Interesting recent poll that makes the point I dwell on to an annoying excess no doubt - in the run up to the election polls showing a majority of Americans supporting higher taxes on ‘the rich’ emboldened an Obama re-election strategy that was essentially all about demonizing these rich devils whose unspeakable evils were made manifest in the ‘out of touch’ Mormon menace of Romney - and the media were more than happy to sing along to the tune the master had set. One problem though - the average voter is grossly uninformed in the best of cases, utter fool in the worst - turns out people were more than happy to tax the crap out of the 'rich' because they were under the impression the so called rich didn’t pay any taxes, robber barons all - when the cretins were made aware of fact that real world is not actually an Oliver Stone movie and that consequently these dubiously stigmatized rich [which for Obama meant any pale skinned male driving a BMW but not living in Hollywood] were not all incarnations of larcenous greed and rapine and do in fact pay quite a bit in taxes, suddenly subsequent polls of these now somewhat less uninformed voters showed that taxing the blood sweat and tears out of the so called well off was not so popular a thing after all.
Combine an electorate that bounces lazily between ignorant and uninformed and is therefore highly vulnerable to manipulation, with a media that is biased and in Obama’s case egregiously biased, and you’ve got yourself a serious problem. If you believe that in a democracy an uncontested, unchallenged opinion is perforce a bad opinion, a dangerous opinion - and I would suggest that the whole point of democracy is to challenge opinions, to test them in the fires of debate - then even if you agree with Obama’s words and deeds you must still recognise, if you’re to have any claim to integrity whatsoever, acknowledge at the very least the potential that the dysfunctional if not diseased dynamic evidenced above, upon which those words and deeds rest, presents as a looming threat to the republic.
Although, given my premise, I suppose I'm forced to admit that for anyone so locked in agreement with the Obama that the logic of this has escaped them so far, it's not likely they fall under its influence now.
