Fitzsimon File

You don’t have to watch a 24-hour news channel long to get the mainstream media’s take on the mood of the people as President Obama prepares to make his second State of the Union Address Wednesday night.

The talking heads seem certain that the anxiety and anger in the land are aimed at Obama, health care reform, the stimulus plan, taxes, and immigration.

They cite last week’s upset victory by Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race as evidence that the frustration means Republicans will make major gains in the November election.

Most of the pundits point to the “Tea Party movement” as the primary expression of the voters’ discontent with their elected officials. Many Republicans cite it too and seem quick to embrace the groups that hold the rallies and town halls, no matter how extreme or offensive the rhetoric.

State Representative Bryan Holloway is a co-founder of Wake Up America, a right-wing group that rails about Obama freeing terrorists and hiring communists as part of his radical socialist agenda. Rep. Holloway is scheduled to speak at a town hall meeting next month in Winston-Salem promoted as part of the “war on an out of touch government.”

The meeting is sponsored by a collection of right-wing groups, including one whose website features an article titled “Operation Wetback,” and another that encourages readers to take pictures of “illegal aliens” to provide “evidence” for the immigration authorities.

That’s hardly mainstream America. And it is a strange place for Republican candidates and elected officials like Holloway to appear unless they want us to assume they agree with the hate rhetoric.

Most Americans who are anxious about their jobs and angry at the Wall Street CEOs are not going to tea parties or spewing offensive slogans.  And there’s also evidence that they are not furious about the health care reform bills in Congress or Obama’s efforts to reign in the abuses on Wall Street by the bankers who took taxpayer bailout money and then lined their own pockets with millions in bonuses.

People are not mad that the reforms have been proposed. They are mad because they have not passed and are instead disappearing in the hole the special interests always manage to create for legislation that threatens their massive profits.

And though you wouldn’t know it by the amount of media coverage, millions of people also realize that cutting taxes and slashing government will make things worse, not better.  This week the voters in Oregon approved a $727 million tax increase on corporations and wealthy individuals to prevent devastating cuts to state services.

That’s right. The voters in Oregon approved a tax increase in the middle of what we are told is the anti-government tea party era.

It’s not that much of a surprise.  Last October voters in Maine and Washington rejected the unwise and misnamed Taxpayer Protection Act that hamstrings state government with arbitrary limits on state spending, crippling the chance of state lawmakers to adequately fund education and human services.

That’s three big defeats in a row for the anti-government forces.  And it is a compelling reminder that people aren’t angry at their government.

They are angry that their elected officials in their government don’t seem to be fighting for them against the big banks, the financial industry and the insurance companies.

It may not come up much on talking head cable shows, but the problem is not that President Obama and Congress are too doing too much. It is that they are not doing enough.

 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.