"We don't want to go back to the same policies and the same practices that drove our economy into a ditch, that punished the middle class, and that led us to this catastrophe. We have to keep moving forward"
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“Drove our economy into a ditch” is political rhetoric doing what it does best: turning a complicated, distributed failure into a vivid, blame-ready image. Axelrod, a strategist by trade, isn’t arguing policy so much as defining the emotional terrain. The metaphor is calibrated for ordinary experience: you don’t need a degree in macroeconomics to know what it feels like to be stuck, embarrassed, and paying for a tow. The ditch implies recklessness by someone at the wheel, and it quietly assigns that driver to “the same policies and the same practices” without having to litigate each one.
The phrase “punished the middle class” sharpens the moral frame. Economic downturn becomes not just mismanagement but harm done to the people who are supposed to be the system’s beneficiaries and stabilizers. It’s a classic coalition-building move: claim the middle not as a demographic slice but as the default American subject, then make policy disagreement sound like an argument over who gets protected and who gets thrown under the bus.
“Led us to this catastrophe” telescopes causality. The word catastrophe is intentionally roomy: it can hold foreclosures, bailouts, job losses, and the ambient anxiety of a crisis era, all at once. Then comes the pivot: “We have to keep moving forward.” That’s less a plan than an injunction against nostalgia. The subtext is defensive as much as aspirational: don’t let the opposition rebrand the past as normal; don’t let voters confuse fatigue with progress. The intent is to lock in a narrative of responsible continuity while making reversal feel like self-sabotage.
The phrase “punished the middle class” sharpens the moral frame. Economic downturn becomes not just mismanagement but harm done to the people who are supposed to be the system’s beneficiaries and stabilizers. It’s a classic coalition-building move: claim the middle not as a demographic slice but as the default American subject, then make policy disagreement sound like an argument over who gets protected and who gets thrown under the bus.
“Led us to this catastrophe” telescopes causality. The word catastrophe is intentionally roomy: it can hold foreclosures, bailouts, job losses, and the ambient anxiety of a crisis era, all at once. Then comes the pivot: “We have to keep moving forward.” That’s less a plan than an injunction against nostalgia. The subtext is defensive as much as aspirational: don’t let the opposition rebrand the past as normal; don’t let voters confuse fatigue with progress. The intent is to lock in a narrative of responsible continuity while making reversal feel like self-sabotage.
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