Liars Rule

We live in a mendocracy.

As in: rule by liars.

Political scientists are going crazy crunching the numbers to uncover the skeleton key to understanding the Republican victory last Tuesday.

But the only number that matters is the one demonstrating that by a two-to-one margin likely voters thought their taxes had gone up, when, for almost all of them, they had actually gone down. Republican politicians, and conservative commentators, told them Barack Obama was a tax-mad lunatic. They lied. The mainstream media did not do their job and correct them. The White House was too polite—"civil," just like Obama promised—to say much. So people believed the lie. From this all else follows.

The stimulus was passed two weeks before the State of the Union address in Feb 2009. Support for Obama was sky high. Republicans were in despair until Rush Limbaugh stepped in. The very next day. Limbaugh shot down a caller praising Obama's tax cut says, in effect, don't believe a word he says, he's lying. zthe White House ignored Limbaugh's lies in their attempt to be 'civil'. Wrong move.

A recent poll showed that only 8% of Americans were aware that Obama has passed a tax cut for 95% of Americans. This is from an excellent article by Rick Perlstein http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-06/obamas-tax-cut-how-rush-limbaugh-misled-the-country/?cid=hp:mainpromo2from The Daily Beast.

He goes on to describe the process.

(a) A mountebank teaches his millions of followers that everything the president says is a priori a lie;

b) The mainstream media that acts as if anything his millions of followers believe is a priori deserving of respect as heartland folk wisdom (note the cover article lionizing Limbaugh in this week's Newsweek);

(c) The president unilaterally renders himself constitutionally incapable of breaking the chain between (a) and (b), such that, (d), the assumption that Obama raised taxes when he really lowered them becomes hegemonic for a majority of the electorate, and even a large plurality of Democrats.

Q.E.D.: Governing has become impossible.

At least for Democrats until they start to realize they are in a street fight with no rules.

Tomorrow I will post about how the elderly were convinced that Obama was going to cut their Medicare by $500 billion over ten years. The charge against Obama was led by Karl Rove's organization, American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, both of who don't give a shit about the elderly or medicare except when it comes to voting. How could an election hinge on Republicans accusing Democrats of doing something they dream about, cutting entitlements while the Democrats were defenceess.