Alternate headline: “Valerie Jarrett completely misunderstands voter anger.” If you don’t have time to watch this now, no worries: You’ll be hearing the same talking point verbatim on the morning of November 3. The electorate is as gung ho for Hopenchange as ever, it’s just that this darned economy, which the Democrats have absolutely nothing to do with, has voters feeling anxious and angry and, well, darned peevish towards the president.
And as we all know, peevish voters don’t really count:
“What about all those angry tea partiers, though?” you ask. The key word is “angry.” Angry people aren’t enthusiastic; they’re just angry. And once the object of that anger is gone, there’s not much left, except perhaps more undirected anger.
Tea-party anger is not enthusiasm for Republicans or Republican policies — the only folks more disliked than incumbents are those inside the tea-party movement itself. Polls show a majority of Americans don’t align themselves with the tea party. A late August CBS poll, for example, found that 54 percent did not support the movement…
If we’re going to equate anger with enthusiasm — which is not a good idea, but that’s the media’s ginned-up, don’t-think-for-yourself, pre-fabricated narrative — then we have to note that angry voters are usually abrasive and obtuse. It’s not an emotion of the future.
Patriotism, on the other hand, does look into the future. And real patriotism is about solving problems, not posing slogans or inciting fear. Patriots debate; they don’t vilify, and they actually work toward things like establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility and promoting the general welfare.
That’s Donna Brazile, helpfully explaining that anger is unpatriotic. By the way, in case you’re not keeping up on your daily talking points, this is the Democratic meme du jour — that voters are angry and therefore not quite in their right mind, which is why they’re willing to elect candidates who are stupid. That’s the best liberals can do under the circumstances; no doubt they’d like to expand their tea-party narrative to the electorate generally and tell voters that if they elect Republicans they’re (a) racist and (b) stone-cold nuts, but even the Obama-led Democratic Party retains some vague sense that they shouldn’t insult the electorate too much. Psychoanalyzing them, telling them that they’re not thinking clearly because economic anxiety is acting like some sort of political narcotic on their brain — that’s all fair game. But ix-nay on the acism-ray. Until 2012, at least. Click the image to watch.
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