Steve Kornacki: Ignoring "the American People" Can Be a Good Thing
[Steve Kornacki is the news editor for Salon.]
With House Democrats set to stick with Nancy Pelosi as their leader, the chamber's No. 2 Republican, Eric Cantor, proclaimed over the weekend that "It is almost as if they didn't get the message from voters in this election. The voters outright rejected the Democratic agenda. This is a woman who puts ideology first, and this is the direction they want to take again."
Cantor's emphasis on the popular will called to mind John Boehner's post-election declaration that "Our new majority will be the voice of the American people as they expressed it so clearly yesterday" -- just as it called to mind countless excoriations of the Obama administration from Republican leaders and conservative media personalities. To hear the right tell it, Barack Obama's biggest sin has been one of arrogance -- insisting on an agenda that the American people clearly object to....
It's also a strategy that the GOP has used before -- specifically, in the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency, the last time before these past two years that they were locked out of power in D.C. The howls of "arrogance!" and "overreach!" that we hear now were just as audible back then -- just as the gloating that has followed last week's midterm (This is what Obama and the Democrats get for ignoring the people!) was also heard after the 1994 midterms, when Republicans won back the House and Senate....
Read entire article at Salon
With House Democrats set to stick with Nancy Pelosi as their leader, the chamber's No. 2 Republican, Eric Cantor, proclaimed over the weekend that "It is almost as if they didn't get the message from voters in this election. The voters outright rejected the Democratic agenda. This is a woman who puts ideology first, and this is the direction they want to take again."
Cantor's emphasis on the popular will called to mind John Boehner's post-election declaration that "Our new majority will be the voice of the American people as they expressed it so clearly yesterday" -- just as it called to mind countless excoriations of the Obama administration from Republican leaders and conservative media personalities. To hear the right tell it, Barack Obama's biggest sin has been one of arrogance -- insisting on an agenda that the American people clearly object to....
It's also a strategy that the GOP has used before -- specifically, in the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency, the last time before these past two years that they were locked out of power in D.C. The howls of "arrogance!" and "overreach!" that we hear now were just as audible back then -- just as the gloating that has followed last week's midterm (This is what Obama and the Democrats get for ignoring the people!) was also heard after the 1994 midterms, when Republicans won back the House and Senate....