I will say that I admire the cut-throat nature of the Repubs. Few folks in the Democratic party would be so bold as to start a "Fire Boehner" campaign, or make it their No. 1 goal to repeal the health care bill. Never saw the Democrats throw their weight around in that regard.
However, absent of that, the Republican Party clearly has no other ideas and are going to need some time, as Boehner said, to "put their heads together."
I kept wanting reporters and commentators to ask, How did we get here? Not here, as in the Democrats lost control of the house, but what happened before that? How did we get into the economic disaster in the first place? Could have used a little context but none of these peoples' memories extend beyond the last six months.
Being a conservative means, as William F. Buckley said, "Standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop.'" Change, as we have seen, is not always for the good and there is a downside to abandoning principles that have served Western Civilization for the past three thousand years simply because one can now force down those changes from above. So I think its incorrect to equate not wanting change with "no ideas."
Being a conservative means, as William F. Buckley said, "Standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop.'" Change, as we have seen, is not always for the good and there is a downside to abandoning principles that have served Western Civilization for the past three thousand years simply because one can now force down those changes from above. So I think its incorrect to equate not wanting change with "no ideas."
Fair point. But the two biggest talking points of:
--Creating jobs
--Slashing spending
Are offered without ANY specifics. Feel free to offer some. I know Boehner is eager to "roll up his sleaves" but where is he going to go into the budget and make some cuts?
why all this republican vs democrats hate on here?
all politicians are lying/corrupt
from an non-american point of view it doesnt really make a difference either way, obama just sending the troops elswehere the war never stops
Buckley would be considered a left-leaning hippie today, so would Reagan...their brand of conservatism is not accepted as "conservative" these days. Plus, I don't think any baggers could understand ol Willie F, much less even know who he was.
sabadabada said:
white_tea said:
I will say that I admire the cut-throat nature of the Repubs. Few folks in the Democratic party would be so bold as to start a "Fire Boehner" campaign, or make it their No. 1 goal to repeal the health care bill. Never saw the Democrats throw their weight around in that regard.
However, absent of that, the Republican Party clearly has no other ideas and are going to need some time, as Boehner said, to "put their heads together."
I kept wanting reporters and commentators to ask, How did we get here? Not here, as in the Democrats lost control of the house, but what happened before that? How did we get into the economic disaster in the first place? Could have used a little context but none of these peoples' memories extend beyond the last six months.
Being a conservative means, as William F. Buckley said, "Standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop.'" Change, as we have seen, is not always for the good and there is a downside to abandoning principles that have served Western Civilization for the past three thousand years simply because one can now force down those changes from above. So I think its incorrect to equate not wanting change with "no ideas."
Baggers are not synonymous with the GOP. I think this point will either become fully illuminated (or proven completely wrong) in the next year or so. I'm genuinely fascinated to see how this all plays out.
I agree that the simple desire to go after Pelosi as Speaker isn't proof of misogyny.
No, but we were talking about how the GOP succeeded in getting the middle class to vote against their own interests. During an economic recession, middle class people need government spending and government regulation. The GOP, and especially the Tea Party, proposes the exact opposite - zero government "discretionary" spending & zero regulation. They act as if the wall street crash never happened & govt spending didn't keep millions of people from going homeless. At the exact time that the super-rich are being vilified, they succeeded in getting middle class people to vote for a party that will keep tax cuts in place for the top 2%; while arguing out of the other side of their mouths that we need to cut the deficit.
My point was just that the GOP didn't need to really swindle anyone, because once you decide that you don't like Obama, Pelosi or other vilified figures like Barney Frank, you don't need to evaluate facts. Pelosi is only polarizing to the extent that you don't like the liberal agenda. She's not a fringe political figure like O'Donnell or Palin.
The GOP understands the makeup of their base so when they don't like the health care plan that CONGRESS wrote and passed, they call it "Obamacare" and when they talk about TARP it's in the same sentence as "Barney Frank"...and when they talk about the country being lead in the wrong direction it becomes the "Fire Pelosi" campaign. Is this really even up for debate? The GOP took a nutcase like Sharron Angle and, despite the economy being everyone's main issue, painted Harry Reid as the "pro illegal immigrant coming to rob you" candidate.
If the GOP could put out an ad that said "do you not like black people, immigrants, gays and women in power - then vote for us", they would.
I agree that the simple desire to go after Pelosi as Speaker isn't proof of misogyny.
No, but we were talking about how the GOP succeeded in getting the middle class to vote against their own interests. .
On the one hand, I'm sympathetic to this perspective and I think, to a degree, this is true.
But we also need to ask (and this is seems to be at the core of a lot of political science debates) whether people actually are "voting for their interests" (or not) when it comes to who they vote for. For example, one way of reading the midterms is not that people voted for or against their own interest but rather, that likely Republican voters turned out in higher numbers than likely Democratic voters and that "the issues" were relevant only insofar as it compelled people to actually go and vote but once they did, who their vote would be for (party-wise) was going to be the same as it ever was.
Obviously, this logic doesn't apply as well to independents, some of which may have gone Dem in 08 but then switched to GOP candidates in '10, but even then, if you look at the demographics of who voted this time around, one school of analysis would claim it favored the GOP. Voter rationality is less relevant to who's actually voting, in other words.
I agree that the simple desire to go after Pelosi as Speaker isn't proof of misogyny.
No, but we were talking about how the GOP succeeded in getting the middle class to vote against their own interests. During an economic recession, middle class people need government spending and government regulation. The GOP, and especially the Tea Party, proposes the exact opposite - zero government "discretionary" spending & zero regulation. They act as if the wall street crash never happened & govt spending didn't keep millions of people from going homeless. At the exact time that the super-rich are being vilified, they succeeded in getting middle class people to vote for a party that will keep tax cuts in place for the top 2%; while arguing out of the other side of their mouths that we need to cut the deficit.
My point was just that the GOP didn't need to really swindle anyone, because once you decide that you don't like Obama, Pelosi or other vilified figures like Barney Frank, you don't need to evaluate facts. Pelosi is only polarizing to the extent that you don't like the liberal agenda. She's not a fringe political figure like O'Donnell or Palin.
The GOP understands the makeup of their base so when they don't like the health care plan that CONGRESS wrote and passed, they call it "Obamacare" and when they talk about TARP it's in the same sentence as "Barney Frank"...and when they talk about the country being lead in the wrong direction it becomes the "Fire Pelosi" campaign. Is this really even up for debate? The GOP took a nutcase like Sharron Angle and, despite the economy being everyone's main issue, painted Harry Reid as the "pro illegal immigrant coming to rob you" candidate.
If the GOP could put out an ad that said "do you not like black people, immigrants, gays and women in power - then vote for us", they would.
I agree that the simple desire to go after Pelosi as Speaker isn't proof of misogyny.
No, but we were talking about how the GOP succeeded in getting the middle class to vote against their own interests. During an economic recession, middle class people need government spending and government regulation. The GOP, and especially the Tea Party, proposes the exact opposite - zero government "discretionary" spending & zero regulation. They act as if the wall street crash never happened & govt spending didn't keep millions of people from going homeless. At the exact time that the super-rich are being vilified, they succeeded in getting middle class people to vote for a party that will keep tax cuts in place for the top 2%; while arguing out of the other side of their mouths that we need to cut the deficit.
My point was just that the GOP didn't need to really swindle anyone, because once you decide that you don't like Obama, Pelosi or other vilified figures like Barney Frank, you don't need to evaluate facts. Pelosi is only polarizing to the extent that you don't like the liberal agenda. She's not a fringe political figure like O'Donnell or Palin.
The GOP understands the makeup of their base so when they don't like the health care plan that CONGRESS wrote and passed, they call it "Obamacare" and when they talk about TARP it's in the same sentence as "Barney Frank"...and when they talk about the country being lead in the wrong direction it becomes the "Fire Pelosi" campaign. Is this really even up for debate? The GOP took a nutcase like Sharron Angle and, despite the economy being everyone's main issue, painted Harry Reid as the "pro illegal immigrant coming to rob you" candidate.
If the GOP could put out an ad that said "do you not like black people, immigrants, gays and women in power - then vote for us", they would.
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence.
Overruled, now can you go to the Xerox room and make these copies for me?
KVH's analysis is 100% correct (because it's NRR LOL)
Tea Baggers LOVE government welfare when it's directed at them. For the last decade, after the post 9/11 money spigots got turned on, they were not rallying to restore dignity. No, they were setting up private security/training/logistics companies, they were using the agricultural tax break to buy Hummers, they were buying jetskis, they were flipping properties with the help of Fannie Mae. The only thing they grumbled about was rising gas prices.
Harry Reid? Harry Reid was re-elected by the voters of Clark Country, meaning Las Vegas, because Las Vegas is FUCKED and the residents know it. They know the things could have been even worse if Reid had not secured a bailout for the City Center development (that takes up half of the strip) after Dubai World, it's principal backer, went titsup.
So the Republicans tried to tie him to the immigration boogieman, not the big govt one. The right loves free money, just not when it's perceived to be going to the wrong kinds of people.
No one is going to give a fuck about Iraq or any social issues when their two years of unemployment just ran out and they have absolutely no prospects beyond welfare.
Which makes it all the more ironic that they just voted in the party that wants to curtail unemployment insurance and welfare.
And the party that dumped us into the shitter in the first place.
Yeah bro, it's the absolute sole responsibility of the Republican party that America is in the position it is in today.
Not solely. But mostly.
Thirty years of trickle-down economics is the chief culprit. Disagree if you will.
Comments
Being a conservative means, as William F. Buckley said, "Standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop.'" Change, as we have seen, is not always for the good and there is a downside to abandoning principles that have served Western Civilization for the past three thousand years simply because one can now force down those changes from above. So I think its incorrect to equate not wanting change with "no ideas."
Fair point. But the two biggest talking points of:
--Creating jobs
--Slashing spending
Are offered without ANY specifics. Feel free to offer some. I know Boehner is eager to "roll up his sleaves" but where is he going to go into the budget and make some cuts?
all politicians are lying/corrupt
from an non-american point of view it doesnt really make a difference either way, obama just sending the troops elswehere the war never stops
No, but we were talking about how the GOP succeeded in getting the middle class to vote against their own interests. During an economic recession, middle class people need government spending and government regulation. The GOP, and especially the Tea Party, proposes the exact opposite - zero government "discretionary" spending & zero regulation. They act as if the wall street crash never happened & govt spending didn't keep millions of people from going homeless. At the exact time that the super-rich are being vilified, they succeeded in getting middle class people to vote for a party that will keep tax cuts in place for the top 2%; while arguing out of the other side of their mouths that we need to cut the deficit.
My point was just that the GOP didn't need to really swindle anyone, because once you decide that you don't like Obama, Pelosi or other vilified figures like Barney Frank, you don't need to evaluate facts. Pelosi is only polarizing to the extent that you don't like the liberal agenda. She's not a fringe political figure like O'Donnell or Palin.
The GOP understands the makeup of their base so when they don't like the health care plan that CONGRESS wrote and passed, they call it "Obamacare" and when they talk about TARP it's in the same sentence as "Barney Frank"...and when they talk about the country being lead in the wrong direction it becomes the "Fire Pelosi" campaign. Is this really even up for debate? The GOP took a nutcase like Sharron Angle and, despite the economy being everyone's main issue, painted Harry Reid as the "pro illegal immigrant coming to rob you" candidate.
If the GOP could put out an ad that said "do you not like black people, immigrants, gays and women in power - then vote for us", they would.
On the one hand, I'm sympathetic to this perspective and I think, to a degree, this is true.
But we also need to ask (and this is seems to be at the core of a lot of political science debates) whether people actually are "voting for their interests" (or not) when it comes to who they vote for. For example, one way of reading the midterms is not that people voted for or against their own interest but rather, that likely Republican voters turned out in higher numbers than likely Democratic voters and that "the issues" were relevant only insofar as it compelled people to actually go and vote but once they did, who their vote would be for (party-wise) was going to be the same as it ever was.
Obviously, this logic doesn't apply as well to independents, some of which may have gone Dem in 08 but then switched to GOP candidates in '10, but even then, if you look at the demographics of who voted this time around, one school of analysis would claim it favored the GOP. Voter rationality is less relevant to who's actually voting, in other words.
BAN!
Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence.
Yeah, Goldwater's 64 vote on Civil Rights and Nixon following Southern Strategy really cleaned house of those bigots. Do you even read? Hilarious.
Overruled, now can you go to the Xerox room and make these copies for me?
KVH's analysis is 100% correct (because it's NRR LOL)
Tea Baggers LOVE government welfare when it's directed at them. For the last decade, after the post 9/11 money spigots got turned on, they were not rallying to restore dignity. No, they were setting up private security/training/logistics companies, they were using the agricultural tax break to buy Hummers, they were buying jetskis, they were flipping properties with the help of Fannie Mae. The only thing they grumbled about was rising gas prices.
Harry Reid? Harry Reid was re-elected by the voters of Clark Country, meaning Las Vegas, because Las Vegas is FUCKED and the residents know it. They know the things could have been even worse if Reid had not secured a bailout for the City Center development (that takes up half of the strip) after Dubai World, it's principal backer, went titsup.
So the Republicans tried to tie him to the immigration boogieman, not the big govt one. The right loves free money, just not when it's perceived to be going to the wrong kinds of people.
Also, I am out of paperclips.
Not solely. But mostly.
Thirty years of trickle-down economics is the chief culprit. Disagree if you will.