In his interview of President Obama on Thursday, Chris Matthews asked what could be the reason for the significant decline in the trust American citizens have in their government. The President goes on for several minutes in his answer and points out various ways in which the government could “improve”, claims that the media doesn’t cover good stories about government (more on that later), and then finally concludes with this gem:
“We’ve had a politics, frankly, you know, the entire republican party brand since Ronald Reagan has been government’s the problem. And if you day after day, week after week, election after election, are running on that platform and that permeates our culture and it’s picked up by you know, ordinary citizens who grow skeptical, then it’s not surprising that over time, trust in government declines.”
It couldn’t be that the average American is losing faith in the administration, and indeed the President himself, because of an avalanche of scandals, bad decision making, reckless spending, or the so-badly-botched-it-would-be-hilarious-if-it-weren’t-so-sickeningly-sad rollout and implementation of his signature “achievement” could it? No, no, he feels assured, it’s simply that people keep hearing negative things about government from mean Republicans. Ever since Reagan they’ve been highlighting government’s inefficiencies and inadequacies and people, being too dumb to know what insurance they want, are clearly way too malleable to decide on their own whether or not the government is doing a heckuva job. So they simply adopt and regurgitate accordingly. It’s bad press, not a hot mess.
President Obama is nothing if not consistent. He can’t be to blame. People have lost faith in him not because of so many screw-ups, but because people rudely point out those screw-ups! Just another example of what I like to call President Obama’s real signature policy initiative: SHUT UP, AMERICA.