Our Political Prospects

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Clarissa

March 27, 2014

Everybody is piling on Nate Silver for stating the painfully obvious, which is that Republicans will win the Senate in 2014. Of course, they will. Obama’s response to the revival of the Cold War is not making the voters happy. If the economy were booming and Obamacare were an overwhelming success, voters wouldn’t care about Ukraine and Russia. Since the administration’s performance in these (and pretty much all other) areas has been kinda OK, we’ll all see the results at the polls in November.

A blogger says in response to the above-linked poll, “So of course Obama’s getting bad grades. Everyone “knows” he’s screwing up — even if no one can explain precisely how.” I can explain precisely how he is screwing up:

BY NOT GETTING RESULTS.

Voters don’t know what should be done to solve the problem of Russia’s expansionism because it’s not their job to know. As I always tell my students, it doesn’t matter how hard they tried or if they tried at all. The universe doesn’t care about your effort, I say. All that matters is results. This is how life is for a student, professor, chef, truck driver, or president.

As you all know, I passionately supported Obama in both of his campaigns. But I’m really tired of hearing the endless excuses about why the Democrats never manage to get anything done.

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3 responses to “Our Political Prospects”

cliff arroyo

March 27, 2014

Elect a great campaigner and there’s no telling what you’ll get in office.

Obama just doesn’t seem that interested in being president. He’s neither a hands on micro-manager (like Carter) or a delegate and monitor manager (like Eisenhower) nor is he a scrapper who thives on opposition and deal making (like Clinton). That’s why there aren’t resuts because he doesn’t seem to have a management style beyond preaching at people.

I honestly don’t know why he bothered to run (twice) for a job that doesn’t really fit his talents.

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musteryou

March 27, 2014

Well, so there is a difference between being able to split hairs on a moralistic level and getting results. A lot of the politics of the left is a politics of purity. So, as I have said before, Julia Gillard was deemed by many of the far left as not being good enough to represent them, because she wasn’t a totally motherly mother figure, she made political compromises and would not support gay marriage. (Can you imagine how much she would have put her position under threat by embracing a controversial proposition like ‘gay marriage’ when she was already considered a threat to the patriarchy because of her unmarried and atheistic status?) So the far left itself was highly instrumental in bringing down the most leftwing prime minister we’ve ever had. And now we have the most anachronistic right wing government we may have ever had. Imagine, Tony Abbott wants to bring back knighthoods and not act on climate change and basically capitulate entirely to the principles of neoliberalism.

But perhaps this is what the left wanted all this time? It wants to feel distressed and dissatisfied with itself. It doesn’t like its representatives to be in power, because then it feels embarrassed with itself. I mean if you have spent your whole life dreaming up a notion that a really motherly mother would deeply understand you and make darkness into light, but then all you get is a relatively efficacious female politician, perhaps the only way you can maintain your illusion is to be put a right wing patriarch in power?

Such is Australian politics nowadays.

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Hattie

March 28, 2014

All I know is I’m real tired of aggressive people.

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