David's done yoeman's work here-and elsewhere-documenting the pernicious Versailles meme that despite the stunning victory won by Obama and Democrats running for Congress, America "remains a center-right nation" and therefore Obama must not enact his planned agenda. I finally got to the end of the 98-page post-election Democracy Corps report, "The Change Election Awaiting Change", and on page 94, I found something directly relevant to this pernicious Versailles meme: the American people overwhelmingly believe the exact opposite: that Republicans should give Obama the benefit of the doubt, and try to work with him to acheive his agenda.
Indeed, this sentiment is much more far-reaching than the core support for Obama's agenda in the first place. The reason is simple: the American people believe in democracy, they believe in elections, and they believe in giving their elected leaders (not the unelected Versailles punditalkcrazy) the opportunity to act on their electoral mandates. Here's the finding (click for a fill-width version):
There is nothing surprising about this, really. The Versailles consensus has been wildly out of touch with the American people at least since Ronald Reagan came to Washington. That's when they began promulgating the myth of how the American electorate had moved sharply to the right, when the underlying polling data showed nothing of the sort-in fact, it showed the American people becoming increasingly liberal and pro-activist government throughout the 1980s. But Versailles remained oblivious to all that, and lionized Reagan for bringing about a transformation in public attitudes that had very little on-the-ground reality.
On the other hand, the American people shared virtually none of Versailles' hated of Bill Clinton. While they were disgusted with his involvement with Monica Lewinsky, they had no desire whatsoever to impeach him, and his approval ratings during the impeachment drama remained higher than Ronald Reagan's were throughout most of his presidency. When they couldn't bring down Bill Clinton, Versailles did the next best thing: they initiated a smear campaign against his Vice President, Al Gore, when Gore ran for the presidency in 2000. Manufacturing a bogus record of lies and exaggerations, they made Gore out to be exactly the person that George Bush really was, and we have suffered eight long years as a result of Versailles' mendacity.
Enough! The people have spoken. And after speaking, they have spoken again, even more emphatically: respect the results of the election. Let Obama govern as promised to, to bring about significant change from the politics of the past, not to continue it.
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