The Big Lie Theory

What we are seeing develop in American politics is a principle perfected originally by the totalitarian regimes of the 20^th Century and characterized in George Orwell's "1984", namely the Big Lie. Simply if you circulate enough Big Lies and get them repeated often enough, a percentage of the population will simply believe it. It seemed to gain momentum during the 2004 campaign when John Kerry's war record was questioned (whatever happened to that) and was tried in 2008 when Obama's citizen status was questioned (while believed by some the disaster of the Bush administration was hard to overcome).

The last two years saw it used more than can be believed as, it seems, conservative talk show hosts try to outdo each other. Lies that have been circulated include the ongoing allegations about Obama's religion and birthplace, numerous lies about the health care bill, purported Government takeover, increased costs, death squads, etc. etc., lies about tax increases over the last two years, and most recently lies about the cost of Presidential travel.

Most of us, feel that the lies are so preposterous, that no one would believe them. However, an old maxim comes into play here, no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Now, I think the statement is more related to the attention span rather than innate intelligence, but the basic principle holds. The public doesn't like to work hard at either entertainment or politics.

If you compare the ratings of low brow entertainment to high brow entertainment, the first easily trumps the latter. This isn't a condemnation of low brow entertainment, I greatly enjoy those shows myself, it is simply reality. Unfortunately, you will hear certain people, who consider themselves and who may be intellectuals, rant about how the public needs to be better informed and learn to appreciate the finer things.

Screw them. The public is always right, just like the customer and the voter. If you want to entertain them you have to actually give them something they will enjoy. People have the right; it's in the bill of rights, to pursue happiness. If you think the way they pursue it is wrong, you are wrong. By the same token, if you take the high ground in Politics, the odds are that you will lose.

The last two years demonstrated that the debate about major social initiatives was lost by the Democrats. I believe it is clear that in many cases, and maybe the President needs to think about his role, they let the grounds for debate be dictated by the opposition. I know most Americans believe that people are entitled to health care. However, they were told the Government was going to make them change doctors, decide what sort of treatment they could have and greatly increase their costs. None of these things are true, yet they are believed by significant numbers of Americans. The selling of the Health Care Act was perhaps the single greatest failure of the last two years. It was done so terribly that many Democratic candidates attempted to distance themselves from the act like naughty children with their hands in the cookie jar. Reforming health care was one of the greatest accomplishments of the last 50 years and over time will be perceived that way, but shame on Democratic opinion makers for failing to extol its virtues.

Similarly the stimulus package likely helped us avoid a complete financial collapse. Unfortunately, as big as it was it wasn't big enough or fast enough to reverse the fallout from the economic crisis the Administration inherited. The biggest failure here was probably the initial selling of the package as a way to keep unemployment below 8%. It didn't and in fact unemployment hit that level before any impact from it was felt. The loss of equity in people's homes took a tremendous amount of spending power out of the economy and the stimulus was not big enough to offset that.

The lesson that needs to be learned is that if you care about the country and your countrymen you have to be willing to fight for your beliefs. I believe a lot of the American public will become quickly disillusioned by the new crop of congressmen who really have no coherent ideas about how to fix things, but I also know the problems that will persist will be blamed on the President and the Senate by those same unethical conservative talk show hosts. If the Democrats don't figure out how to seize the debate 2012 will be another bloodbath.