JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 1, 2011
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One of the cliches bouncing around constantly is that President Obama "owns the economy." Pay attention to the way Karl Rove uses the phrase here, seguing from a weird description of a bakery closing to blaming it on Obama:
when the restaurant closes Sunday, 14 people will lose their jobs. Its patrons will lose a favorite joint, and the neighborhood will lose some sense of community.
There are worse hardship cases in America, but this one is bad enough. It is in large part the result of the economy that Mr. Obama owns.
"Owns" is a political term. It means that the consequences of the 2008 economic crisis now drag down Obama, because as a simple political fact, many voters hold the president responsible for the state of the economy. Rove is using the term to suggest that Obama has actually caused mass unemployment. That, of course, is absurd. The 2008 economic crisis caused massive havoc across the world.
Yet there's a slippery way in which discussions of the perception of Obama's responsibility for high unemployment meld into suggestions that he actually does hold responsibility. It's not clear that Rove is capable of understanding the distinction between political perception and actual reality. But his conflation of the two concepts is merely a more extreme manifestation of a general habit in political commentary, lazily avoiding any clear distinction between perception and reality. The phrase "owns the economy" has become one of the most banal expressions of the dysfunction of political discourse.
7 comments
Rove's tactic of creating a caricature of an individual to run against, might not work on blaming the President for the economy, at least I'm hoping it won't. It's one thing to label Gore a liar and Kerry a coward, but to blame the President for the economy, when Bush has such vulnerability on the issue, requires more than just twisting reality.
- Nusholtz
August 1, 2011 at 11:20am
You put a dent in my morning, Jonathan, adorning this post with a picture of Boy Genius (aka Turd Blossom) as you did.
- liberalref
August 1, 2011 at 12:44pm
I was about to say the same thing, Libref, when I saw your comment:) This, we needed?
- Sophia
August 1, 2011 at 1:18pm
Looking for an end to economic malaise? Draw a line from Larry Summers to Christina Romer to Austan Goolsbee and the door will magically appear.
- Doug12
August 1, 2011 at 1:44pm
You know who else "owns" the economy, besides Obama? Every incumbent elected politician at the Federal and state levels, including that big Republican majority in Congress and all those GOP state legislators and governors. Lack of distinction between actual and political reality runs both ways, Turd Blossom.
- wildboy
August 1, 2011 at 2:41pm
That's the #1 strategy in the playbook. Repeat the lie over and over until it becomes common wisdom. Even when publically debunked, the lie can be repeated continuously for the sake of the faithful zealots and true believers.
And convincing swing voters that the current state of the economy is all Obama's fault is almost mandatory for a successful campaign next year. The Tea Party will not accept tacking to the middle for the general election, so their only chance involves making the other guy seem like an even worse option. And while the strategy had a major flaw in Wisconsin, where voters can vote officials directly out of office, the federal government has no such laws and voters will have to wait at least 2 more years to get anyone out of office.
- GSpinks
August 1, 2011 at 3:03pm
We think alike, Sophia.
- liberalref
August 1, 2011 at 3:42pm