One goal accomplished

Every Monday the Morning Edition program on NPR brings on Cokie Roberts to discuss the state of national politics. Today, she discussed the approval rating of Congress, now at a record 17%, and the speech Obama will give on Thursday. Then this, taken from the NPR transcript.

And a very interesting analysis by Bill McInturff is out over the weekend. He is a Republican pollster, highly respected, but this is a nonpartisan analysis looking at consumer confidence numbers and doing focus groups on that question. And it shows that the big drop of almost 16 points in consumer confidence from July to August was directly related to that debt ceiling debate.

Now, we have all theorized that that's the case, but now he's been able to put together the numbers. And there's no confidence in the president, in Republicans in Congress, in anyone in government to fix the problems. And he says that the debt ceiling debate was like a catastrophic event in terms of people's views, something like September 11th, where people had a very favorable view of government after that catastrophe, or Katrina, where people have a very unfavorable view of government after that catastrophe.

So people's confidence in Washington's ability to solve the country's economic problems is just nil. So it's very, very hard to believe voters will believe anything will happen as a result of whatever the president proposes

All through Roberts' discussion I kept thinking of something I've mentioned a time or two (most notably on Labor Day a year ago). It is one of the goals of the GOP on their way to a complete takeover.

Prove democracy doesn't work.

You don't think that's true? Another piece of evidence. The GOP has been, over the last two years, systematically preventing parts of Obama's support from voting in 2012. It has been called the "most significant setback to voter rights in this country in a century." That's according to Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, which monitors barriers to voting. The GOP is also electing and appointing anti-democracy judges and putting cases before them to make people think voter fraud is rampant, rather than non-existent.

I'm finding disgust with conservatives isn't confined to the USA. The failure of right-wing policies has led to problems in Britain, Greece, elsewhere in Europe, and (not reported much here -- because USA media doesn't want us to get ideas?) in Israel. 350,000 in the streets. Wow.

What do people want? According to the author of the blog Culture Kitchen:

PEOPLE ARE SICK OF TRICKLE DOWN, RIGHT WING LIES. They want more equitable societies with more transparency and democracy, and stronger social programs. They do NOT WANT right wing trickle down failures anymore. (emphasis in the original)

But that would mean the current GOP would not have any power. One of their central beliefs is We're the ones who are supposed to be in power.