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Edited on Mon Jan-03-11 11:38 PM by Igel
People want their stuff. It's their stuff. They deserve their stuff. If there's a deficit, it's because those other people over there are getting stuff they don't deserve. Don't get between me and my much-deserved stuff.
If the GOP doesn't raise the debt ceiling people won't get their stuff.
Moreover, the people who aren't getting stuff generally have at least one class of stuff-receiving people that they empathize with. Maybe it's the military and the brave fighting men seeking to free Afghanistan from democracy. Maybe it's the poor, sick children living in the beer cartons floating in the Hudson under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Perhaps it's the valiant researchers developing that new, cutting-edge stem-cell treatment to cure psoriasis. Nearly everybody has an ox that must not, under any circumstance, be gored by not getting its stuff. It's richly deserved, yea, its crucial stuff.
Yeah, the budget deficit's huge, it's unsustainable. Just keep your hands off my stuff. If you need to cut somebody's stuff, cut the other guy's stuff. Mine's richly deserved. He's a loser, and he doesn't deserve his stuff nearly as much as I deserve mine. Got it? It's mine. I'm cool, I'm altruistic, I have empathy and love my fellow man. Now get your hands off my stuff or watch my foot send your reproductive organs into orbit around Mercury. I don't care if you are a woman.
If you compare the pissed-off quotient from not getting your stuff next week--or having your sacred ox not get its stuff which is your stuff vicariously--versus having a potentially huge meltdown later that hurts hundreds of millions of Americans, you'll see it's obvious that not getting your stuff wins hands down. After all, as long as the meltdown--which may be huge, but who really knows?--occurs after three weeks from Thursday it's in the unknowably distant future. Anything that might be trivial in the unknowably distant future is of less importance than getting your stuff tomorrow.
The question is, If the GOP blocks the debt ceiling increase because we've run up a few trillions in public debt in the last couple of years, who gets the blame for denying Americans their stuff, their richly deserved stuff? After all, Americans are all about blame. We like assigning blame almost as much as we like getting our stuff. Look at the education system. Our kids aren't getting their stuff, so we really need somebody to blame and that means tests and procedures and zero-tolerance policies and regimentation and reviews ad infinitum to make sure we can blame somebody as everybody in the system produces proof that the blame is somebody else's. But I digress, and that's a bad thing in a post this long.
When discussing blame, it's easier for the prez to control the populace. . . uh, the discussion than it is for 50 representatives with 72 slightly different stories. The press couldn't handle 3-4 reasons given for the Iraq War and demanded just one, then made sure we were pissed off when they were told a few years later that they were just told the one excuse that * & Co. thought had the widest traction. The American public can handle incredible complexity as long as it can be fully explained in 2 sentences of 4-5 words each, as long as the two sentences contain at least three of the same words. The problem is the press gets lost after the first sentence.
With a public like that, 50 different narratives will be interpreted as a "zzzz" sound, a somewhat annoying backdrop to Obama's "Look, I just want to give you your stuff, your richly deserved stuff. Yeah, there may be a problem later, but who really knows for sure. But today, the GOP is denying you your stuff--they're to blame--and I want you to help me do what's right and give you your richly deserved stuff. You deserve your stuff. They want to take your stuff away from you."
With a narrative like that, any government shutdown will last about 23 minutes, during which time Obama's ratings will increase approx. 1.1 rating points per minute while the repubs lose the same amount.
No. The GOP knows this. If they try to actually accomplish it without having a single, crystal clear story--"If we don't do something, none of you will get your stuff, your richly deserved stuff, and it will be Obama's fault"--then they lose. They cannot say, "We want to make sure that almost everybody gets their stuff" because everybody will assume that they will be wrongly denied their stuff. In other words, unless they actually *do* take Obama hostage and keep him from saying a word in public, the GOP loses *their* stuff.
The best they can do is try to maneuvre to get a concession. "We want to give you your stuff--did you know it's richly deserved?--but we want our stuff, too. If we just get our stuff you'll not only get your stuff, you'll get *more* stuff." It may work, but I wouldn't hold out much expectations. After all, the response from Obama will be, "Wait a minute--if they get their stuff, that's stuff that I could give to you. And you know you not only richly deserve the stuff you're getting now, and not only do you deserve even *more* stuff, but you deserve the GOP's stuff, too! Hell, you richly deserve it, they don't--they're losers and are holding back on giving you *all* of your stuff!"
BTW, you misunderstand the GOP's strategy every bit as much as you misunderstand their goals.
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