Emotional Reasoning -- Mid term 2010 election voters in the United States behaved in predictable ways on November 2. They voted based on feelings more than cool logic. They, in effect, rejected the past two years of progressive legislation resulting from the leadership of a cool, detached and analytical Obama administration. Influenced by billions of corporate dollars that purchased emotionally charged and distorted political ads, they voted out of fear and anger. The result is that we have returned to being a corporatocracy after a two year hiatus. Big business is back in charge with a bang in the U.S. House of Representatives, "the People's House," if it ever left at all.
Magical Thinking -- Governing from the gut required magical thinking on the part of voters choosing their Republican Representatives. "Magical thinking" requires staying in denial about the reality of corporate greed, corruption, and millions of housing foreclosures. They were able to ignore the deepest recession in decades. Preferring to go back to Republican rule, the unemployed were influenced to feel they will be able to go back to work. If government will only get out of the way so business can get back to work, there will be more jobs.
Denial -- Never mind that those jobs have been, and will continue to be, outsourced for cheaper labor. The business of the nation has now become high finance. Moreover, except for the Chicago Mercantile, that state of affairs has left the broad Rust Belt in the center of the country bereft of viable industry. Since the turn of the century, the Middle Class has increasingly been in an anguished search for help. And in 2010 their gut told them that those in power could not be of any assistance, and that the country was "going to hell in a hand basket" because of the government.
Throw-them-out mentality -- The map of yesterday's voting patterns shows how upset the Midwest and the South (along with a few other pockets of unrest) have been feeling about the economy. The election's outcome today is a divided government that will result in a stalemate for the next two years. Republicans have been absolutely clear about that. Their promise is "Government is now going to get out of our way. . It is Obama's Waterloo. We can just feel it in our gut." Speaker-to-be John Boehner's triumphant tears are proof positive of the value of governing from the gut. Now, off to the golf course.
Magical Thinking -- Governing from the gut required magical thinking on the part of voters choosing their Republican Representatives. "Magical thinking" requires staying in denial about the reality of corporate greed, corruption, and millions of housing foreclosures. They were able to ignore the deepest recession in decades. Preferring to go back to Republican rule, the unemployed were influenced to feel they will be able to go back to work. If government will only get out of the way so business can get back to work, there will be more jobs.
Denial -- Never mind that those jobs have been, and will continue to be, outsourced for cheaper labor. The business of the nation has now become high finance. Moreover, except for the Chicago Mercantile, that state of affairs has left the broad Rust Belt in the center of the country bereft of viable industry. Since the turn of the century, the Middle Class has increasingly been in an anguished search for help. And in 2010 their gut told them that those in power could not be of any assistance, and that the country was "going to hell in a hand basket" because of the government.
Throw-them-out mentality -- The map of yesterday's voting patterns shows how upset the Midwest and the South (along with a few other pockets of unrest) have been feeling about the economy. The election's outcome today is a divided government that will result in a stalemate for the next two years. Republicans have been absolutely clear about that. Their promise is "Government is now going to get out of our way. . It is Obama's Waterloo. We can just feel it in our gut." Speaker-to-be John Boehner's triumphant tears are proof positive of the value of governing from the gut. Now, off to the golf course.
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