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Instead of pretending everything was peaches and cream until we got Boooshed he should go back to the 70's when the jobs first started to go, to the 80's and explain how Reagan's horrid policies laid the foundation for our current ruin with the deregulation, union busting, dismantling the safety net, saber rattling, deficit spending, refusal to invest in infrastructure and R&D, and willful underemployment.
That poppy Bush continued and expanded on Reagan's American Dream grave digging.
That while Clinton got the budget back under control he did go along with stupid deregulation that took the "cops off the beat" which enabled amoral criminal types to rig the financial game as well as he expanded on trade agreements that put the American worker at a systemic competitive disadvantage.
That shrub came in and stomped on the accelerator of this out of control freight train.
He needs to remind us that the middle class and the poor were already very much on the short end of the stick well before the most recent downturn.
He has to admit that many of our systems are woefully outdated, predatory toward the people, and simply broken.
He must explain the real scope of our problems from the economy, to dealing with organized terror, and the environment.
He should talk to the American people like reasoning adults just like he did during the campaign and honestly lay out the issues and their causes.
He should take responsibility for for allowing business as usual to continue as far as secret negotiations, wild deals, and making those that require regulation and oversight to set the terms and conditions. He should explain that the problems of our times do not call for small answers or easy solutions but rather comprehensive solutions and bold actions.
The President needs to clearly express that he understands that the people want and need for our leaders to spend our money like it is their own which means we cannot be wasteful nor ignore responsibility to make the proper investments into the society. He must make it clear that he is serious about working on the behalf of the people not big money.
Mr. Obama needs to more than anything explain that business as usual is not an option and that from this point there will be a clean break with the past from the failed ideology that brought us to this crux to working back room deals with powerful special interests, to the amoral triangulation of setting policy and adopting principles with the tracking of the polls.
He needs to call out Republicans and Democrats alike for catering to big business and special interests over the needs of the people and the longterm prospects of the nation. He can take that time to explain how money in the electoral system hurts us all and undermines the system and then what a danger the recent Supreme Court verdict poses to the foundations of democracy in our nation.
It is not time to put on an act of the enraged populist or that of a man of the system. He must recapture his status as an agent of change and turn the page on the last generation of counter-productive ideology and warmed over failed ideas.
A shtick and some triangulation might pick up a few votes (or maybe not) but they will not repair, update, or replace antiquated or broken systems. The people know the truth, he need but to be the first big stage leader to admit what everyone already knows and provide all hands on deck solutions. He has to be clear that he did not come to DC to tinker but to reform and that he needs all of our help to move the country forward.
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