Differences Between Democracy and Demagoguery

Giving a speech is easy. You analyze your audience and you then say things that they will want to hear. If it is a political speech you make sure you give them candy and then they will like you a lot and vote for you. That, regretably is what campaign speeches have come to mean.

Once you get elected it becomes immeasurably more difficult because then you must be constrained by the doable. You realistically can no longer make magic because you are limited by concensus building and revenue.

Remember when George W. Bush took all those hits for telling al Qaeda to "bring it on"? That was pugnacious and "cowboy", although it escapes me what is negative about cowboys.

Now we've got the Messiah using the phrase. The only difference is that he uses it to chide the minority party in America.

I Could But I Didn't, But Maybe I Will

That is a perfect example of campaign rhetoric rather than incumbent policy description. He speaks to an audience of loyalists and tells them what they want to hear so that they will applaud and subsequently love him.

Okay, let me think. I could have everybody get health care coverage that's high quality, and it's free, which I'll bet is really popular. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go through the pain of really working through this hard process in Congress, getting yelled at and called a socialist, because I just -- that's how I roll. I'm a glutton for punishment.

That's how he rolls. With a wave of his wizard's wand he could "get health care coverage" and "it's free..." Is that within the realm of possibility? TNSTAAFL pops into my head. There is NOTHING free. The "pain of working through this process in Congress..." is because we don't want what he is selling. More than two thirds of Americans say they don't want this plan. We don't believe his cost estimates. We understand that quality costs money and that healthcare is NOT an inalienable right.

My point is the easiest thing to do in politics is to point fingers, to figure out who to blame for something, or to make people afraid of things. That's the easiest way to get attention. That's what reporters will report on. You call somebody a name, you say, look what a terrible thing they've done and they're going to do more terrible things to you if you don't watch out. And you'll get a lot of press attention. And, in some cases, you can win elections, particularly when unemployment is 10 percent.

That is so disingenuous that I'm embarrassed for him. He apparently doesn't like having the finger of responsibility pointed at him. He simply forgets the previous eight years during which he and his cohorts blamed Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld for everything from the economy to low gas mileage to ring-around-the-collar. He doesn't want us to notice that he's run the national debt from 5.8 trillion dollars in 2007 to more than 12.4 trillion today. Nearly all of that jump came during his watch. He doesn't admit that he can't give a speech without blaming Bush.

Apparently you can win elections when unemployment is 10%, particularly if the electorate is repudiating your single year of misguided governmental policies.

Increasingly the voters of the nation, those who can still read and write and who have a reasonable understanding of a household budget, are not buying the demagoguery and are seeking a rational democratic form of government which is aware that government has limits in our Constitutional format. Awareness is coming too late to stop damage, but maybe it is not yet to late to save the republic.