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paft.livejournal.com) wrote in
talkpolitics2012-11-10 12:18 pm
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So, Republicans -- What's the Next Step?
There's been some discussion here about the right wing response to the shocking, I tell you, SHOCKING re-election of President Obama and the over-the-top reaction we've been seeing. A lot of it has involved personal idiocies from Freeper vowing everything from cutting off disabled Obama supporting relatives from support (I kid you not) divorcing spouses, spitting on neighbors, moving into bunkers, etc.
And there have been some hints of payback from people actually in a position to hurt either Obama supporters or perceived Obama supporters. The CEO of the same coal company that forced employees to spend a day without pay listening to a Romney speech laid off over a hundred employees on November 9th after publicly reading an unctuous and insulting "prayer," and on Thursday a man claiming to be a business owner in Georgia called C-Span and boasted about cutting employee hours and laying off two people because of the election. “I tried to make sure the people I laid off voted for Obama,” he said.
The fact remains -- Obama won.
Attempts at limiting the franchise and making it hard to vote didn't help Republicans. It just pissed off a lot of voters to the point where they were willing to stand in line for seven hours to vote for a Democrat. Threatening to fire employees if Obama were re-elected didn't help Republicans. It just highlighted the insidious damage Citizens United has done to our political environment. Attacking blacks, women, gays, and hispanics didn't work. It just galvanized a large portion of black, gay, female, hispanic, etc. voters into fighting Republicans.
So my question is, Republicans, what's the next step?
A couple of weeks ago, Frank Rich wrote a piece in Salon about the fact that losing an election does not seem to make the Republicans reassess their extended march to the right. They just double down and march further to the right.
Is that what's going to happen, Republicans? Because I have to tell you, you've been marching to the right for so many years you're on the verge of stepping off one hell of an ideological cliff. Are you going to openly embrace the genteel racism of Charles Murray? Are you going to openly work to limit the vote only to people of a certain income level? Is the aim going to be disenfranchising large portions of the public and telling the rest, "vote for us or we'll fire you?"
Just curious.
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And there have been some hints of payback from people actually in a position to hurt either Obama supporters or perceived Obama supporters. The CEO of the same coal company that forced employees to spend a day without pay listening to a Romney speech laid off over a hundred employees on November 9th after publicly reading an unctuous and insulting "prayer," and on Thursday a man claiming to be a business owner in Georgia called C-Span and boasted about cutting employee hours and laying off two people because of the election. “I tried to make sure the people I laid off voted for Obama,” he said.
The fact remains -- Obama won.
Attempts at limiting the franchise and making it hard to vote didn't help Republicans. It just pissed off a lot of voters to the point where they were willing to stand in line for seven hours to vote for a Democrat. Threatening to fire employees if Obama were re-elected didn't help Republicans. It just highlighted the insidious damage Citizens United has done to our political environment. Attacking blacks, women, gays, and hispanics didn't work. It just galvanized a large portion of black, gay, female, hispanic, etc. voters into fighting Republicans.
So my question is, Republicans, what's the next step?
A couple of weeks ago, Frank Rich wrote a piece in Salon about the fact that losing an election does not seem to make the Republicans reassess their extended march to the right. They just double down and march further to the right.
Is that what's going to happen, Republicans? Because I have to tell you, you've been marching to the right for so many years you're on the verge of stepping off one hell of an ideological cliff. Are you going to openly embrace the genteel racism of Charles Murray? Are you going to openly work to limit the vote only to people of a certain income level? Is the aim going to be disenfranchising large portions of the public and telling the rest, "vote for us or we'll fire you?"
Just curious.
*
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Of course they do. Did loosing the elections in 04 or 2010 make you want to shift your political stance any? Or did you just rant and rave about the stupidy/lack-of-moral-fiber prevalent in the general electorate?
As for "What's the Next Step?" it's hard to say.
The old guard establishment wing Republicans have lost a lot of face both within the party and with the nation. Whether or not they reassert themselves or are replaced by others remains to be seen
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And what you call "left" in this context?
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likewise what constitutes "limited" in this case in regards to "limited capitalism".
Lets face it, modern progessives are hardly liberal in the classical sense.
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Typically being defined as "right wing" rather than moderate in this country involves an emphasis on social issues -- as in opposition to feminism, gay rights, abortion rights -- a covert or overt appeal to white supremacists, and an opposition to Communism that borders on or overtakes McCarthyism.
s: likewise what constitutes "limited" in this case in regards to "limited capitalism".
Capitalism practiced with some level of government oversight as opposed to a laissez-faire system.
s: Lets face it, modern progessives are hardly liberal in the classical sense.
What do you mean by "liberal in the classical sense?" And is that the common usage of the term "liberal" when used in political discussion?
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I don't know any serious political observer who doesn't think the Republican party today is significantly more conservative that 40 years ago. And that the Democratic party is also more conservative, but the move for the Republican party has been far more significant. Like I said earlier, the Vote View database shows this, and it's pretty asymmetrical.
But is that a result of a shift in the parties or a shift in the population?
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Yeah I know how it works. And I've seen enough exchanges between Politikitty and LJ conservatives on this subject with her citing Vote Call's extensive database on this subject.
I'm not interested in beating that dead horse any further.
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What level of oversight constitutes "some" and, of far greater import, what is that level of oversight meant to achieve?
What do you mean by "liberal in the classical sense?" And is that the common usage of the term "liberal" when used in political discussion?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
In contrast modern Liberalism is primarily defined by the fetishization of a group/tribal identity over that of the individual emphasizing the concepts of both collective achievement/reward and collective guilt/punishment.
While this fetishization of the tribe can lead to admirable traits, shared sacrifice for instance, it is prone to acts of oppression and/or genocide if not properly tempered by a strong anti-revolutionary faction or tradition which has been the Right's traditional role.
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The idea that modern liberalism is this is because contemporary Progressives in the USA have no term they use for themselves so they've co-opted terms that had nothing to do with what they advocate.
BTW, modern genocides have invariably been the products of Right/conservative regimes. Ask the Native Americans massacred by the USA and its 20th Century conservative allies, ask the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, and ask the people of Nanjing whether the people that slaughtered them were Leftists. Most of them would say no, actually, they weren't. Of course the Right has a fetish with dodging responsibility by attributing all that is wrong with the world to the treason of a Left that no longer exists here in the USA, so I'd love to see a conservative US argument that recognizes that the world has really, really changed since 1991. I'm not holding my breath.
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sw: What level of oversight constitutes "some" and, of far greater import, what is that level of oversight meant to achieve?
The Glass Steagal act is one example, and it's meant to prevent what happened to our economy in 2008.
sw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
In other words, you're not using the common usage of the term "liberalism" as used in modern political discussion. You're just playing your usual word games.
SW: In contrast modern Liberalism is primarily defined by the fetishization of a group/tribal identity over that of the individual emphasizing the concepts of both collective achievement/reward and collective guilt/punishment.
Uh, no, it's not "primarily defined" that way except by right wingers opposed to liberalism.
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Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria. . . . Damn.
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In what way are the politics of the modern GOP more to the right than the GOP of 1900 (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29630)?
can you articulate it?
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Isn't that all your posts in general?
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That's a good question and I think you're correct, When the Al Gore lost the presidency to GWBush in 2000 the Dems doubled down and tried desperately to win back the White House for 2004. Considering 9/11, the anthrax attacks, Gulf War 2, Afghanistan, Gitmo, the missing WMD's in Iraq, etc. 2004 was a desperate election for the left. Unfortunately John Kerry wasn't destined to win the Presidency.
But did the Dems move further left? Hell yeah! What could be further left then a presidential candidate that's Afro-American? Well, he could have been gay as well as black. Next time! Betcha by 2020 you'll have a gay democrat running for president.