WH messaging about its base a.k.a. ‘Shut up whiners and vote for us.’
President Obama gave an interview to Rolling Stone and actually said this:
The idea that we’ve got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible… . .If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we’d better fight in this election.
This may be one of the most audaciously hilarious political statements I’ve read in quite some time. The Holder Justice Department’s record on domestic civil rights enforcement is actually one of the few areas where there has been substantial improvement — and that’s a perfectly legitimate argument to make — but for Barack Obama to cite “civil liberties” as a reason why Democratic apathy is “just irresponsible,” and to claim with a straight face that this election will determine whether we’re “the kind of country that respects” them, is so detached from basic reality that I actually had to read this three or four times to make certain I hadn’t misunderstood it. To summarize Obama’s apparent claim: the Republicans better not win in the midterm election, otherwise we’ll have due-process-free and even preventive detention, secret assassinations of U.S. citizens, vastly expanded government surveillance of the Internet, a continuation of Guantanamo, protection of Executive branch crimes through the use of radical secrecy doctrines, escalating punishment for whistleblowers, legal immunity for war crimes, and a massively escalated drone war in Pakistan. That’s why, as the President inspirationally warns us: “If we want the kind of country that respects civil liberties, we’d better fight in this election.”
Yea, right, that’s the way to inspire and motivate your base. Insult them and brush off any criticism from those who helped elect you as “whining”. Morons.