Americans to bossy government: “Shut up and go away!”

Michael Barone looks at the President’s recent theory of why his party is about to get an unholy beating at the polls next month and offers his own three theses: First is that the Progressive theory of History, that it inevitably moves leftward and toward bigger government is demonstrably untrue. After the vast expansions of government under Wilson and FDR (and statist Republicans like Nixon), for example, there were corresponding periods of moving toward deregulation.

Second is the realization among most Americans (if not left-liberals) that government that grows too large becomes a danger to the real engine of wealth creation, the private sector. The electorate is drawing a connection between the anemic job creation numbers in most of the nation (except Texas) and the statist, interventionist, regulation-happy policies of the (Social) Democrats, and they’re moving to correct things.

The third reason, the one perhaps that’s felt most viscerally, is that voters are becoming sick and tired of being bossed around by government and are going to remind the “public servants” just who the boss is here:

Voters who have learned to navigate their way through life may not believe that they need Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to set the terms and conditions of their health insurance policies, as Obamacare authorizes her to do. “Don’t tread on me,” read the flags at Tea Party rallies. That’s not a contradiction of “facts and science.” It’s an insistence that the Obama Democrats’ policies would strangle freedoms and choke off growth. You may disagree. But if so, it looks like you’re in the minority this year.

Call it a revolt against the nanny state or a revival of Americans’ traditional suspicion of government, but it looks like “Get out of my face!” is one of the big messages the voters are sending to Washington this year.

LINKS: I wrote about the President’s comments a few days ago. At Big Government, Robert Bonelli looks at what’s at stake in the midterms and asks “Are we citizens or subjects?”

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)