Monday, June 21, 2010

Beagle Politics

Just like between 1992 and 1994, we’re in another age of beagle politics.

What is beagle politics?


Years ago, while working as an engineer, I did a survey of the University of Illinois’ veterinary medical school.

In one room I found 20-25 beagles in cages. Those that were awake looked bewildered, sad, or angry and they were all looking at me as if I was to blame for their captivity. In the next room I found 20-25 more beagles. Those awake all blamed me for their captivity. In the third room I found 20-25 beagles and one cat. The beagles were mostly mad at me. The cat didn’t care.


Beagles tend to blame whoever’s in the room for their plight or their joy.

So, Beagle Politics is stoking the anger of the electorate, knowing that the voters will blame whoever’s in office regardless of whose fault the situation is.

Coming out of 2008 people were angry with the economic state of the country. Although Obama has made most of the right moves, keeping us out of an outright depression, he’s still being blamed the economy as it stands. Regardless of the Gulf oil spill being due to lax oversight by the Mineral and Mining Service under Bush and arrogance on the part of BP, Obama is being blamed for not swimming down and capping the well himself.

Between 1992 and 1994, Republicans and right-wing pundits stoked the growing anger from Bush-41’s violating his pledge not to raise taxes and redirected it toward Clinton and the Democratic Congress. Now, they’re stoking random anger just so people will be furious with the government and in a throw-the-bums-out mood in November.

Beagle politics: Convince the electorate to bite whomever is in the room.

1 comment:

Tiffany said...

The upshot of this seems to be that the pundits and conservative activists expect us to behave more like injured animals than rational, thinking beings...and we're not disappointing them. That's a sad commentary on the state of society. Maybe it's time we surprised them.