Remember how I mentioned a while back that after the election things would get interesting?

Well, they just did.  To put this in context, you can check out my post here.  It’s a fairly typical response from people who wanted to see Obama fight a bit more in this latest round of political manuevering.  He didn’t, got a good deal (according to him…this remains to be seen…and is the big question) and now we move forward.

The loud and ever-present gnashing of teeth today serves a secondary purpose (and is the inspiration for the title).   The sentiment is expressed very well in this post.

3 G’s    2010-12-07 01:32:56 PM  

I can’t recall ever hearing one man accused of being both an iron-willed radical usurper who is forcefully cramming his socialist agenda down the throats of the American people, AND of being a spineless weakling who refuses to stand up for even his most politically moderate ideas and who readily capitulates to every whim of the GOP.

I guess that’s what happens these days when a guy tries to be a reasonable, moderate leader who is willing to compromise from time to time to get something done, rather than hold fast to policies that have virtually no chance of being approved by the Congress. In an effort to please the silent, moderate majority of the Country he riles up the extremely noisy minority, composed mainly of pundits and career policitians, on both sides of the isle

The more I see these bullshiat rants against the President, and the more I see him continue to be a reasonable, level-headed moderate leader, the more likely I am to vote for him again.

This sentiment (as bolded) is also expressed by Andrew Sullivan in his post-compromise analysis.

My view is that if this deal is a harbinger for the negotiation Obama will continue with the GOP for the next two years, he will come into his own.

The more his liberal base attacks him, the more the center will take a second look. And look how instantly the GOP’s position has shifted. They have suddenly gone from pure oppositionism to dealing with the dreaded commie Muslim alien, thereby proving he is not what they have made him out to be. The more often we get the GOP to make actual tangible decisions on policy alongside Obama, the less able they will be able to portray him as somehow alien to the country, and the more they will legitimize him. Their House victory means they can no longer sit out there, portraying the country as somehow taken over by radical, alien forces – which they can simply oppose with ever ascending levels of hysteria and rhetoric. And the more practical and detailed and concrete the compromises, the less oxygen blowhards like Palin and Limbaugh will have to breathe.

There is a very large divide in the U.S. electorate and it’s almost as big as the one between the rich and the poor.  It is the divide between those that care about the day-to-day b.s. of politics and those that don’t. 

Those that care passionately about the day-to-day political b.s. make up 100% of the media, as well they should (I’m included in that, as I use the actual defintion of the word), and maybe about 2-4% of the overall electorate (maybe 6-12M people, based on TV ratings).   Another 10-15% may care a little bit, or follow things generally.  The *vast* majority doesn’t really follow the news, never opines publicly, and just kind of soaks it all in, waits, and then makes their call.

Obama’s shift here, and one that makes the Republicans say they agree with him and pisses off Democrats, is the kind of thing that *actively* penetrates the consciousness of the apolitical.   If this decision on compromise (something the apolitical love and the political tend to dislike) penetrates the mind of the body politic, and sticks, it could actually help Obama quite a bit long term.

Most of the apolitical hardly know their own reps, much less the long-term effect of political decisions, so the long-term debt issues this compromise makes worse doesn’t really factor into the apolitical, almost subconsious, analysis.  Tthey’ll only care about the debt crisis when it hits them, by which time it will be too late.   The apolitical consciousness is generally a bit slower to grasp political realities than the political class.  And since the apolitical largely define the political landscape, well, now you see why democracy is both a horrible and the best [known] solution to an impossible puzzle.

Fun to watch though, that’s for sure.  We’ll see if the ony actual Socialist in Congress can scuttle the deal…