Freedom of Speech = Freedom from Responsibility?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

So, I know, I know. It's Glenn Beck. We expect the whacko from him. And, of course, he's got every right to speak his mind; I certainly don't think he should be censored.

But at what point does he become responsible for the actions of people who follow his advice?



Buy farmland. Move to places where everyone is like you. Buy guns. Buy ammunition. And then... what? It's not like enclaving really works long term. Eventually, one of two things will happen.

1) After Obama's term ends without the world doing the same, maybe some of these people will pull their heads out and say "why did we listen to that guy?"
2) Someone provokes an incident.

The message sent by the American people this election was quite clear. The President won a resounding electoral victory and beat his opponent by more votes than Bush beat Kerry. Every competitive senate race save for one was taken by the democrats, and these aren't blue-dogs we're talking about; these are real progressive liberals like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin. And while the GOP retained the House, they did lose seats, and more people voted for Democratic Congresspeople than Republicans.

It was a fundamental rejection of GOP ideology. It was a rejection of the rape brigade, a rejection of the Ryan budget plan, a rejection of the concepts of the Makers and Takers, a rejection of the concept of the 47%, a rejection of conservative definitions of marriage, women, LGBTQ, race, immigration and drug law.

But the GOP doesn't seem to want to believe it. The constant refrain of "Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed" continues to sing in their ears, drowning out anything resembling the truth, which is that they lost and they lost big, and then they turn to people like Glenn Beck, and he tells them to buy farms, move to where everyone is like you, and get more guns.

Or this guy, who advocates cutting EVERY democrat in your life out of that life, to the point where he doesn't know if he'd rescue a democrat who was drowning, and thinks that he can get better brain surgery in Mexico than from a US brain surgeon who happened to vote differently than he did.

Or these people who think that losing an election is a national emergency so they, who so often rail about how burning the flag is treasonous, fly their flags upside down to indicate distress.



At their McDonalds.

And why do they do this?

Because they've been lied to, by the guy at the top of this post. By Rush. By Karl Rove. By http://www.unskewedpolls.com By every pundit who insisted that Nate Silver was cheating. Hell, GOP donors are angry because they were assured, ASSURED, I TELL YOU, that Romney was going to win based on bad data using bad algorithms, and a campaign that wasn't going to be dictated to by facts.

So what responsibility to these people have to tell the truth, I wonder? Of course, I think they should tell the truth. There are reasonable arguments to be made on policy. There are reasonable disagreements to have. I just wish we could see more of that, and less insistence that Obama is a kenyan radical christian muslim nazi communist.

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It was a fundamental rejection of GOP ideology. It was a rejection of the rape brigade, a rejection of the Ryan budget plan, a rejection of the concepts of the Makers and Takers, a rejection of the concept of the 47%, a rejection of conservative definitions of marriage, women, LGBTQ, race, immigration and drug law.



As always, repeating something false over and over will not make it true.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

As always, repeating something false over and over will not make it true.

I would have thought this should be biggest takehome lesson for the GOP from Tuesday.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Maybe so. You'd think that some on the left would also see what happened to a group of people who believed the hype regarding things they should have known about, and would be more careful.

At least one person here has not.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Last time I checked Romney conceded Florida, which would boost Obama's popular vote and electoral total past 50%. The last guy to get this both times he ran for office was Ronald Reagan. Do the math, Jeff, Obama actually won over 50% of the popular vote *and* a great sweeping victory in the electoral College.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

when Bush II was re-elected, with a far smaller vote margin than Obama and far fewer electoral votes, he claimed a mandate. Obama beats the pants off the GOP, and Jeff says that the country's moved to the right.

We have always been at war with east Eurasia.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

then why do you persist in trying?

The country did not shift right in Tuesday's vote.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Except for the vote shift, and the continued hold of the House by the Republicans.

I mean, there is zero evidence for your supposition that the country didn't move rightward, that this was somehow a repudiation of Republicans or conservatism when the Republican base again chose not to show up for a moderate. You're blowing smoke.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Last time the Dems didn't even contest a third of the seats. If one guy is running for one such seat and the only guy running is a Republican, that's not going Right. If two GOP candidates are competing for the same redistricted seat, that's not going right, either.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

How many contested Senate races did the Republicans hold?

One.

How many of those were clearly in the GOP corner until the true ideology came out? At least two, potentially more, and of course, that leaves out the house races that flipped, like Tammy Duckworth beating tea party darling Joe Dead-Beat Walsh.

How many more people voted for Obama than Romney? over 2.5 million.

Romney is not a moderate. The country did not shift to the right. But I have to admit, it's balsy to try to spin getting spanked as an endorsement of your ideology.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Um. The NY Times Shift Map (which I provided and you are using here) " turned to the right" meant a change in the PRESIDENTIAL vote from the 2008 election. Romney lost the election. The House is in Republican hands mostly because of redistricting in 2010, drawn by mostly Republican state legislatures, or I should say Gerrymandered significantly:

Here is Pennsylvania, a typically purple state, except when you look at the Congressional districts drawn up by Republicans. O REALLY?



IF the district maps from 2008 were used, the House would have been easily been back in Democratic control.

Democratic senators INCREASED, Republicans lost any chance of taking the Senate. Republican majorities in several state houses decreased SIGNIFICANTLY. And several state legislatures now have Democratic super-majorities.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Going by current numbers, Romney received 1 million votes less than McCain, while Obama received 8 million votes less than in 2008. So, turnout was much lower this time.

Either you can take this that the country wanted to go conservative or you can join us in reality and just admit that this map is generated based on Obama's lack of turnout (or third party grabbing some votes up, although they didn't grab up 9 million votes).

Tea Party favorites were voted out, an incumbent presiding over a slumping economy was given a second chance, and this election represents a rejection of far-right principles.

If Republicans don't learn from their mistakes, expect a repeat in 2016.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Let them keep doing it. They'll be shell shocked yet again in the next cycle. Especially since Arizona, Texas, and Georgia will be much more purple states due to increased Latino population, and more than likely will flip blue.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Either you can take this that the country wanted to go conservative or you can join us in reality and just admit that this map is generated based on Obama's lack of turnout (or third party grabbing some votes up, although they didn't grab up 9 million votes).

It's both sides "lack of turnout" in a sense. We know Romney won the independents in a pretty broad swing from Obama - exits show Romney winning them +5, while Obama won them by 8 in 2008 - a 13 point swing rightward.

Why did Romney struggle to meet McCain's total, then? He won independents, so why did the base not show up again?

Tea Party favorites were voted out

The House stayed Republican. After winning 60+ seats in 2010, they only lost 11 of them. That's far from a repudiation.

, an incumbent presiding over a slumping economy was given a second chance, and this election represents a rejection of far-right principles.

Which far right principles were rejected, then? They certainly weren't repudiated at the local district level, or on the Senate level given that one moderate and two people caught in the "rape statement" game got ousted, and the presidential candidate was a moderate, so where's this rejection you speak of? What's the evidence?

If Republicans don't learn from their mistakes, expect a repeat in 2016.

I agree wholeheartedly. The Republicans made a huge, huge mistake in running a moderate with a crappy GOTV plan. Both are things that can be fixed.

Unless more details come out in the next week - definitely possible if not outright probable - the problem has been identified in a nutshell, and that's turnout turnout turnout. A good candidate needs to worry less about that, and bad candidates need to do more for it. Romney simply did not get his people out, and here's a firsthand account of how bad this GOTV plan truly was (http://ace.mu.nu/archives/334783.php). A lot of us expected a Wisconsin recall-style GOTV campaign. What we got was this pile of crap instead, and it utterly failed. 30k volunteers for it, who knows how many of them were locked out by the system or frozen out due to its lack of workability. Romney lost the swing states by a combined 400k - think a better GOTV program could have made that up? I do.

And the focus on the GOTV misses the broader point anyway - a more conservative candidate bridges that gap and then some. A more conservative candidate understands the need to bring the base out. Romney was a failure in that regard.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Why did Romney struggle to meet McCain's total, then? He won independents, so why did the base not show up again?

62 million voted for George Bush. Nearly 60 million for McCain. Romney 58 million. If you're correct about the independents thing, then 2004 and 2008 weren't very different in GOP turnout. It was only this time the base didn't show up, but this was moreso the case for Obama.

It's possible that, as you said, the base didn't show up because Romney was not conservative enough. I personally think they didn't show up because he was a bad candidate regardless. Too much about him was toxic to voters, even if he was the not-Obama candidate.

The House stayed Republican. After winning 60+ seats in 2010, they only lost 11 of them. That's far from a repudiation.

Well, you're talking about seats that aren't the same seats from 2010, so we won't know what popular opinion is about that until 2016.

Which far right principles were rejected, then? They certainly weren't repudiated at the local district level, or on the Senate level given that one moderate and two people caught in the "rape statement" game got ousted, and the presidential candidate was a moderate, so where's this rejection you speak of? What's the evidence?

The idea that we can cut our way out of a recession. That was the core belief of Romney and friends, a hallmark of fiscal conservatism.

A good candidate needs to worry less about that, and bad candidates need to do more for it. Romney simply did not get his people out, and here's a firsthand account of how bad this GOTV plan truly was.

I'm not surprised the "fuck you, got mine" crowd treats their volunteers and wage-level employees like shit.

And the focus on the GOTV misses the broader point anyway - a more conservative candidate bridges that gap and then some. A more conservative candidate understands the need to bring the base out. Romney was a failure in that regard.

It's also possible that a more conservative candidate would bring out more of Obama's base as well. The knife cuts both ways.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Matt Drudge is butt hurt too.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Was 2004 a mandate for Bush?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Contextually, maybe. I think we're talking about two different results, though - Bush won in 2004 by increasing his vote share and support. Obama won on Tuesday by significantly decreasing it. I would imagine Obama's mandate hasn't changed much compared to 2008, but there's a message to be taken from these results as well.

That message, for what it's worth, certainly is not "we've moved leftward." No data supports that.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

If you mean Obama moved rightward, maybe.

The thing is, your desire to view things that way is not to the lefts disadvantage.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

When someone can remove the active race hatred from the last two pres races and qualify that the current president is about as hard-right as one can be and still be nominally called "Democrat," I'll believe this "shift to the right" nonsense.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I was wondering when someone would play that card.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Which one, the race card or the right-wing Obama card? Lots of cards out there yet to be played, after all.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Kinda like here? (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1601819.html?thread=128686107#t128686107)

Maybe peristaltor ought to have said, "If and when the Democrats put forward a white candidate, we'll see how much the country's white men (that is, the demographic responsible for most of the movement on your graphic) have really shifted to the right." Oh wait, that's kind of what peristaltor said, isn't it?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Until you can explain this graph without invoking race hatred, the question stands.



The graph shows the 2008 shift individual counties experienced from the 2004. Redder counties voted more Republican than before; bluer more Democratic. Arizona and Alaska can be forgiven, I suppose, given the homegrown-ness of McCain and Palin.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of denial of reality that I'm referring to, when I say that you will likely always find the world surprising and confusing.

Not a thing in the quotation you've cited is "false." It's true that: Voters rejected the "rape brigade," by which is meant the number of outspoken Republican politicians who said baldly bone-headed things about the intersection of women, rape, and abortion. It's true that: Voters rejected Romney/Ryan's Maker/Taker metaphysics - which isn't to say that they have embraced Obama's "we're in this together" theory, but you can't claim that voters think of themselves as "makers" while voting in favor of those who prefer "takers." Similarly when it comes to the "47%." In an historic first, voters in three states approved same-sex marriage and pushed back on an anti-same-sex marriage amendment, thereby rejecting "conservative definitions of marriage." The recreational use of marijuana was legalized in two states - thereby rejecting conservative ideology on the "drug war" (which, admittedly, Obama has done almost nothing to roll back). A lesbian senator was elected by the same state where, you were claiming not so long ago, Walker's GOTV infrastructure from his anti-recall campaign bode well for Romney's chances in the state.

Is there any evidence, in this most recent election, that Americans generally prefer the conservative policies on any of the issues the OP cited?

No - all you seem to have is this graphic showing that Obama won with less of a lead in 2012 than he had in 2008 and some bizarre, unsubstantiated theory that Romney lost because his positions were not only insufficiently conservative but left of center. All of your evidence is chosen and spun to serve this narrative.

The problem is that, not more than a couple of weeks ago, you would have been telling us that the enthusiasm gap between Obama's supporters and Romney's supporters - which could explain why Obama had fewer voters in 2012 than in 2008 - was a significant element of his "uphill battle." Such an enthusiasm gap could perfectly explain the only evidence you've bothered to present, but you don't even entertain that possibility - no, the electorate's really shifting to the Right. The Republicans didn't lose the House! So it must be true.

And did you bother to look at any of the demographic breakdowns of the graphic you've cited? This "rightward shift" you want to read into reality is largely a "rightward shift" among white men. Women? Support hasn't lagged. Hispanics? More strongly in favor of Obama, including among Cubans. The youth vote? Down, but not precipitously. So even if we accept that some kind of "rightward shift" can be discerned in this election, we can also see that it's a tenuous one, the last gasp of a demographic with shrinking political power.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

What's important is that he managed to spin thing into a right-wing victory regardless of the outcome.