The right wing firmly believes that their victory in the house and the few senate seats they took away from Democrats was the equivalent of a tsunami of support and this is Real America’s mandate on the Obama Agenda. As I pointed out over at Chicagoist, the “tsunami” was really more of a few big waves. Several races were tight, Democrats held onto the Senate and at least 50% of America stayed home. Still, facts and nuance get in the way of the GOP PR juggernaut that believes the last election is a sign from on high that America will coronate Sarah Palin in 2012. Gaining 30 more House seats than Republicans lost in 2006, when the pendulum swung in the opposite direction is a “mandate.”
John Boehner told ABC news that this election was the “most historic election in over 60, 70 years” and went on to say “you would think the other party would understand that the American people have clearly repudiated the policies they’ve put forward in the last few years.” As I pointed out before, this election was indeed historic, simply because of the sheer amount of money pissed to the wind on campaigning. To say that this election is the most historic in decades because of a decent Republican victory is hyperbolic. If anything, the 2008 election was more historic, not only because Obama is the first African American president, but because voter turnout was higher than it had been since the 1960’s.
The post electoral rhetoric spewing from the mainstream media highlights exactly how well GOP propaganda works. Since the moment Obama won the election in 2008, right wing PR operatives consistently shout the same message – the country is going to hell, it wasn’t their administration’s fault, our suspiciously different looking president has a hidden agenda to steal the livelihoods of Good Hard Working Americans and they are the only people who will “take America back” for the righteous. They’ve been running a campaign since inauguration day and the victory in the House is due to the fruits of a coordinated and well financed attack on anything not Republican.
Unfortunately, the propaganda train isn’t likely to pull into the station anytime soon. Already, Obama is planning to capitulate to the whims of the right, based on comments from folks like Senator Mitch McConnell, who accused Democrats of “ignoring the American people.” Democratic lawmakers must “change course” because the blustery right spent the past two years saying they would do everything in their power to make Obama fail. Essentially, the government is only broken when Republicans aren’t running it, because they will break it in order to force people to believe they’re the only ones who can lead. The propaganda war for the White House in 2012 began long before the polls opened in the mid-terms. Sadly, we’re in for some long years ahead.
