Obama said he heard the two-thirds of registered voters who didn't vote, in the most extraordinarily arrogant example of a self-serving political interpretation of the citizenry he's ever given. This was only the day after the sting of a Senate control shift to Republicans, and additions to the House and governors' mansions for the opposition party.
Funny, I thought I heard those registered voters who didn't vote, too. Though for me, they said nothing. Because that's what not voting is. Saying NOTHING. A non-vote, or "if you choose not to decide" as the Rush song goes, is the freedom to abandon the process. Did Obama also hear the many voting age Americans who don't register? A non-vote is not a clear message to one side or the other of an election, as Obama absurdly pretended it was. Not voting is a sign that people need to wake up and participate. That's it. It's on those people who did not vote to resist their functional apathy next time, and vote. And to do more within the system than only vote. Learn about the items on the ballot, not just assume what they are, for instance.
What's more, Obama's self-important claim that he heard this silence was an open ended claim. He didn't really explain what he claimed he heard. Well, that's convenient for him, isn't it? I don't buy into it.
The silence is not Obama's to interpret now any more than it was anyone's to interpret his intentions when he voted present in Illinois state senate.
If it were Obama's place to interpret the election acts of inaction, then perhaps now that Congress is fully in opposition hands, that branch of our federal government should be free to interpret his empty promises as non-votes in their own way and proceed as they see fit, despite him. After all, talking tough, Obama has said that he intends to behave similarly -- to disregard Congress -- on immigration "reform."
Thank the president, once again, for setting the wrong tone. And hope that somehow less stiff and autocratic thinking can prevail, despite Obama, during the next two years.
- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)
- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)
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