RE: More Like Everybody At A Loss
The title of your thread started off so well.
The Democrats are held hostage (as Mr. Higgins points out) to their fringes: radical Marxism, political correctness, and social libertinism. They can't even report on their own internal polling without generating PC spin. The Democrats are poised to make the same mistake made by the Whig party before the Civil War: they will sink into the mire clinging to a social issue that is only supported by their major financial backers. And they continue to claim victory in the face of obvious defeat. As Mr. Higgins says:
Instead, they call for Democrats to attack Republicans as the corrupt tools of corporate lobbyists and push an agenda of health care, education, tax hikes on the wealthy and bashing energy companies -- the, umm, same policies they've been pushing for the last few years as the minority party.
They just don't get it. Democrats continue to raise sand about the radical bogeyman of the far right and their hostage-taking in the GOP, yet Americans, who are far from stupid, can see that the most radical of the political and societal fringe elements are in the mainstream of the Democrat party.
The American public is sick and tired of the dismal failures of 40 years of Democrat social planning and programs. They are sick of the litany of failure that is ignored by the Democrat elite. They are sick of the diseased victim mentality and the class pandering. And they are sick to death of the government's hand in their pocket without much to show for it. The vast majority of Americans believe the government robs them blind.
But to keep the balance of your topic, the Republicans have managed to show that Lord Acton's axiom is exactly correct. After ten years of power, the GOP is determined to become Democrat-light. As P.J. O'Rourke put it: "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected an prove it." And they are determined to prove that they can be just as corrupt and just as elitist as the Democrats they have supplanted.
The GOP has always had a problem being true to its principles. It had existed for less than ten years when it got a president elected who set about taking some of the most un-Republican actions that have ever occurred. Other Republicans have strayed from the limited government theme throughout the GOP's lifetime, Richard Nixon being the most recent.
At any time, and under any definition of conservative/liberal, the edges of the political spectrum never occupy more than about 15% of the electorate. Republicans and Democrats continue to make the similar but opposite mistakes of under and over estimating the importance of that edge, respectively. The Republicans abuse the hard right: social, fiscal, and constitutional conservatives. They take them for granted at election time and after they are in office and then are completely shocked when the right gets tired of their shenanigans and sits out an election. The Democrats, on the other hand, genuflect to the whims of every left-wing fringe element. This, better than any other facet, explains their current fortunes. The rank-and-file Democrats are tired of being associated with the looney left. Many of them accepted Reagan's invitation, but are leaving again after discovering that Reagan's GOP is on the ropes and fading fast. They have no desire to be associated with the tired old country club oligarchy.
Americans, by and large, are conservative. Not in the political sense, but in the sense that they tend to strenuously resist violent changes in the status quo. But they are beginning to get restless. As the Democrats' report points out:
"Indeed, both national parties are at a half-century low point in public esteem."
The question is really just how long will the long-suffering American public put up with these two circuses before they pick a third way. The Democrats will continue to try to "re-invent" themselves, mistaking, as always, appearance for action. The Republicans will try to avoid getting re-invented and will fail at that as well. Look closely at the names associated with political corruption and failure in Washington and you'll see they are the same one that were there 20 years ago, they just happen to be wearing different colored shirts today.
The Democrats are held hostage (as Mr. Higgins points out) to their fringes: radical Marxism, political correctness, and social libertinism. They can't even report on their own internal polling without generating PC spin. The Democrats are poised to make the same mistake made by the Whig party before the Civil War: they will sink into the mire clinging to a social issue that is only supported by their major financial backers. And they continue to claim victory in the face of obvious defeat. As Mr. Higgins says:
Instead, they call for Democrats to attack Republicans as the corrupt tools of corporate lobbyists and push an agenda of health care, education, tax hikes on the wealthy and bashing energy companies -- the, umm, same policies they've been pushing for the last few years as the minority party.
They just don't get it. Democrats continue to raise sand about the radical bogeyman of the far right and their hostage-taking in the GOP, yet Americans, who are far from stupid, can see that the most radical of the political and societal fringe elements are in the mainstream of the Democrat party.
The American public is sick and tired of the dismal failures of 40 years of Democrat social planning and programs. They are sick of the litany of failure that is ignored by the Democrat elite. They are sick of the diseased victim mentality and the class pandering. And they are sick to death of the government's hand in their pocket without much to show for it. The vast majority of Americans believe the government robs them blind.
But to keep the balance of your topic, the Republicans have managed to show that Lord Acton's axiom is exactly correct. After ten years of power, the GOP is determined to become Democrat-light. As P.J. O'Rourke put it: "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected an prove it." And they are determined to prove that they can be just as corrupt and just as elitist as the Democrats they have supplanted.
The GOP has always had a problem being true to its principles. It had existed for less than ten years when it got a president elected who set about taking some of the most un-Republican actions that have ever occurred. Other Republicans have strayed from the limited government theme throughout the GOP's lifetime, Richard Nixon being the most recent.
At any time, and under any definition of conservative/liberal, the edges of the political spectrum never occupy more than about 15% of the electorate. Republicans and Democrats continue to make the similar but opposite mistakes of under and over estimating the importance of that edge, respectively. The Republicans abuse the hard right: social, fiscal, and constitutional conservatives. They take them for granted at election time and after they are in office and then are completely shocked when the right gets tired of their shenanigans and sits out an election. The Democrats, on the other hand, genuflect to the whims of every left-wing fringe element. This, better than any other facet, explains their current fortunes. The rank-and-file Democrats are tired of being associated with the looney left. Many of them accepted Reagan's invitation, but are leaving again after discovering that Reagan's GOP is on the ropes and fading fast. They have no desire to be associated with the tired old country club oligarchy.
Americans, by and large, are conservative. Not in the political sense, but in the sense that they tend to strenuously resist violent changes in the status quo. But they are beginning to get restless. As the Democrats' report points out:
"Indeed, both national parties are at a half-century low point in public esteem."
The question is really just how long will the long-suffering American public put up with these two circuses before they pick a third way. The Democrats will continue to try to "re-invent" themselves, mistaking, as always, appearance for action. The Republicans will try to avoid getting re-invented and will fail at that as well. Look closely at the names associated with political corruption and failure in Washington and you'll see they are the same one that were there 20 years ago, they just happen to be wearing different colored shirts today.
posted by Anonymous | 1:38 PM
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