Taibbi: Hurricane Sandy and the Myth of the Big Government-vs.-Small-Government Debate

[ProfessionalLeftist]

. . .

The storm is also purportedly casting in a kinder light Obama's general attitude toward government, until now often described as an electoral weakness. Pre-Sandy, pundits usually raked the president over the coals for openly embracing the role of government in society during a time when anti-government sentiment is at an all-time high. In the first debate, for instance, his answer to a question about his view of the role of government was considered a dud:

I also believe that government has the capacity — the federal government has the capacity to help open up opportunity and create ladders of opportunity and to create frameworks where the American people can succeed.

It's this kind of language that's allowed opponents of Obama to cast him as the "redistributionist-in-Chief": a man who openly believes that government can help provide "ladders of opportunity." That language is particularly annoying to pure free-market ideologues, who have often claimed the "ladders of opportunity" phrase for themselves, but only in the context of their being provided by the private sector.

Anyway, enter Hurricane Sandy. Suddenly, it seems that most of the mainstream press – as if speaking through one voice – has finally decided that the storm has settled the big-government-versus-small-government argument, with Obama coming out the clear winner. There were a number of online columns like the one by USA Today's Amanda Marcotte, who wrote that "Sandy Shows Why Romney's Wrong on FEMA," or by Catherine Poe at the Washington Times, who pitched in with "FEMA to the Rescue: Why Obama is Right and Romney Was Wrong."

But more than a few outlets used the storm to make an even bigger case for government in general. Up north, for instance, the Globe and Mail decreed that "Superstorm Bolsters Obama's Big-Government Argument". But the more striking piece was the uncharacteristically brazen editorial in the New York Times, titled "A Big Storm Requires Big Government," in which the Times harshly criticized George Bush's cavalier attitude toward disaster relief in the years leading up to Katrina, and argued generally for the necessity of a broadly strong government.

MORE . . .

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/hurricane-sandy-and-the-myth-of-the-big-government-vs-small-government-debate-20121101

[LeftInTX]

1. I totally agree

I think this will give him a boost particularly in the Mid-West.

Small government is a "novel" concept that might appeal to some voters until reality sets in.

[Hydra]

2. As you say, Republican ideas seem cute until reality sets in

The idea that everyone stands alone, that they strive and succeed in a perfect bubble that contains no other people is so cartoonish that it would almost be funny if people didn't believe it so strongly.

Mother Nature doesn't like us. If we want to survive and thrive as a species, we have to work together and do things that stroke Mother the right way.

The problem I see is that climate denial, Radianism and other GOP memes are accepted by people who haven't grown up yet. They have to grow up before they can let it all go.