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StrangerThan -> RE: Why the GOP is unraveling. (4/24/2009 3:13:20 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: samboct
Hi Panda, Kittin
The problem with that plan for Republican self immolation is that it provides no counterbalance for the democrats. Without an organized opposition-the democrats fall apart. I think it was Will Rogers that said- I don't belong to an organized political party- I'm a democrat!
Panda- interesting comments about Nixon- I just thought he was such an incredible creep and that the young folks who had joined him became the architects of much of our current misery (weren't guys like Roberts, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz etc. groomed under Tricky Dick?) that I didn't realize that he may have accomplished some good other than getting us out of Viet Nam.
There was an interesting poll tidbit today showing that a majority of people think the country is now on the right track. (I agree- I think we need some giant steam shovels because we're in deep shit- but at least we're no longer trying to get to the bottom of the pile.) However, only 24% of Republicans agree with that statement.
I suspect the folks that are defending the Republican party on this board fall into this category. I also include laying all the blame for the current economic crisis on George Bush the younger to be a denial of the failures of the Republican party's platforms- as noted earlier- GWB was not the architect of this plan- he was just the straw that broke the camel's back. If Reagan had come back from the grave- the same implosion would have occurred- and it would be a lot easier to understand what happened and how the policies he put in place 30 years ago had this disastrous effect.
Given that so many Republicans (over 3/4ths!) think the country is on the wrong track, and since we've made at least a 90 degree turn from the policies of the previous administration, one can only conclude that these folks think that GWB had been on the right track. This to me flies in the face of reality. It's like in Tora, Tora, Tora, when a lieutenant (played by the same guy who played Oscar Goldman on the 6 million $ man) asks a Sergeant for confirmation of the report of the destroyer Ward having sunk a submarine at the entrance to the harbor- as the bombs are falling and things are blowing up- the Sergeant yells- Confirmation? You want confirmation? Take a look!
In short- the members of the Republican party aren't on the right track yet either- and until they take a look around and realize that the messes we're dealing with are a function of the parties failed policies- we're going to make a lot less progress getting out of the hole.
Sam
And what you're totally ignoring sam is this same bs was floating around a few years ago, only on the flip side. It wasn't that long ago that I was reading blogs and headlines where some were predicting and others bemoaning the demise of the Democratic party. I mean face it, Democrats had managed to land only 1 out of the last 4 presidents and lost control of Congress in the meantime. They were flopping around, ineffective, and futureless until Obama came along. As bad as the picks are on the Republican side, they were even more dismal on the Democratic side. Some of the same articles were crying about the fact that Democrats that did manage to win *new* seats were in fact idealogically not much more than moderate Republicans.
I did the math at some point a while back. Something like 132 million people voted. Obama won by 7 percent of the popular vote. What that really tells you is that Republicans and Democrats did mostly what they normally do, that being cancel each other out while a small portion of the actual electorate chose who would be president. Republicans were at the height of their heydey just before the invasion of Iraq. Had Bush been anywhere near fiscally conservative, had at least one clue as to what he needed to do, protected American civil rights and stood up for what was right in the first place, Democrats would still be moaning. Until Bush, America was on a decidedly Republican path. America stayed on that path with him even through after his first term. It took six years for the backwash to hit.
The GOP unraveled mostly because of Bush, not because of platform. I'm telling ya too, it won't take much for Democrats to unravel. Marc noted that politics has swung back and forth like a pendulum in the past. The arc has shortened. Politics will swing back and forth even faster in the future because the idealogical rifts are so enconsed and stark.
The funny thing is, and I swear, it is funny, I had this same debate about 6 years ago with a bunch of Republicans. Lol and they were about as inflated then, as Democrats are today. So we can talk all day about platforms and what a vote means in terms of rejecting one over the other, but to try and place the results of this last election anywhere but squarley upon Bush's shoulders and those who trundled along behind him without one friggin word of common sense, is to ignore a good portion of the sloganeering used in the campaign itself.
Shrug.
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