Everything Is Okay…Really (Part Two)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how the GOP and its complicit enablers in the mainstream media were trying to argue that there is nothing seriously wrong with the economy right now and Americans were simply whiners.

Lost your house? Get over it already, whiner. Can’t afford that medical test you need? Quit your bellyaching. Can’t afford the gasoline to get to work? So what, crybaby? You got it good. Can’t pay for your college tuition or get a college loan? You’re simply in a “mental recession.” Yeah, that’s right. You’re crazy. Vote for John McCain and everything will be just as hunky-dory as it is now.

After the era of propagandist Karl Rove, these Republican talking points initiatives are incredibly transparent to anyone who is paying attention. This time it appears the Orwellian talking points have backfired on some level, but this GOP idea that everything is okay economically for Americans is probably not going away anytime soon. It will surely manifest itself in some other insidious lie during the months leading up to the November election.

Neoconservative ideology has desperately failed this country’s citizens, and the GOP leadership has no way out of that argument, except to lie that things aren’t that bad. In this way, the Republican political operatives hope to continue to appeal to that certain segment of voters who don’t vote based on economic issues.

The most recent example of this particular talking points initiative came when former Republican U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, a McCain surrogate, said Americans were in a “mental recession.” He also said, according to media reports, “"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline."

McCain supposedly disavowed the remarks, but the Gramm comments give us a good idea where the GOP is headed in terms of its political rhetoric this year.

Obviously, on some level, the Gramm comments echo the standard clichéd “America, love it or leave it” philosophy advanced by narrow-minded nationalists who goosestep in unison to the belief that this country’s government can do no wrong when, in fact, it now sanctions torture, unconstitutional wiretapping of its citizens and an imperial presidency.

In addition, a recent poll by Pew Research Center also concluded that Baby Boomers were a bunch of whiners. The Pew poll shows the fix is in on this particular talking point for the Republicans. The logic of the poll’s results goes like this: Baby Boomers have it better than people who grew up in the Great Depression so they should just shut their mouths. By extension, the logic would seem to be that unless you’re standing in a soup line, you should keep everything the same, i.e. vote for John McCain (wink, wink).

The main question is this: Why would any organization even conduct such a poll right now unless it is to supposedly prove the GOP talking points? But that’s how the political and media system work right now.

The point is not that there isn’t hope and optimism among voters this year. There is. But voters are saying over and over this country needs a major change in direction, and that is one of the major political stories this election year. Obviously, Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, represents change. McCain, in his political essence, is the status quo, Bush redux.