Republicans freaking out

[EvilMonkey]

Everywhere you turn the Republicans are freaking out about Democratic control. We are getting the "mob rule" this isn't a "democracy" meme from every Palin loving freeper in the land.

But these people were duly elected into office by the people, that's what a democracy is supposed to be.

If history has taught us anything, in time, the country will get fed up with the dems and a party shift will take place again. Until then these people are just going to have to suck on it. We know, it tastes like a turd lemon but it's your turn.

[HarperLee]

Democrats were "freaking out" from 2002 on about the calculated lies that were told by the Bush administration to lead us into a disastrous,
illegal "war", about Cheney's torture-is-fun policies and his blatant disregard for the Geneva Conventions, about Bush's attitude that the Constitution was "just a goddamned piece of paper", about our own government committing
the treasonous act of outing a CIA agent, about the botched up handling of Katrina, and on and on and on.

Republicans, even sane Republicans, are trying really hard to do a bait and switch and convince us all that the present state of the economy is all Obama's fault. Beyond that, they have nothing but
lies which cannot even be called half-truths. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling."

From a feature story on the front page of my daily paper here in the Bible Belt this week:

Across the Kansas City area, record numbers of people like Poynter are applying for permits to carry concealed weapons. The surge reflects the fears of rising crime in a down economy and concerns that the election of President Barack Obama might bring new limits on gun rights.

Record numbers seek permits to carry concealed weapons - Kansas City Star

This is just so ludicrous. As a Democrat I am not at all hopeful that Barack Obama will do one thing to "bring new limits on gun rights".

[ibex]

Everywhere you turn the Republicans are freaking out about Democratic control. We are getting the "mob rule" this isn't a "democracy" meme from every Palin loving freeper in the land.

But these people were duly elected into office by the people, that's what a democracy is supposed to be.

If history has taught us anything, in time, the country will get fed up with the dems and a party shift will take place again. Until then these people are just going to have to suck on it. We know, it tastes like a turd lemon but it's your turn.

Not so fast on that "party shift" business there Eric. 2008 and 1976 represent two completely different eras, although a lot of the Republicans want to make the link between Carter and Obama and are gunning for 2012 to be a replay of 1980, after all, they think of Reagan as God and would, if possible, dig up his fucking corpse and run it if they could. Here's the problem, the GOP is in tatters, what we're looking at here is a seismic shift in the political demographics of the country, with the Democratic party's base of center right and independent wings growing exponentially, due in part to the emergence of younger voters who don't share the values of the Republican, Christian conservative base and recently naturalized immigrant groups who might vote in big numbers for things like CA's Proposition Eight, but know all too well the chauvanistic, nativist wing of the GOP that has used them as scapegoats for the economic woes of the border states and the deep south. The fact is that the Republicans will have to clean house and eat those "lemmon turds" you mentioned for several elections to come, a generation or longer. When Mitt Romney, a dull, colorless automaton devoid of new ideas or anything of substance emerges as the current Presidential front runner only by default, then things are pretty gloomy for the Dead Elephant party. Just think about every Republican who's been in the news for the last six months, it's only been noteriety for saying something stupid (Bachman, Palin) or for adulterty (Sanford and Ensign).

[EvilMonkey]

Not so fast on that "party shift" business there Eric. 2008 and 1976 represent two completely different eras, although a lot of the Republicans want to make the link between Carter and Obama and are gunning for 2012 to be a replay of 1980, after all, they think of Reagan as God and would, if possible, dig up his fucking corpse and run it if they could. Here's the problem, the GOP is in tatters, what we're looking at here is a seismic shift in the political demographics of the country, with the Democratic party's base of center right and independent wings growing exponentially, due in part to the emergence of younger voters who don't share the values of the Republican, Christian conservative base and recently naturalized immigrant groups who might vote in big numbers for things like CA's Proposition Eight, but know all too well the chauvanistic, nativist wing of the GOP that has used them as scapegoats for the economic woes of the border states and the deep south. The fact is that the Republicans will have to clean house and eat those "lemmon turds" you mentioned for several elections to come, a generation or longer. When Mitt Romney, a dull, colorless automaton devoid of new ideas or anything of substance emerges as the current Presidential front runner only by default, then things are pretty gloomy for the Dead Elephant party. Just think about every Republican who's been in the news for the last six months, it's only been noteriety for saying something stupid (Bachman, Palin) or for adulterty (Sanford and Ensign).

Well, with the occasional odd party out you can almost set your watch by a two term swap. We can argue what made which party great or bad at the time but historically it wouldn't be accurate to say they either party has it sown up. Yes they have a ways to go but they will climb their way out, just as we did.

[ibex]

Well, with the occasional odd party out you can almost set your watch by a two term swap. We can argue what made which party great or bad at the time but historically it wouldn't be accurate to say they either party has it sown up. Yes they have a ways to go but they will climb their way out, just as we did.

They'll need a different tune to climb heir way out, and Bill Maher's recent proclomation that the Democrats are the new Republicans and the Republicans have become a small, regional party of cranks and religious nuts rings fairly true IMHO. People once thought the Whig party would go on forever, it didn't. This isn't to say a permanent state of Democratic hegemony has started, just that the opposition will be something completely new, it won't happen overnight but it's well on the way.

[EvilMonkey]

They'll need a different tune to climb heir way out, and Bill Maher's recent proclomation that the Democrats are the new Republicans and the Republicans have become a small, regional party of cranks and religious nuts rings fairly true IMHO. People once thought the Whig party would go on forever, it didn't. This isn't to say a permanent state of Democratic hegemony has started, just that the opposition will be something completely new, it won't happen overnight but it's well on the way.

With a super majority dems have that much more responsibility and even more important, accountability. Everything they do now is completely off the shoulders of Republicans, who, BTW we may hate but one thing they are better than dems at is sticking together. So I think it's only a matter of time before the dems fuck something up enough to go where people will vote Republicans back in, how long? I don't know but hopefully we can hang in there for a while.

[GPLeonard]

The current dominant Republican type -- the Goldwater-Reagan wingnuts who supplanted Eisenhower and Rockefeller Republicans during the 1960s and 70s -- are different from their predecessors in several respects.

• Republicans of yore (Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Rockefeller) had careers in the military and/or in public service. They did not come to national political prominence via an authoritarian corporate-think careerist path. In fact, the two who actually served in battle (Ike and TR) were activists against corporate power grabs.

• Abe, TR, Ike and Rocky, as well as Hoover and Dewey also differed from the Goldwater/Reagan groupies in their self-assured manners. Lincoln could crack a joke to deflect the caterwauling of his critics, and though he was intermittently depressed and beset on all sides, he apparently loved to laugh. TR's zest for life is well known. Ike, as we all know was SAC/ET and managed the herculean task of waging a war of unprecedented scale with "allies" who were hellbent on competing agendas, then took over the Presidency when the Cold War was at a critical moment. Even though Ike occasionally lost his famous temper in private, he was unflappable in public.

• TR, Hoover, Ike and Rocky were all citizens of the world; leaders who were willing to venture outside their comfort zones. In contrast, today's crop of Reaganites apparently cannot function outside the monarchic absolutisms of the boardroom.

What we observe of the Reaganite gene pool is that the striver's anxiety, fear and avarice have replaced traditional conservative values of moderation, balance and incrementalism. Just as the "new" breed of greedy poseurs "revolutionized" business culture over the last 6 decades, so the graduates of that corporate careerist school decided to apply those same "leadership skills" to government.

Nevermind that all their "new" and "revolutionary" ideas had been tried before, and had failed before (see the history of every boom-bust-depression since the start of the Industrial Revolution).

Nevermind that their ethos wasn't even a theory, wasn't even a hypothesis; it was nothing but wishful thinking buttressed by pedestrian fiction-writing.

The sad shabby thing is that these developmentally stunted, neurotic individuals have not only managed to develop a following, but to ride that hideous wave to a destructive degree of political power. What they needed was medication and therapy, but what they got instead was power. They also achieved widespread influence, even on those who had not the stomach for the full corporate-Con agenda.

How were these people able to disguise their faulty thinking, their dangerous psychological quirks, and their insatiable lust for autocratic power? How were they able to turn paranoia, defensiveness, and toggle-thinking into Manly Virtues? Simple: They had a ready-made cover in "The American Dream". The have been selling The Dream hard, like a used car (don't look under the hood!), ever since greed introduced them to it, generations ago.

[skajules]

after all, they think of Reagan as God and would, if possible, dig up his fucking corpse and make love to it if they could.

fyp