Let’s all admit the painfully obvious already. In the 8 years that Bush Jr. was President, the Republicans got incomparably more of what they wanted to see happen than the Democrats will get out of Obama’s 8 years in the office. And before you blame that on the Congress, think back to the way Obama worked with a Democratic Congress and the way Bush worked with a Democratic Congress. Bush was getting more out of the Dem majority in the House than Obama was.
A very interesting article in The Nation explains very well why that is:
Open to all, the Democratic Party has no ideological requirements for membership. Anyone can register, making it little more than a coalition of social forces in which various groups contest for influence under a common banner. The American left, without a natural base and condemned to support the Democratic “lesser evil,” has traditionally conceded legitimacy to forces governing in the center.
In all the years I have lived in the US (CT, MD, IN, IL/MO), I have met two people who voted Republican. For obvious reasons, the absolute majority of people I meet are not Republicans. And even though I’m not very sociable, with all this moving around, the number of people ends up being significant. Among all these people, there has been one single person who voted Democrat because she really liked the party, admired its leadership, and was hugely enthusiastic about it. Everybody else – and I mean, everybody – voted Democrat because the other guys were even worse.
Just ask yourself, isn’t it true that you have been voting Democrat for quite a while simply because you disliked the Republican candidate even more than the one you felt forced to support?
As a result, even though the majority of the country dislikes “the other guy” and resignedly votes Democrat, the Republicans are still much stronger as a united forces. And why? Because they are a united force:
House Republicans bind themselves to an ideological code, enforcing a set of standards that ironically resemble that of European socialist parties: dues are paid, commitments made explicit and members occasionally expelled. Declarations like Grover Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” unite conservatives in Congress, while a network of think tanks, political action committees, grassroots activists and organizations at the state level keep them setting the national discourse, even as the demographics continue to skew in the Democratic Party’s favor.
As I have been saying forever, the Republicans have an agenda. They believe in it and defend it passionately with the kind of enthusiasm that the Liberals in this country have not been able to muster for, I’d say, about 30 years. (I haven’t been in the country for 30 years, so I might be wrong here. Please feel free to correct if you remember more recent instances.)
The Nation’s new contributor is absolutely right when he says that:
The conservative program is not only “on the agenda,” it is often enacted, and for good reason: the right is generally more confident, more ideologically consistent and better organized than those who oppose it.
I don’t like a single thing on the Republican agenda. However, I do admire the consistency, the strength and the dedication the party exhibits time and again. It is so refreshingly different from the impotent mewlings of the Dems who always have an excuse for not delivering. Jeez, folks, after the gun control legislation that enjoys an enormous popular support failed pathetically in the Democratic Senate, I don’t think it makes sense to take the Dems seriously at all. The only reason they still have a place in politics is that the Republicans are unwilling to dump the religious freaks with the velocity this noble action deserves.
This could be the perfect moment to reorganize the party completely. Create a program, an agenda, put it in writing, pledge to carry it out by a certain time. There is a window of opportunity while the Republicans are still incapable of getting rid of the religious crazies.
The Democrats need to start believing in something more defined than the vague “change.” Let’s remember that if you really want change – and this works for absolutely any area of human existence – you need to visualize specifically and concretely what you want the result of the change to be.
Read the linked article, it’s very refreshing, compared to what The Nation usually has on offer.
Clarissa's Blog 
I regret voting for that scumbag Mitt Romney in the last election. In fact, I regret voting at all. Last year, he came to my school to serve up pancakes and even then I had been suspicious of the guy and was even going to vote for Gary Johnson but then fell into that whole idea that voting libertarian or any other third party would be a complete waste of a vote.
I should have gone with my intuition then. Romney just came across as being an unlikable phony, even though there’s plenty that Obama’s done that I didn’t quite like either. As long as the United States doesn’t end up attacking Iran, I could care less who wins the election anymore.
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2012/03/03/mitt-romney-comes-to-snellville-on-sunday-to-fight-for-second-place/
The only real reason I voted for Romney was because I thought there might have been a chance that Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, wouldn’t be reappointed to that position again seeing as how the Fed has done too much quantitative easing, in my humble opinion and should stop. Even Anna Schwartz, the co author of Milton Friedman’s “Monetary History of the United States” had some criticisms about the man here.
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“As long as the United States doesn’t end up attacking Iran, I could care less who wins the election anymore.”
– I know exactly what you mean.
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“As long as the United States doesn’t end up attacking Iran, I could care less who wins the election anymore.”
– I know exactly what you mean and I think you are right.
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The reason that the Democrats are so gelatinous is because they know that they can get away with it. The stupidity of a two-party system utterly dominated by campaign contributions from wealthy corporations ensures that they can consistently ignore the demands of ideological progressives in favour of the “centrist” (read: neo-liberal) policies which Wall Street donors favour. The progressives will keep voting for them because the alternative is to have no say at all in government.
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French soldier stabbed on Paris street
…
France is on high alert for attacks by Islamist militants following its military intervention in Mali in January, which prompted threats against French interests from AQIM, the North African wing of al Qaeda.
The incident comes just days after a British soldier was slain in broad daylight by knife-wielding attackers on London’s south side.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/25/18492563-french-soldier-stabbed-on-paris-street?lite
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L’Hôte: we must be ready to condemn this vicious knifing in the UK as terrorismlhote.blogspot.com
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Oh shit, use of “autism” as a pejorative in second comment. 😦
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If every stabbing becomes “terrorism”, then soon the term will be eroded to the point of having no meaning at all. Tragically, criminals and / or disturbed people stab victims to death every day. What they yell as they do it can hardly matter a whole lot.
This is why I keep objecting to the careless usage of words. Not everything is rape, nazism, terrorism and slavery. And not everything is autism either. Why not just use the dictionary definitions of words?
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“Why not just use the dictionary definitions of words?”
Cause most human brains (and no human languages or language communities) work that way. Semantic leeching are like gravity, immune to complaints by individuals.
I’d definitely classify the UK attacks as terrorism (but the crazy freaks who killed the soldier were the weapons and not the ultimate perpetrators). It was a non-state actor using violence to achieve intimidation with a political aim.
The Fort Hood killings are possibly not terrorism as it’s not clear if that crazy freak was hooked into any larger organizations or just hyped himself into it.
Not enough info on the French case yet.
All this (and the riots in Sweden) must be making your favorite novelist very happy (I don’t care how well he writes, he’s scum).
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“All this (and the riots in Sweden) must be making your favorite novelist very happy (I don’t care how well he writes, he’s scum).”
– This is very cryptic. 🙂 Do you know how many novelists I like? Which one is happy?
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There is no difference between the parties. I would have like Jesse Ventura/Ron Paul presidential ticket and we need a lot more like them.
I’m tired of paying for the corporate welfare and social welfare by both parties.
You really disappoint with this post. The fact that gun sales are up and ammo is out of stock shows that most Americans don’t agree with gun control.
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“The fact that gun sales are up and ammo is out of stock shows that most Americans don’t agree with gun control.”
– No, it doesn’t. Like all supporters of Ron Paul, you haven’t burdened yourself with studying formal logic. Had you done so, you would have realized that your favorite religious fanatic is in no way different from Bush, Romney, Ryan, and the rest of the freak circus.
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That’s a pretty stupid statement to make given his voting record does not match any of those you listed. RP was cheated out of delegates at the Republican convention and the neocons dislike him as much as the left. If were an informed person, you would know this as well.
At least RP has done more to make aware of the freedoms we have lost.
I figured someone who had lived under communism would be against gun control and appreciate some of aspect of RP or Jesse Ventura.
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“I figured someone who had lived under communism would be against gun control and appreciate some of aspect of RP or Jesse Ventura.”
– I can only repeat my suggestion about acquiring some understanding of how to form basic logical connections. Then you will see that there is no connection between the USSR, gun control and Ron Paul. 🙂 🙂
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“The fact that gun sales are up and ammo is out of stock shows that most Americans don’t agree with gun control.”
Actually, fewer gun owners own more guns. So it’s not so much that the population rejects gun control; it’s that gun nuts are getting even nuttier.
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Ron Paul has lots of differences between who you listed. Evidenced by the fact that he has no chance of ever being elected. Jesse Ventura is a different bird altogether. 🙂
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“Ron Paul has lots of differences between who you listed. Evidenced by the fact that he has no chance of ever being elected.”
– Good point.
“Jesse Ventura is a different bird altogether.”
– Is that the strange looking guy with a mustache?
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He is actually a very well spoken and informed individual, regardless of whether or not you agree with him. 🙂
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The indpendent variable here isn’t necessarily party but politician. Clinton got more out of a republican congress than Bush got out of a democratic one.
Obama is simply not a good administrator or dealmaker but most of his supporters were too giddy about the possibility of voting for a black candidate* to care and now they’re stuck with him. He can’t deal with people who don’t admire him which is the sure sign of a mediocre (or worse) office holder. I spotted this in the pre-2007 debates but the press was smitten and that was all she wrote.
*although his membership in the African American community was an adult choice and not part of his upbringing which was about as black as yours was.
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I always considered Clinton to be a fully Republican president. He deregulated like hell, dismantled the welfare state, invaded like there was no tomorrow. What did he do for the Liberal side? I’m not sure I remember anything. Well, except the Levinsky scandal which finally allowed people in this country to say the words “oral sex” out loud and smile, instead of running away terrified. That was about the only progressive thing he achieved, in my memory.
So of course the Republicans cooperated with him. He was doing exactly what they wanted.
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The problem is that the two party system doesn’t correspond with the natural voting blocks and so one or both parties will be made unwieldy.
In practical terms of the three major areas of policy (social issues, economic issues and foreign policy) only the first two really count. Simplifying a bit, we get four natural big blocks:
fiscally conservative and socially conservative (paleoconservatives)
fiscally conservative and socially progressive (libertarians)
fiscally liberal and socially conservative (neocons)
fiscally liberal and socially progressive (liberal/progressives)
At present these groups have to be squished into two parties and there’s not much way for that to work.
And as far back as I can remember the Republicans have almost always been the party of greater discipline. For changing reasons democrats have always found it harder to work together (oddly democrats seem to find it easier to work with republicans than their own party).
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“fiscally conservative and socially progressive (libertarians)”
– That’s the closest to me. But I’m not a Libertarian. I even have a happy personal life. 🙂
“For changing reasons democrats have always found it harder to work together (oddly democrats seem to find it easier to work with republicans than their own party).”
– Yes, because they can take orders better than they can take inititive.
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“That’s the closest to me”
Me too and I’m also not a libertarian, all the labels were meant to be very vague and impressionistic and not very precise.
‘because they can take orders better than they can take inititive”
I think it’s more like the idea that if you act like you’re in charge most people will believe you. The democrats are enamored of candidates and politicans who don’t act like they’re in charge (including Obama). There’s also the ?quien es mas progresivo?* problem that’s always infected progressives in the US.
*a pop culture reference from over 30 years ago
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“The democrats are enamored of candidates and politicans who don’t act like they’re in charge (including Obama).”
– That’s paradoxical but it sounds very true. Yes, now that I think of it, the most successful Dem candidates always have this image of bumbling immature boys. Kennedy, Clinton, Obama – boyish is one word to describe them all.
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Ten people working together can achieve more than 1000 working for themselves and bickering with each other. A strong, unified group is much better suited for ruling than a loose coalition that has vague goals and has to work on compromises every ten minutes.
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Yes, you are absolutely right. A group is always more than the sum of its parts, both in a good and in a bad way.
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“Do you know how many novelists I like? Which one is happy?’
I had in mind Goytisolo.
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Ah! I’m a little dense today.
You can’t listen to what he has to say about. . . pretty much anything. I read his 2-volume autobiography, and it was a riot. The guy tries so hard to analyze the political realities of the countries he visits, and fails so completely and pathetically that it is hilarious. He is a great writer of fiction but, as often happens with great writers of fiction, the moment he steps away from the realm of the purely fictional, he misses the mark completely.
His fiction, too, fails completely on the level of ideology in a very obvious way. Which is something I have convincingly demonstrated in my research on the subject. 🙂
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30 years only?
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