No GOP Meme Left Behind…

Christy Hardin Smith at FDL has a great post on countering the inside-the-Beltway mindset and understanding why the Dems really won the election.

Look, I understand that it will take time for media types to sluff off the spoon-fed GOP framing memes and for reporters and pundits alike to start thinking on their own for a change, but the "liberal" framing under the "naughty/bad/out of touch with America" nonsense has got to stop. You know why Democrats won in the last election cycle? Because we are all — ALL – sick to death of the real problems in America getting shoved to the side for partisan posturing and KStreet negotiation advantages, with real people being squeezed out of the process at the margins, and real problems getting tromped further and further down the Congressional "to do" list. This election cycle was all about accountability — because we couldn't get the rubber stamp Republican Congress to stand up and do their jobs for the rest of America.

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The liberal versus conservative framing is so last election cycle. Let's try "real world versus Beltway fantasy" on for size and see how much more appropriate that is. Matt Taibbi's palpable disgust in his election night tour de force expresses how fed up we all are at the DC spin machine and the unreality of the Beltway crowd. (And it's a darn good read — some exceptional snark in there!)

[I heartily concur. It's Hunter S. Thompson-esque. Check it out! -- bill]

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Here's an idea: what people want, all across America, no matter their political leanings or personal philosophy, is for someone on the Hill to take their job seriously, for a restoration of Constitutional governance and checks and balances and adults running the show instead of the arrogant free-for-all to which we were subjected under the Tom DeLay KStreet ATM excesses of the last few years and the Karl Rove rabid partisan divide and…well, and lose anyway strategy.

Here's the idiocy of the whole "liberal versus conservative" meme that the media keeps pushing: the frame is all wrong. It ought to be Beltway Insiders and Power-grabbing Status Quo Pushers versus the rest of the real people who live their lives, working their butts off every single day in the rest of the country outside that unreality Beltway bubble.

Why? Because most of America wants some solution to health care, some form of universal access and something better than what there is now. Most of America thinks Iraq is a mess, and blames the idiots in Washington, regardless of party, who got us into the mess without asking questions that needed asking in the first place. Most of America is sick of slick, arrogant insider-ism, and they want accountability and honesty and actual governance.

Most of America wants their members of Congress to actually, you know, WORK instead of runnning around sucking up special interest money like a Hoover in order to maintain their hold on the status quo.

Which puts all of us squarely in the center of most of America.