a Democratic argument is so jaw-droppingly brilliant that the Republicans just have to confess it all. It’s not going to happen, because they’re not competing on the basis of logical argument. They don’t care what’s true, they don’t care what’s reasonable, and their eggs are all in one basket. The party line gets pumped out by the Mighty Wurlitzer, and woe unto him who doesn’t toe it. The Republican congressmen aren’t calling the tune; they’re just dancing to it.
Nick
@jwb: Executive Producers, News Directors, TV anchors, and CEOs. ABC’s news department is essentially the Disney PR department. Comcast runs NBC, though NBC has had more independence since breaking with GE.