Please, PLEASE keep up the faith and good work. Actual facts are needed now more than ever, along with the ability to explain them to us.

I recently read “The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative”, by Stephen Denning. Changed my life. I suggest you do likewise, because it would provide essential tools for helping us all get re-focused on what matters.

Case in point: I don’t understand why the D’s don’t just come out with clarity and say that the R’s numbers don’t work, vouchers won’t work, and so on. We all love that Clinton can speak to the common man, but if a whole bunch more people don’t learn to do likewise then we’re sunk.

In particular, I don’t see why Obama doesn’t just openly admit that the reason he didn’t make the progress he wanted to the last four years is because the R’s made stopping his re-election more important than serving their country.

It really is that simple. The time for flowery prose is over. Get pithy already.

“When the people are saving, the government must spend.
When the people are spending, the government must save.”

It seems to me at this time that this may be the best, most important post ever.

“How did we devolve to a country where someone like this can just assert things with virtually no backup from reality and not only be taken seriously….?”

Indeed.

My theory is that those that understand the real effects of trickle-down were smug and silent for too long.

The public has come to believe that tax cuts solve every economics problem. And, the public has come to believe that government is unable to solve anything, because for the past 32 years government has been unable to manage itself with adequate funding. Name one major government accomplishment besides war since Reagan – one bridge, one large anything?

Warren G. Bennis writes that, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

Thirty-two years of Republican Party small ball.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
- Proverbs 29:18

Exactly! And we all should have known, when Reagan ran for and won the governorship of California, just what he was doing and how. It was clear to me that he would not answer straight any question of substance, but pander in jokesy-folksy-talk while talking circles around the truth. His strangling of California’s school system, public works and services were clearly aligned with Goldwater’s ideology, which was rejected in ’64. But Reagan slipped it to us after all by disguising the firebrand rhetoric and hatred of an open and civil society of equality and progressive principles. That actor signed on to portray a false image while fronting for the Birchers who spawned today’s plutocrats. And, there you go again…

I do hate the “both sides” nonsense. It shows intellectual laziness, lack of knowledge about what is being discussed. Example: The Obama Admin lied about the mandate in HCR reform…they in public called it anything but a Tax. Had they done that this issue wouldn’t have made it to the Supreme Court but not because it is within the Governments rights to do. It would not make it to the Supreme Court because Americans are easily swayed by the worth Tax and the legislation would not have passed. Now is that politically necessary lying to be put on the same level as Death Panels? If you can’t appreciate the difference then you aren’t informed enough on the subject to pass judgement. If we had a well functioning media both Death Panels and the word Tax wouldn’t matter in that debate but if we talk “if” scenarios I could go for an hour easily. If the GOP is so willing to lie it would be idiotic for the Democrats to go 100% honest in making their arguments…it would be disarming yourself. Policy examination and fact based reporting and commentating is needed here to restore some credibility and honor to our political discourse. Instead of spending money on stars the news needs to spend money on true subject matter experts.

Writing about Sarah Palin several years ago, Matt Taibbi commented, “Palin has figured out that … really all you have to do to win elections in this country [is] flatter middle Americans’ moronic fantasies about themselves.”

You could substitute just about any Republican for “Palin” in the quote above. You’re right, unfortunately. Facts, analysis, etc. don’t mean jack to significant fraction of the electorate. Flattering people’s moronic fantasies however appears to be a winner though year in, year out.

This may sound a little loopy but I blame Reagan for the current state of affairs. (No, wait! I’m serious! Hear me out!) Reagan drove a fundamental shift in how the general population view government. He was the first high ranking politician to state the “Government is the problem.” and have it stick. That’s a fundamentally different outlook from saying, “Government isn’t working and we need to fix it. In order to do that we need to make it smaller.” (Which could be a plausible and Republican argument in some circumstances.) As an elected official, if you’ve dismissed the need to make Government function effectively for the citizens then flattering people’s moronic fantasies of themselves is probably as good a use of your time as any.

Thanks for writing this. More than the 62 or so emails I get from Democratic causes every day, it is thoughtful pieces like this that might make me make just 1 more contribution to the cause.