Notes Regarding the Feasibility of a Minor Revolution, Part 1: Where'd the Bogeymen Go?:
So what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do? While most of the political punditocracy have made Chicken Little look subtle in their declarations that the Democratic sky is falling, it ain't gonna be as bad as they say. Still, there is cause to be worried. It seems that no matter what good the Democrats or the Obama administration do or want to do, no matter how much they succeed and drag the nation out of its Bush-made morass, the established narrative is that Democrats are failing the nation. Republicans see no benefit in doing anything but throwing themselves on the tracks to try to make the train derail, even on shit that would seem a no-brainer, like Wall Street reform. And while on a national level, that can be battled, it is significantly harder to do when it comes to the more localized House races (and some of the Senate ones), where nutzoid more readily wins out.

So this'll be one those crazy ass things that blogs do: offer advice that won't be taken by anyone but can get some of us talking. Think of this as very Luntzian, except not full of pudgy evil and bewildering lies (and with better hair). Follow the bouncing ball, motherfuckers, for the banking reform bill is just the start:

First off, ignore the Tea Party. They are a media creation, a flaccid cock fluffed by Glenn Beck and Fox "news" into semi-tumescence by endless coverage. They are the Kardashians of the body politic - no one really understands why they exist, but without the cameras, they would disappear. The Tea Party's purpose at this point is to divide and destroy the Republican Party. The small percentage of teabaggers who aren't just crazy gun-toting assholes getting off on their negrophobia can be easily led away if they are offered a way to redirect their anger.

Now, there's been some visceral, awful things that have happened lately in America. There's the West Virginia coal mining disaster. There's the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico following the rig explosion. That's gonna fuck up the Redneck Riviera, no doubt. There's the push for banking reform in the wake of the financial meltdown. What do they have in common? It's all shit that was the result of actions by major corporations who have been able to act with impunity in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Now, you're not gonna win an argument in this America by going after capitalism. You're not gonna win by going after the money in politics (although, truly, that is the great ongoing criminal conspiracy of our system of alleged democracy). That's because Americans have been taught, like the dogs of conservatism, to respond viscerally whenever anyone says anything is wrong with their money and how they spend it and what shit they own. It doesn't work.

Now, this is why the easiest bogeymen ("Bogeypeople"? What's the PC bogey term?) are politicians - because the very nature of being an elected official means that you are in a position to determine how people's money is spent. And idiot America has been lied to effectively enough to believe that any purpose beyond defense is somehow bad spending (even though, as Bill Maher said last week and polls have shown, they don't know what shit should be cut). Barack Obama has been placed in a position where the government has to spend that cash money in order to right the well-fucked state that eight years of willful neglect and grandstanding hubris left us in. But he's spending idiot America's money on shit that don't blow up, so he's a bogeyman, too, to those who are looking for someone to blame and, thank Christ, it's a black dude.

So, now we on the left have to offer a bogeyman. We have to give the people a demon. They need someone to hate. Communists, welfare mothers, "Islamic extremists," immigrants, "progressives" - one thing the right has excelled at is demonizing some group, whether they really exist or are some phantom of Father-Senator-Rush-Coughlin-McCarthy-Beck's deranged mind. It's a way of distancing criticism of the very people doing the demonizing. Think about how George W. Bush was derided and dismissed in the public's mind prior to 9/11, when he finally had someone to redirect that energy towards. Think about how Barack Obama and Bill Clinton before him were themselves the objects of that abject, irrational hatred. It's because they offered no one to be the target of tomatoes other than themselves.

Simply put: America's gotta hate someone. It's who we are. It was the founding of the country.

Who is that and how will that work? Well, that's the hook for Part 2.