Why can’t the White House make its case without doing so?
Have we ever had an administration like Barack Obama’s? An administration that tries to benefit from pitting Americans against one another? An administration that uses its billion-dollar slush fund, not to mention the resources of the Executive Branch, to demonize private citizens who disagree with its policies? An administration that uses hate as an instrument of domestic politics? I don’t believe that there is any precedent in American history for the mean-spiritedness that now emanates from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I don’t think that even the Nixon White House was this bad.
Nixon was bad but not this bad. For one thing, the Press didn’t cover for Nixon. They have their noses so far up Obama’s ass that if the man ever farted, he’d blow out all their eardrums.
Although that would explain their tone-deafness.
According the Amity Schlaes’ _The Forgotten Man_ FDR pulled some of those stunts. Creating vested interests and playing off against on another. Attacking individual Americans. Not sure about the “using hate” bit, but he certainly wasn’t above using class warfare.
Class warfare was anathema to Nixon. He was too much the anti-Communist. For him, hatred was much more individualized.
The ‘administrations’ didn’t need to do this for most of the 20th Century. They had J. Edgar to do that stuff for them.
But beyond that, we’ve never had an administration who flouted the Laws of the Constitution, and thought they were above the great unwashed like this crowd. This current ruling class is just one step removed from having a Monarchy. A not so benevolent Monarchy at that.