http://www.whitehousedossier.com/Obama: “Wrongheaded” Americans Must Trust Government More
by KEITH KOFFLER on MAY 9, 2014, 8:00 AM
President Obama today said Americans had developed the “wrongheaded” view that Washington won’t look out for them, a fallacy he said was stoked by conservatives and their philosophy that says people are “on their own.”
Obama spoke at a fundraiser for congressional Democrats in La Jolla, California:
And part of what contributes to that is the sense that nobody in Washington cares about them; or what people in Washington care about is their own jobs, their own positions, their own perks, squabbling between the two parties.
And so not only have we seen in Congress, in particular, over the last three to four years an utter failure to address the concerns of ordinary middle-class families, but that reinforces, then, people’s sense that there’s no point in us getting involved at all, and increases apathy or a lack of confidence in our government . . .
The truth of the matter is, is that the reason that we have not seen Washington address the core concerns of too many working families around the country is that you have a party that has been captive to an ideology, to a theory of economics, that says those folks, they’re on their own and government doesn’t have an appropriate role to play.
And our goal and our task in this midterm has to be to break that grip, that particular view, that particular wrongheaded vision this country has so that we can get back to the business of investing in the American people and investing in America’s future.
Yes, Americans have been tricked by wily Republicans into thinking their government hates them. Stupid Americans. We’ve got to reprogram them so they will accept more federal spending and help Obama build beautiful piles of debt for our children to pay off.
Obama went on to explain that Democrats don’t vote in midterm elections because they’re busy, while Republicans seem to have time on their hands and can get to the polls.
The Democrats have a congenital disease — we get really excited about presidential elections and then during midterms we fall asleep.
And partly it’s the nature of our voters. We’re disproportionately young, disproportionately minority, disproportionately working-class. Folks are busy. They’ve got a lot of stuff going on. And so we tend to drop off during midterms. That’s what happened in 2010.
Yes, Republicans are rich and lazy, having stolen money from poor Democrats, who are scrambling to earn some of it back. It’s just the system we have.
Everyone knows that Republicans vote more in midterms because they’re hiring Democrats to drive them to the polling stations. And the Democrats are being forced to keep the engine running so the Republicans stay warm, and so they don’t get to go vote too.
How could Obama have missed this?