Ezra Klein nails it with one picture.

You see, the American public, given a few months, and a subject that holds their interest, even tangentially, and they begin to tease truth from fiction, and as a group, come to understand what is going on.

It’s the Delphi Method writ large.

We saw it during Bill Clinton’s impeachment, when the public came to realize over a period of months that this was not the end of the world, it was some guy lying about cheating on his wife, and the Republicans attempting a coup as a result.

So, here we are, 8 months into the Obama administration, and a year into the financial crisis, and the American public gets it: No one is the least bit interested in doing anything to help them.

They are bailing out banks and automakers, and CEOs are still getting obscene pay packages, and the, as taxpayers are paying for it.

You see, this is not a problem that can be solved with an Obama speech, because there is nothing to explain here. That great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,^* Goldman Sachs, has captured treasury, insurance has captured healthcare, and real-estate has captured….well…Everything.

The Obama administration, and much of the Democratic Party has been captured by the Finance, Insurance, and Real-Estate (FIRE) sectors, and so is attempting to support the phony products of this sector, as opposed to produce something useful.

The Republican party has been captured by FIRE too, but this doesn’t matter, because they are remarkably honest about this, and their platform is not to protect the little guy, but rather to hate those defined as “the other”, so they are neither hypocrites, nor are they likely to lose much support.

That being said, much as in 1994, when people looked at the Democrats in Congress, and said, “If they are both going to f$#@ me over with NAFTA, I might as well vote for someone who hates f*gg*ts and n*gg*rs too,” Obama and the Dems are in real trouble.

As Harry S Truman said, “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.

Absent actions that involve most of the senior staffs of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Citi, Bank of America (Especially Ken Lewis), and the ratings agencies (S&P, Moody’s, etc) frog marched out of their places of work in handcuffs, this is the reality we have, not the reality we’d like to have.

^*Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.