Thursday, July 09, 2009

How much longer can Obama supporters hold out?

It has been about 6 months, (SIX MONTHS) since Barack Obama was inaugurated, and already polls have shifted severely, support has dropped sharply, and people are not happy with how things are running under the president who was whisked into office under tremendous public support, waving a banner of hope and change.

We still have THREE AND A HALF MORE YEARS OF THIS.

It's gonna get ugly.

How much longer can Obama supporters hold out?

And when they do finally cave in, will they turn on their idol for allowing them to be mislead? Or will they merely slink away to go sulk over the stuttering of their brilliant orator, and the flailing of their steady-handed economic genius? Maybe they'll blame the rest of the democrat party for taking command without a well-thought-out plan besides tax and spend?

But I suppose those questions are unimportant.

What IS important, I think, is whether or not the Republican party will have its act together by then. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say "no."

What would be more interesting, would be if the Dems screw the pooch so badly that they can't win, and the Repubs remain dullards, and run another McCain, leaving the people to seriously question the two party system.

Should be interesting. Interesting is different. Different, when talking about the state of politics today, is good.


A cynical bit of my brain (ok, it's bigger than a "bit") still wants to make sure those idiots who think they can vote for politicians based on anything other than their policy will feel the pinch of their hasty decisions.

I want them to know that the person they vote for has the ability to affect their everyday lives.

Whether or not they can get a job, get health insurance, pay for their car and gas, and (most important no doubt) the price of the beer they "chug," and the amount of clubs that are open.

This is what I hope is going to happen in California. Once services start to suffer, and California begins to resemble a second-world nation, where some days you don't have power, some days your water doesn't work, some days the grocery store doesn't get resupplied, and most days you can't help but notice the increase in crime, maybe people will start paying closer attention to the people they vote for.

I imagine a future where politicians are afraid of even implying that they'll adopt the policies that led to the depression of 2010.

Heaven knows the pendulum of social alignment must be reaching the zenith of its leftward swing.

Era of conservatism on the horizon? One can only hope. Either way, we're in for a bumpy ride.

3 comments:

Ry Jones said...

has the leftward swing ever ended in (f)GB? I don't think it will end here, either.

Fletch said...

Damnit Ry. That's a good point.

Hopefully it's more a measure of phase shift than an overall measure. FGB started out considerably more left than we did.

The pendulum WILL swing. It must. I just hope it does so soon. Sadly, these zeitgeist-type societal shifts usually deal more in centuries than decades. Hopefully the recent activity has built up the momentum of the pendulum... Or would that just deepen the swing?

This is all very confusing. I'm going to do something simple, like load some magazines. :)

AMB said...

Ry, it bears consideration that the most recent Leftward swing in the UK only started when Labour was elected in a landslide in 1997. Their numbers in Parliament have been declining ever since. It also bears careful consideration that the UK's government is much slower to change than ours, so any surge in conservative or, at least, non-Labour sentiment will take years to work its way up to Parliament.

One other thing to consider, which I just discovered this morning - Rasmussen's graph comparing Strong Approve to Strongly Disapprove of the Obama administration: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/var/plain/storage/images/media/obama_index_graphics/july_2009/obama_index_july_9_2009/231370-1-eng-US/obama_index_july_9_2009.jpg

As my dad would say: "Well ain't that Real Damn Interesting."