I’ve been saying for a very long time that Obama will be a two-term President. The first time I said that was in early 2009 and I never wavered in this contention. And I was right, as you can now see. I hope everybody will recognize that my political analysis is always good and reliable. I may be a relative newcomer but I get this country because it gets me.
I will now make another political prediction and we’ll see me proven right once again.
In the 2016 election, the Republicans will still not feel prepared to abandon their strategy of creating a ticket with one kind-of moderate and one ultra-conservative religious fanatic. This strategy gave them two presidential election losses already, and the smart thing to do will be to change tack. The people of this country do not massively identify with “legitimate rape”, “that rape thing”, and “some girls they rape so easy” candidates. The people of this country no longer will massively support profoundly anti-science, anti-women, and anti-gay candidates. The people of this country love their contraception, their reproductive rights, their civil liberties, and they are growing to love Obamacare, too. The people of this country do not want to police the bodies and the beds of their neighbors and they most certainly don’t want the government to do so. This ultra-conservative gig is up, and the sooner the Republicans get rid of the fanatical wing and stop allowing it to dictate the entire party’s policies, the better.
The Hispanic population of the country is growing and will continue to do so. The young people who will get their first chance to vote in 2016 are a lot more cosmopolitan and progressive than any previous generation. The Facebook and Twitter crowd is not all that interested in praying or reserving sexual activities only for purposes of procreation. This is reality, so just deal with it.
However, I do not believe that the Republicans will be ready to dump the religious psychos just yet. The religious right will grow more radicalized, shrill, and fanatical in the next 4 years. I think that, sadly, the Republicans will let themselves be bullied into submission by these creepos once again in 2016. And when the progressive forces deliver yet another crushing defeat to the conservatives, that might finally get the Republicans to look into modernizing their party.
The wheels of progress move inexorably, people. This is the nature of human experience. Everything moves, changes, transforms. If you believe that you can bring back the way of life and the mentality of the 1950s while living in 2010s, you will lose. Every single time.
So once again:
Clarissa's Blog 
I wouldn’t be so happy for the future of the democratic party in all honesty. One part of your analogy is astute about the religious wing of the conservative party needing to have their input silenced by the larger republican party. However, this is one of the reasons I would NOT be too optimistic if I were a Democratic. You had the absolute gifts of “legitimate rape” and “god’s intention” on rape… as well as the whole issue with contraception being forced to be covered by healthcare plans. In the future contraception will be covered as a whole… (which really isn’t that expensive.. which is one of the reasons it is ridiculous that it is this huge issue … but the nanny state will win out).. So once the Republicans moderate on the religious angle, the Democrats are in trouble.. because most of the country realizes/will realize that our deficit is not sustainable. Majority of young voters (my peers) are socially moderate/liberal, but fiscally conservative and this will increase as economic and debt issues keep occurring for 30+ years.
The second factor is i actually think this is a high point in the racial vote going for the Democrats. 96-98% voted for obama from the black vote (again.. something that I think legitimately riles up completely non-racist white voters).. This will go back to historical averages of 85% in future elections with a non-back candidate. Now the Latino vote was pretty close under President Bush, and once an immigration solution is proposed the margins will go fro mthe current 70-30% back to perhaps 60-40…
It is a discouraging vote for the nation and it remains to be seen if the conservatives will appropriately neuter the power of the religious right… and perhaps you are right it will take one more defeat to do so. However, once they do that… I really think they have the structural factors in their favor.
By the way.. been a while since I have commented.. hope all is going well.
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Everything is good, thank you. 🙂 How are you doing? You’ve been missed around here.
If the Republicans drop the religious fanatics, I will be very interested in looking at what they propose in terms of the economy. I don’t support the Dems as an article of faith 🙂 or just because they exist. If the Republicans transform their party, drop the morality wars, and start concentrating on economic issues, I will definitely listen.
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Been awhile since I’ve commented as well. As you probably know already, my views tend to be aligned a lot more with the Republicans then the Democrats on issues of economics and foreign policy. It truly saddens me that the Republican party has to be a party that has so many people wanting to ram religion down people’s throats, hate on gays, ban abortion completely, do not believe in the Big Bang theory (which contrary to many people’s beliefs, does not undermine a belief in a god), and so forth.
I wish they could just focus on the issues of the economy, national security, and so forth, as I think the party presents some very good arguments in that sense and I know that there are weaknesses with the Democrats on those.
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I agree with you completely. This is like a national reconciliation night on the blog. 🙂 🙂
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I discovered your blog through Aaron Clarey’s Captain Capitalism and I would like to thank you for writing this post, Clarissa! This is exactly what I was thinking the whole time. The modern GOP is currently riddled and infested with complete religious nuts like Todd Akin, who I’m very happy lost his position as a representative to Democrat Claire McCaskill. I predict that they will finally wake up, become a lot more secular as the years go by and then in 2016, attempt to get a no-nonsense type of fellow like Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey to try to run as the candidate for their party, along with adopting some tenants of libertarianism in terms of respecting abortion and contraceptive rights for women. That’s the only way they will be able to survive the next few years or otherwise, I see a completely new party that will be created and highly influenced by the Tea Party and the Libertarian Party that will effectively destroy the current Republican Party and eventually replace it as one out of the two main political parties in the United States.
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” I predict that they will finally wake up, become a lot more secular as the years go by and then in 2016, attempt to get a no-nonsense type of fellow like Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey to try to run as the candidate for their party, along with adopting some tenants of libertarianism in terms of respecting abortion and contraceptive rights for women. ”
– Exactly! I think this country deserves and needs a much better, secular, enlightened and non-hysterical conservative movement.
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Ok… not to rain on the reconciliation parade… but the one thing i take issue with is the whole idea that conservatives and libertarians need to change their stance on contraception. From a strategic point, they would be smart to stop contesting it because realistically contraception does not cost that much to the nation, and MIGHT even save money since the reality is that we have to pay so much for poor, young mothers on medicaid to have kids. HOWEVER, they are not contesting the right to contraception, but rather the question who should pay for it. Now, I guess my question and the reason the issue bugs me is if you do believe in fiscal conservativeness (if thats a word lol), is this is the exact thing that leads to govt. dependency and an idea that people are responsible for their actions… where am i missing the conservative/libertarian logic here?
If we pay for contraception.. why not condoms? I am being serious, because condoms not only stop pregnancies, but they prevent diseases too for both men and women. I could easily continue the list of comparable examples… I guess my honest question is why does the contraception issue deserve special focus?
My theory is that it is only because the democrats realized they could demagogue it easily. IF my theory is right.. next they will demagogue the issue of “how do some people live in terrible homes… and doesn’t every kid deserve a modest home… so lest increase housing (section 8 etc.)
And I think you can validly hold that opinion, but if you do so you are certainly a democrat in america and i would say truly a socialist in the true sense of the word.
As conservatives.. don’t we have to advocate for the reasons we don’t want the nanny/govt state?
Curious of thoughts on this. I am really trying to interpret the results and hopefully 30 years from now when I am running for a big office (realistically probably only governor or senator.. but can dream of president 🙂 ) these insights will help! lol
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Would you have a problem with the government creating a couple of condom -making factories and distributing condoms for free? I wouldn’t. It’s a serious health issue, like vaccination. If we were ag risk of a plague epidemics, would you seriously mind the government spending money on vacvinating everybody? This would be such a tiny item of the national budget that it doesn’t merit discussion.
However, when Liberals talk about contraception, they don’t even mean what I just outlined. They simply mean health insurance + sex ed in schools instead of this insanely irrelevant and std producing abstinence mania that your tax dollars are paying for right now. Why aren’t you outraged about public money being wasted on that?
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I am completely in agreement with sex-education that is not abstinence based. (rememeber… fiscal conservatieve here.. mainly a deist.. so not tied to right-wing religious doctrine). In my mind the conservatiion around contraception never had to do wit hthis tho, it was simply about FREE contraception.. which like I said loses the conservatives more votes than it really increases spending.. but the point is individual responsibility. I really fear that part is missing in our country moving forward. One of the biggest difference between the middle class neighborhood I grew up in and the inner city is the sense of responsibliity and the decision that you need to make good choices (there are def. other big factors, but the fact that you should have to pay for birth control if you want to have sex just seems so obvious that anyone who thinks otherwise seems to favor the truly liberal notion of cradle to grave protetction).
IDK… can individual responsibility win out in this nation… I don’t know. I guess the only thing I know is from working with fortune 500 companies as a consultant (early-mid 20’s here) the fact that I can be ready to speak with C-level execs after a few weeks with a client in a way that 20 year company veterans can’t is primarily because of my ability to constantly question things and I believe really take ownership of all elements involved. It may be a bridge.connection too far.. but in reality the major issue I truly think is that enough people don’t know personal responsibilty and thus depend on the govt. to step in..
Hope I’m not attacked for sounding elitist.. just really struggling to see a large govt. can be compatible with individual respnosibility.
Would love your thoughts Clarissa because you seem to advocate a big govt. but are also definitly very responsible. In my theory/mind/model I think some of that is due to your roots.. and consequently you have the work ethic.. but if you look at people in the bottom 60-80% ofthe income scale.. they don’t have the motivator of coming from a crappy country, and they also arent exposed to the business world/ upper echelons of success as much and I just worry how we can have a country function like this.
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I have had an opportunity to spend extensive time with very very rich people. I spent time with them and taught their children, too. Now, I’m teaching students from very modest backgrounds. Many of them come from the inner-city ghettos of St. Louis and Chicago. I’m sure you can imagine those neighborhoods well. In terms of determination, work ethic, and being hard-working, the poor inner-city kids are so much better than the rich kids that I cannot even compare. It’s like they are from a different planet. Back at Yale and Cornell, I never saw students visit me in my office hours. I just sat there alone. They would only come by in the week of the final exams to whine about their grades. Here, however, I have students coming in non-stop, trying to squeeze every ounce of knowledge and help out of me.
Everybody in those upper echelons of success comes from poverty. Their children become underachievers, almost invariably. Their grand-children are all drug-addled, lazy, brainless losers. I have not seen a single exception. This scares me because if I have a child, what is to stop it from becoming a loser, you know?
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I have seen the same thing, too. Parents who have “made it” want to spare their children all the struggle they went through. But you raised your sister, and she seems to have turned out well.
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I raised her in great poverty, though.
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“Hope I’m not attacked for sounding elitist.. just really struggling to see a large govt. can be compatible with individual respnosibility.”
I’m not actually sure how as very small one, or a nonexistent government could be compatible with individual responsibility either. Actually, the market model of individual responsibility has to recognize its logical limits, because otherwise it just becomes farcical. To give you some idea, near the gym where I train, a new center has opened up that uses the market model of success to “help” disabled, unemployed people. Their website proclaims that they offer twenty grand a year to a disabled person who can come up with a feasible “plan” to improve their quality of life. “Present your business plan, and if it’s very clever, we will access some money somehow, and it will be yours.”
It should be obvious that this seems to be encouraging cleverness and individualism, but isn’t. The money probably doesn’t even exist. The demand that disabled people should show their imaginative (or imaginary) skills by leaping though hips is not the marvy.
‘Similarly, the language of business is imposed on those who have absolutely no CAPITAL — the leverage required under CAPITALism to get ahead. Unemployed people are required to enter into a “mutual obligation” to get a few crumbs from the system; enough to live on (almost). The assumption that people who have no money are also capitalists, who can choose to enter a contractual agreement, on the basis of mutuality, is ludicrous. It makes everything seem false and phony.
Government has a job to do and that is to assure that people don’t starve, en masse, under bridges. Government should not have to dress itself up with corporate language and form imaginary constructs, like “job search centers”, in order to justify its existence. Let people search for jobs on the Internet, according to their free will. But also, don’t play games with them, treating them as if they were capitalist players when they’re not. Every human being deserves enough money to live on.
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The most interesting statistics to me relate to the marriage gap (via Steve Sailer)
Men
Married: 60-38 for Romney
Single: 56-40 for Obama
Women
Married: 53-46 for Romney
Single: 67-31 for Obama
Combined
Married: 56-42 for Romney
Single: 62-35 for Obama
Has any society flourished economically by catering to the perceved social needs of unmarried women? Will the US be the first?
And dumping the current religious right won’t help the republicans. The democrats can always find a social issue where they can carve out a position on an issue that’s more appealing to singles (esp women) than anything the (marriage oriented) republicans can muster.
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And why exactly do you think this single vs married difference is important? In my view it is just a random example illustrating that correlation is not causation.
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For those who were wondering how the Republicans would respond to this, here is the answer. The reasonable minority agrees with my analysis. The less reasonable majority will be inventing all kinds of excuses to avoid self-analysis.
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Funny. 🙂 Do you do standup comedy, too?
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For what it’s worth, I’m not a republican and I’m firmly pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage and I think all the rapey talk from various republicans was unbelievably stupid. I’m halfway convinced it was intentional or unintentional sabotage (which is more interesting?) of a candidate that the grass roots never got behind because he wasn’t anti-abortion enough.
But…. I noticed a long time ago that the republican powers that be aren’t really serious about overturning RvW: They do the bare minimum to convince their more gullible followers (and opponents) that they care about the issue but the last thing they want is to lose it as a unifying rallying point at the national level. There are local set backs carried out by the particularly zealous but nothing tangible at the national level (including the 20 out of the last 32 years that republicans were president).
If they had another issue to take its place they might actually put some muscle into overturning RvW but they don’t (since the anti-gay marriage thing is losing traction) so they want to keep abortion alive as an issue.
At the same time, being married is a positive marker for several good traits (like personal responsibility and future time orientation) and so it’s interesting that married women care a lot less about burning feminist issues than single women do.
And no, correlation doesn’t prove causation but it gives you a good idea of where to start looking – only the foolish ignore it completely.
It’s also interesting that Obama actively supports religious psychos in the middle east who are causing real opression of women in places like Egypt (and reversing hard won gains in places like Tunisia) and he totally gets a pass for that from American women.
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As a very happily married woman, I can assure you that I care about feminist issues a lot more passionately than even when I was single. And so do all of my happily married friends of either gender. What is happening in your statistics is that it fails to take the age into account. Older people are still more conservative because they grew up in a more conservative society. And people tend to get married later in life nowadays. That’s all.
If the conservatives in this country want to create a robust, powerful conservative movement, they should, in my opinion, stop getting distracted by meaningless statistical variations and look at the deep structural problems they are facing. The Republicans will commit a grave error if in the aftermath of this loss they get stuck on demographic explanations for it.
Just wait and see. I will be proven right once again on this.
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I think you have some very good analysis Cliff. The big issue people don’t get is single women are only in an issue in so much that when they have to raise children without the financial and emotional support of men create huge fiscal and social issues for the country.
This is NOT bashing women. In fact, if more men had to raise single children the same problem would happen. Also, I was the product of a single mother from the age of 12 when my father tragically died. I immensely respect what she did, but had it not been for my parents approrpriately having life insurance our life would have been IMMENSELY negatively affected. And, the vast MAJORITY of single women don’t have life insurance money, or supportive fathers, and consequently rely heavily upon govt. funding (again.. not all or even most.. but DEFTINELY many).. and this creaes tons of issues.
Honestly, I’m curious how Europe’s social welfare states deal with this issue? Perhaps a large socila welfare model truly works for this… idk. Very curious for insights that other people have.
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“I think you have some very good analysis Cliff. The big issue people don’t get is single women are only in an issue in so much that when they have to raise children without the financial and emotional support of men create huge fiscal and social issues for the country.”
– This isn’t good analysis. This is precisely the kind of prejudiced fear-mongering that got the Republicans into today’s mess. But, hey, if you folks don’t want to save your own political movement and prefer to try to make yourself feel better with this garbage, I’m all for that. You will continue losing at the elections, and we will continue winning.
Jeez, I have never seen such an intense incapacity to engage in any form of self-analysis. You keep talking about responsibility, yet you ALWAYS refuse to look within your own party to see why it lost. Doesn’t it occur to you that you might be losing because you are doing something wrong? No, you people just keep making excuses and blaming everybody but yourselves.
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I have read this “single women are to blame” meme on at least 7 conservative websites today. These people are hopeless. They don’t see that even if this idiotic statement were true, that wouldn’t help them. Unless they plan to introduce forced marriages for everybody. But maybe that’s precisely what they want because no sane woman will have them of her own free will. This must be the real reason behind the anger towards single women.
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Uh, Clarissa? Love you babe but you’re the one who brought up women not voting for Repbulicans because some stupid mouth breathers said stupid mouth breathery kinds of things about rape and abortion.
Pointing out that married women seemed to care less about the issue, or could separate the presidential candidate from local bozos, and that single women have never been (and will likely never be) the engine of any national economy or that a single parent and child is not a viable autonomous economic unit is ‘prejudiced fear mongering’? Do you have counterexamples of single women turning a country’s economy around? If it makes you feel better single men tend to not be the motors that keep economies going either (again I welcome counterexamples).
I think this was a genuinely weird election. Usually incumbents either win big or lose, they don’t win with several million fewer votes than their first election. Part of that was hardcore support from singletons (women more than men). Looking closely at that is legitimate.
And nothing in permanent in politics. The republicans (of which I must again remind you I am not one) looked set for a long term lock on power in 2008 (doesn’t anyone else remember all the grim talk about the end of the democratic party then?) and that turned around in two years.
Finally, second terms are notorious for being unproductive
or mired in scandal (Regan, Clinton) so unless Obama is truly a much better administrator than he seems the republicans could be back in a big way and sooner than you think.
I fully agree that the republicans need to tone down the social issues and concentrate on economic realities and personal responsibility (the only social issue that really matters).
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“you’re the one who brought up women not voting for Repbulicans because some stupid mouth breathers said stupid mouth breathery kinds of things about rape and abortion.”
– They didn’t say these things in a drunken chat with their buddies. They were politicians running for office and explaining their political platform.
‘Pointing out that married women seemed to care less about the issue, or could separate the presidential candidate from local bozos, and that single women have never been (and will likely never be) the engine of any national economy or that a single parent and child is not a viable autonomous economic unit is ‘prejudiced fear mongering’”
– Yes. It is also extremely uninformed and unproductive. But if people love their weird mythology more than reason and understanding, who am I to disabuse them of their misguided beliefs?
“Do you have counterexamples of single women turning a country’s economy around”
– Absolutely any country after a war where there is a huge loss of soldiers’ lives.
“The republicans (of which I must again remind you I am not one) looked set for a long term lock on power in 2008 (doesn’t anyone else remember all the grim talk about the end of the democratic party then?) and that turned around in two years.”
– This was never my prognosis. My prognosis came true yesterday.
–
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““Do you have counterexamples of single women turning a country’s economy around”
– Absolutely any country after a war where there is a huge loss of soldiers’ lives. ?”
Excellent point! I stand corrected! I should have been clearer.
If we take the case of the UK after WWI, yeah, millions of women who would have otherwise married and stayed at home had to go out and find work to support themselves (and help keep the country going) and they transformed the country and changed attitudes towards women in almost entirely good ways.
On the other hand, most of them were single out of necessity rather than choice and they had very, very, very few children and didn’t get or expect much government help because governments didn’t do that in those days. They were absolutely heroic but again, it’s not necessarily the choice they would have made had they had more choices.
The Julia* demographic where the government is the only longterm human presence in her life is another, creepier, thing altogether. No mention of parents or siblings or husband or grandkids (and only the most fleeting mention of a decision to have a child who is sent off to kindergarten and never heard from again). Julia doesn’t need those other people, she doesn’t need anyone but President Obama… brrrrrr
*http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia
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The video was, indeed, kind of silly because of how schematic and unrealistic it was. I hope you didn’t take it too seriously. 🙂
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The complaint that the Julia video doesn’t mention her husband or siblings reminded me of the joke about a porn flick whose viewer was disappointed and returned it to the store because it didn’t culminate in a wedding. 🙂
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“The Julia* demographic where the government is the only longterm human presence in her life is another, creepier, thing altogether. No mention of parents or siblings or husband or grandkids (and only the most fleeting mention of a decision to have a child who is sent off to kindergarten and never heard from again). Julia doesn’t need those other people, she doesn’t need anyone but President Obama… brrrrrr”
I didn’t see husbands and fathers, or male offspring mentioned on the Mitt Romney side of things, either.
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None of this has anything to do with who is married amd who is single. This is simply about age. Old people tend to me more conservative because they find it harder to process new information and accept change. In voting for Romney, they don’t vote for any of his policies. They vote for returning back to the times when they were young, healthy and had all their hair and teeth. Of course, this generation is more likely to be religious and married. This is so self-evident that it bores me to write yet. Yet the dead horse of “evil single women” keeps being beaten by the Republicans. What are they hoping for? That these single women and the entire young generation will emigrate to the Moon before the next election?
Unless the conservatives change, they will soon only be able to campaign in geriatric wards. Nobody else would want them.
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Clarissa, thanks for the coverage of the election in your blog. I never got so much interesting background information like this year. I am very happy that you were right about Obama! 🙂
Congrats to all Obama supporters!
I just hope Obama will decide not to bomb Iran and instead spend more money on the infrastructure, education and health care in the US.
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Thank you for your kind words, Zinemin! I have the same hopes as you. Now that Obama doesn’t nee to campaign and fundraise any longer, he can start delivering. I’m still waiting for that high-speed train from St. Louis to Chicago he promised us 4 years ago.
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Very glad you were right and Obama will be a 2-term President. Good for you and thank you for your confidence and optimism.
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Thank you, Kelly. This wasn’t optimism as much as it was analysis.
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Actually I think it’s time we stopped dissing the 50s. They were actually a time when the country was turning more and more progressive. It’s true that women’s rights and racial equality was still in its infancy, but great strides were made towards making those things a reality in the 50s and early 60s. We’ve actually backslid since then, not to the 50s, but to the early 1900s, where the culture was full of propaganda about Motherhood and Patriotism and War. Getting back to the 50s would be a step up for the nation.
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I don’t mind changing what I said to 1850s. The point is the same: you can’t turn back time.
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This is what I mean when I speak about the inexorable nature of progress. In the future, we will see more of this, not less:
WIN: Claire McCaskill (MO) is also one of them, defeating the loathsome anti-choice rape apologist Todd Akin.
WIN: In Indiana, Democrat Joe Donnelly beat the loathsome anti-choice rape apologist Richard Mourdock in their race for the US Senate.
WIN: In Washington, Democrat Suzan DelBene beat the loathsome anti-choice rape apologist John Koster in their race for seat in the state congress.
WIN: In Illinois, Tammy Duckworth beat the loathsome anti-choice rape apologist Joe Walsh in their race for the US House of Representatives. Duckwork, who lost both legs serving in Iraq, is the first female war veteran with disabilities elected to the US Congress.
WIN: US voters chose women of color, women with disabilities, women who are gay, pro-choice women, and rejected men who minimize rape.
WIN: New Hampshire became the first state in the nation to have an all-female Congressional delegation: Two female senators and two female representatives. Their newly elected governor is also a woman.
WIN: Colorado and Washington voters legalized marijuana for recreational use. Massachusetts voters legalized marijuana for medical use.
http://www.shakesville.com/2012/11/winning.html
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Well other than the sad fact that Dems didn’t regain the House (and Dems would have won it back if it weren’t for GOP gerrymandering), this election made me very optimistic and proud of my country. Personally, I am an economic liberal so I can’t ever see myself voting for or agreeing with a conservative on much of anything. That being said, I do think the country will be better if can ALL agree on basic things like womens rights, gay rights etc. etc. I hope to see the day when abortion and gay marriage are no longer campaigh issues! Do you really think that will happen in our lifetime?
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As for gay rights, I believe we will see a profound change within the next few decades. Thirty years from now, this will not be a divisive political issue any longer, in my opinion.
In terms of abortion, however, I’m not as optimistic. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that abortion rights are not just about abortion. They reflect the status of women in society. In order for abortion to stop being a divisive political issue, we need to see a profound transformation of the entire mentality, entire way of thinking about women in our society. This is a very slow and painful process that goes in fits and starts. We are talking about an extremely powerful historical trend that needs to be reversed. Only when we arrive at a point where physiological differences lose all meaning in people’s eyes, will we stop hearing about abortion. There is a lot of work to be done by the feminist movement before that happens. A lot of work. And we will still suffer from backlash and reversals of all we achieved on the way. Eventually, however, feminism, reason, and progress will prevail. But it won’t happen soon.
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Why? There are plenty of places where abortion is not a divisive issue without those conditions being met. Why not in the US?
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I agree with your analysis completely. I think that even by 2016, gay marriage will be a nonissue (or at least it will be an easy win for liberals). Abortion as you say is a different matter. In addition to what you bring up, I think the role of religion in American public life is a big culprit. And I don’t see that changing any time soon.
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I agree with you that the GOP will become even more right-wing and radical as a result of this election. But whether they will lose in 2016 or not also depends critically on who the Democrats choose as a leader. I am worried that if they select somebody as lackluster as Kerry, there’s a chance that the GOP might still win, which will be a total disaster for the country. I am hopeful that we will have some good Democratic candidates in 2016; maybe Hillary Clinton will run!
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I heard Puerto Rico voted for statehood. How do you think that’s going to affect the election. I’m assuming democrats will support it so the scenarios are that it becomes a state or the GOP prevents it.
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Congratulations! When I saw the exit poll in Colorado at 20:15 and I knew the fact that it is was so close in Florida, I knew that I was wrong. 🙂
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“If the Republicans transform their party, drop the morality wars, and start concentrating on economic issues, I will definitely listen.”
No, they should drop the wars.
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I’m not naive enough to believe that the US will give up its “mission” to invade other countries at will. This is not a change we will see in our lifetime. Unfortunately.
Maybe I will write more on this later.
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The country is founded on invasion of territory and the extortion of unpaid labor. It will not stop trying to do these things easily. But, it also had an amazing labor movement that gave us worker safety, the weekend, etc.
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A great, great country that I love passionately. But a country with a disastrous foreign policy.
Today I was talking about Arbenz in class. “Let me guess,” a student interrupted. “The US got involved and fucked everything up, right?”
Right.
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