Today, in the print magazine, David Von Drehle, lays out the surging fury that voters have been showing for political authority at the ballot box this year.
The natives are restless. Americans of all persuasions at last agree on something. It is a message to their leaders that starts with F and ends with u.
At Politics Daily, Walter Shapiro argues that the anger is more focused than just anti-incumbency fury. It is pro-authenticity fury.
What has been happening in American politics beginning with last November’s elections is something more subtle and (surprise!) more hopeful than irrational anger against all incumbents and elites. The bipartisan voter rebellion is against political cynicism and entitlement.
Glenn Thrush, at Politico, says “change” is still the name of the game.
Obama has become so synonymous with the Washington establishment these days that a top Democratic consultant joked, “What the White House needs to do is endorse the candidate they don’t want to have win, then the candidate they want to win can run as anti-establishment.”
Meanwhile, Ann Coulter of all people weighs in with the claim that Republican incompetence is the defining issue, in classic Coulter fashion.
No sooner had the news come out that Goldman Sachs (Joseph Goebbels in this metaphor) had given Obama an astronomical $1 million in campaign donations, than Republican John Boehner decided that this was the time to suck up to Wall Street! So Boehner flew to New York to meet with Wall Street bankers and ask them to be Republicans’ friends. Boehner is like the guy who just got raped in prison and doesn’t know what happened to him. Hey — what was that? Should I have thanked the guy? As Pat Caddell says, Democrats are whores, but they expect to be paid; Republicans’ names are scrawled on the bathroom wall: “For a good time, call the GOP!”
Oof. What’s your theory?