Every time the Democrats manage to pick the country’s various electoral locks and find themselves in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, they tell themselves it’s 1932. The People have spoken and they want Profound and Lasting Change!
No, they don’t. They didn’t in 2008, when Americans were angry and frustrated about the Iraq War, terrified about the economy, and inclined to inflict severe punishment on anyone with an (R) after his name for his role in both calamities. Almost immediately after Barack Obama took office, however, the reasons he won ceased to resonate: By the time he learned how to work his phone, the recession was over, and the war became a distant memory. So Mr. Never-Let-a-Crisis-Go-to-Waste began shoving through a massive new entitlement/health-care reform that the people didn’t want, Congress turned sharply against him in response, and he spent the next six years caviling about Republican “obstructionism,” as though the Republicans blocking his agenda were not elected specifically and clearly to thwart him.
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