Liberal Commentator Thom Hartmann Noticed Something Subtle about American Politics — which Explains Excessive Partisanship’s Nation-Wrecking Qualities

16 May 2014

Citation

Thom Hartmann, Republicans' Insane Political Strategy: Ruining Our Country Hurts the Democratic Party, AlterNet (13 May 2014)

Thom Hartmann’s premise makes explanatory sense, even if one disagrees with his judgment about its ultimately negative effects

Mr. Hartmann wrote that:

The majority of Americans – depending on which survey you look at, between 60 and 75 percent – cannot name which political party controls the House of Representatives, which party controls the Senate, or either.

Because most Americans don't know who controls Congress, when Congress misbehaves, as they have been doing for six years, most Americans aren't sure who to blame.

Enter the Republican Chaos Strategy, based entirely on this statistical and political reality.

[C]ommon sense suggests that well over 90 percent of Americans know that Barack Obama is the president and that he is a Democrat.

Therefore . . . Republicans know . . . that if they can cause damage to the American economy and to American working people, the average voter, not realizing it was exclusively the Republicans who did it, are going to assume that the president – and the Democratic Party . . . must bear some or maybe even all of the responsibility.

It's a brilliant strategy: Damage the country and you damage the Democratic Party.

And just in time for the midterm elections.

Even if we set the problem of money in politics aside

We can see that the mechanism that Mr. Hartmann has detected will eventually kill the nation.

The American people evidently do not care enough about their futures to obtain key facts about even uncomplicated matters. It is difficult to keep a political mechanism running properly, if we are not even aware of how it works or is supposed to work.

The American media do not help

The press’s consistently clueless conflict-mongering pretends that political adversaries are entitled to fair hearings, even when one side is lying or so bald-facedly wrong that a compassionate monarch would have cleaned up his/her social pollution-spewing with the guillotine.

In metaphorical form, an ignorant public, combined with a gleefully irresponsible and lazy press, eagerly hold national suicide knives to the Body Politic’s throat.

The moral? — The public’s widespread “don’t know nuthin’” attitude keeps our system sliding downhill

I doubt that this is going to change.

If one is too complacent to obtain and work with facts, it is highly unlikely that post-election failed policy wrath is going to fall on the narcissists who crafted it. This means that our democratic system has no way of tuning its leadership results to better accord with Reality’s demands.

That is why I so often harp about the importance of a properly functioning Fourth Estate — meaning a responsible and insightful press — and rational voters.

Sadly, both are in too-short supply.

PeteFree.com

Liberal Commentator Thom Hartmann Noticed Something Subtle about American Politics — which Explains Excessive Partisanship’s Nation-Wrecking Qualities