House of Eratosthenes

Early in his presidency, Barack Obama had a grace period when the public saw the nation’s problems as ones he inherited, but two new polls — by New York Times/CBS News and Wall Street Journal/NBC News – make clear that there are rising concerns about his policies.

The biggest public concern is over the size of the deficit being run up by Obama’s economic recovery proposals and how much more it will rise if his plan to overhaul health care and increase coverage for uninsured Americans is enacted. But there is also discomfort about his intervention in the auto industry and taking a big government stake in ownership of General Motors. And voters also disagree with Obama on closing Guantánamo.

John Hawkins likens it to a common male-female stormy relationship. His analogy is pure genius, and since I can’t find a way to excerpt it I’ll just dump it all in. You gotta read this, especially if you’ve been there before…gents.

To me, this is reminiscent of some relationships I’ve seen come and go. It starts with a whirlwind romance. The couple can’t get enough of each other. His friends point out some of her rather obvious glaring flaws, but she’s fresh, she’s new, she’s great in bed — and in his eyes, she can do no wrong. (Stage 1)

After a surprisingly short period of time, he proposes. His friends are dismayed, but they can’t really talk to him about it. If they suggest that perhaps they should slow things down and get to know each other a little better, he says he sees no need to wait. If they try to point out her flaws, he gets mad. There’s really nothing they can say that will change his mind. Soon, they’re married. (Stage 2)

After the marriage, they move in together and even though things still seem pretty good, he can finally see some of the flaws his friends pointed out. She gets in foul moods. She nags. She gets into fights with his parents. She seems flighty. She’s not very supportive. She’s a drama queen. Wow, how did he miss all these things? (Stage 3)

A few months in, he realizes these are not one time things, they’re patterns of behavior and he starts to have doubts, although he really can’t bear to talk about them. If you ask him basic questions like — “Do you enjoy spending time around her? Do you think your wife respects you? Is your wife your best friend? Are you ready to have children? Are you having as much fun as you were six months ago?” — the answer to every question is, “no.” But, if you were to ask him — “Do you still love your wife? Would you do it all over again? Are you happy to be married?” — he’d say “yes” to every question.

Why?

Because he’s hoping things will change. Because he can’t bear to admit his friends were right. Because it would make him feel petty to say, just a few months into his marriage, that he made a bad choice. Because he just can’t admit that he blew one of the biggest decisions of his life. (Stage 4)

Fast forward to 12-24 months after the couple is married and things are very different. They yell at each other all the time. He’s constantly upset. He’s asking his friends privately if they think he should get divorced. He’s utterly miserable. (Stage 5)

Then eventually, they get divorced, and it’s, “I don’t know what I saw in her. I don’t know what I was thinking. That was the biggest mistake of my life.” (Stage 6)

Today, most of the American people outside of Obama’s hard core supporters, who will stick with him no matter what, are either at stage 3 or stage 4. The more of them that move on to stage 4, the harder it’s going to be for him to get legislation passed. If the majority of people reach stage 4 and 5 before the 2010 election, and I believe they will, the Democrats will take a tremendous beating. Let’s hope this marriage continues to sour because the best thing that could ever happen to this country would be for it to get a divorce from Barack Obama.

Commenter smelvertising sees an issue, and I see it too. This is a painfully accurate summary of what American politics are all about, in my eyes.

You missed a stage: eventually, as they grow apart, they start to forget all the bad blood and bad stuff, and wonder why they parted. And the old flame is reignited, which resets everything to stage 1.

It would explain why the voting public keeps putting idiots, morons, charlatans and demagogues (AKA leftists) in charge, after they’ve proven themselves again and again to be unable to do anything but kill economies and destabilize the international situation.

This is really the difference between conservatives and liberals, right there. Conservatives have workable, even temperaments — well, most of them — and functional long-term memories. The issue that arises to confront the American voter over and over again is “Who’s up for doing one more time, what’s been tried many times before and has never worked once?” Liberals are the ones that say “Hell yeah! Twentieth time’s the charm!”

Conservatives respond the way normal, emotionally stable people do. “If we got sent back to the drawing board, then I think we should spend some time there. Tell me what you’ve changed in the plan to make the outcome different.” Nothing changed means no sale.

And how do Americans debate between these two positions? The propaganda that consumes us richly exploits Bullet Point #3 on the House of Eratosthenes list of Ways to Motivate Large Numbers Of People To Do A Dumb Thing, Without Anyone Associating The Dumb Thing With Your Name Later On. And sadly, most of us fall for it; it doesn’t really take much time at all to relapse back into smelvertising‘s sixth stage:

3. Switch moderation and extremism with each other, by using the words “always” and “never” to describe any alternatives to your idea;

The mainstream folks who don’t care that much about politics, have been conditioned to think of “liberal” as the moderate — as someone who says “Hey surely there’s got to be something we can do about this problem, let’s keep trying until we find the right answer.” While a “conservative” is an extremist; someone who says “No, no, absolutely not because I/we am/are afraid of change.”

This is that Bullet Point #3 exercise of switching moderation and extremism. The reality is that liberals are quite extreme. They say “History always began this morning for us! So in our minds we’ve never tried to do anything at all, let’s do this thing we’ve already tried a hundred times!” And the conservatives are the ones who say “Well waitaminnit, if this was the way to go, then why didn’t we stick with it after 1992 and 1976 and 1964 and 1932 and…and…and.” “Where have they ever outlawed guns and experienced a lower crime rate as a direct result?” “When did we ever raise the minimum wage and in so doing raise the overall standard of living?” “How exactly is a nation supposed to tax itself into prosperity?” “Now that we’ve elected your hopey changey iPresident Replacement-Jesus Man-God guy, where’s the one guy in the whole world who hated us last year and loves us all to pieces now?” “What exactly is a congressional apology for slavery supposed to achieve?”

“Did rent controls lower rents?”

“Did putting a woman in charge of the House of Representatives end wars?”

“Did the war on poverty end poverty?”

“Did Social Security ensure our retirees are all comfortable now and forevermore?”

So the conservatives are presented as wild-eyed zealots, religious zealots in a sense, who are opposed on principle to solving a problem or even attempting to solve it. Their position is actually one of simply doing what sane people are supposed to do. Exercise a consistent action, expect a consistent result. Of course, maybe we aren’t doing things to get positive results, and just want to feel better about ourselves, kind of an emotional elixir that is really a placebo. A ten trillion dollar placebo. In which case, maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to admit that’s what is being done. Just stop pretending you’re trying to fix anything.

Maybe people are starting to figure out that’s the real situation. Maybe that’s the real reason the honeymoon is coming to an end. You gotta admit, last year during the campaign a lot of folks were told Obama’s election would make things a whole lot different. That was the slogan: “Change.” It seems, after all, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Update: Or, if you’re among the dwindling numbers of people who aren’t yet tired of pretending, then keep pretending. Stage One is a pretty comfy place after all.

Hat tip for the video to blogger friend Gerard.

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