Thursday, September 27, 2012

Inherent Limitations

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If only white people had some power in this country!
Conventional wisdom is rapidly coalescing around the premise that Mitt Romney is in over his head, a 'B Team' political player in the most major of political leagues.  And that may very well be quite true.  But there are larger issues that call that assumption into question, or at least may render the entire construct meaningless.

It's interesting that the entire Republican field seemed to be nothing more than an undisciplined rabble, a group of cranks and nincompoops unprepared for the challenge of a national election, so deeply enclosed in their own ideological bubble that they were utterly unaware that their 'ideas' had little in the way of popular traction.  And, of course, the explanation for this is that the Republican party has been completely pervaded by the most extreme tribal, sectarian and bigoted portion of the right wing.  And while that is undeniably true, it is not, in and of itself, an explanation for the relentless failure and accumulated hopelessness of the Romney campaign.

This wholesale movement to the extreme right has resulted in an uncompromising, stringently enforced set of policy plans that the party, and all of its candidates, must enforce in lockstep.  These policies are not only unpopular, but are tailor made to eliminate support from vast swaths of the electorate.  The black vote - gone due to blatant bigotry.  The Latino vote - ditto.  Gays - forget it.  Women - well, let's just say the Republicans haven't made them feel completely welcome, as equal partners in the movement.  Unions - well, no, and there goes the police and firefighters that have traditionally been strong Republican constituency.  The elderly - another part of the traditional Republican base feeling deep concerns about how a Romney presidency might affect their lives.

This is important for three reasons.  First, in the past the party's presidential nominee has taken on the role of de facto party leader, defining the policy agenda for his presidency in broad strokes, including plans for specific legislation alongside larger, more conceptual issues in areas such as social concerns, civil liberties and foreign policy.  But the Romney campaign, indeed, the entire Republican presidential nomination process, has turned that history on its head.  The party defined its specific ideological agenda and demanded the candidates adhere to it in perfect lockstep.  The process reversal means that we can predict, with greater accuracy than has been possible before, what the actual policy goals of a Romney administration would look like.

Second, it completely undercuts the advantage the Republicans should have as a result of the Citizens United verdict.  Being the party of rich white men, they have an outsized share of the large political contributions, and can expect to deliver more of everything, from lawn signs to television advertising.  But when your message is not just unpopular, but downright toxic to vast swaths of voters, the ability to convey that message in a relentless stream can actually become counterproductive.  Is simply provides the Obama campaign with an opportunity to offer real, compassionate and inclusive policy choices to an electorate coming to largely fear and dislike the apparently bigoted and authoritarian Republicans.

And third, it leaves the Republicans as a national party in a trap.  With an ideological agenda provided in a bottom-up fashion by the base, any attempt by the national party leadership to change those policies in order to make them friendlier to some of these growing American constituencies will result in a firestorm, complete with threats of primary challenges and re-direction of contributions.  When a national party allows its most extreme wing to define its mainstream message, it becomes a de facto hostage to that wing, leaving it with no flexibility to attempt to increase its voter population.  It is a party, that is, that has been forced to value ideological purity over electoral success.  And that simply does not make for a viable political organization.

2012 might be the last real opportunity for the Republican party to grasp the levers of power and undertake fundamental change to the American system - rolling back the New Deal, sharply reducing the role of government in American life and fundamentally remaking the social compact.  Demographics suggest that an over-reliance on the votes of white males has seriously diminishing returns, and in four years success under that strategy may have become impossible.  So if they fail and the hated enemy Barack Obama is re-elected, there will be many on the Right who blame Mitt Romney, the candidate and the campaign.  And they will have plenty of examples of his incompetence and egregious errors.  But perhaps they should look the other direction, at the bigots and christian fundamentalists, the war mongers and the vast insular communities full of anger and resentment.  Perhaps they should embrace the future, and the real American population in all it's diversity, and finally leave behind the fantasy of an America that can never again exist.
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11 comments:

  1. They've gotta learn that there's some pandering to be done.

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  2. Key phrase: "the real American population." They only see one kind of American as "real" Americans. They may not even see others as real, American or not.

    They won't wise up unless they lose in 2016 as well. And by then they may not be able to find any candidates that could possibly win anyway.

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  3. 2012 might be the last real opportunity for the Republican party to grasp the levers of power and undertake fundamental change to the American system...

    That's what I thought after the successive wave elections of 2006 and 2008.
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  4. That's what I thought after the successive wave elections of 2006 and 2008.
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    It's not as if there were any number of other factors that can change the outcome of elections, obscuring the overall demographic trends mikey is talking about.

    It's happening, thunder. It's taking longer than we might wish, but the Republicans are unable to compensate for it, due to the rabid insane shit-flingers they have been inviting into their bed for forty years.

    If I had money to bet, I would go toward the Republicans splintering into a corporatist faction and a Talibangelical/ Tea Party lunatic faction. Which would be electoral near-suicide, of course, but how else do they effect an necessary demographic changes? Waiting until the nutters die out isn't a strategy, because there is one perennial bumper crop in America, and that is raving bigoted moron nutbags.

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  5. That is the point. They've driven their stake into the ground. Now, if they lose the White House to the Muslim Socialist, they'll have to either sheepishly pull that stake back up or set up camp out there as a permanent poo-flinging minority.

    If they want to win national elections, they're going to have to let somebody who isn't an old white dood into the tent. And that would mean effectively turning their backs on the christianist bigots. Can they do that without splitting the party? It almost doesn't matter. They will always, from now til forever, own the House of Representatives. Having a bicameral legislature is a recipe for disaster, everyone knows this. But as a national party, whether, they split or maintain ideological purity, they're doomed.

    Unfortunately, I think that has unanticipated consequences of its own, and will not lead us to a promised land of liberal democracy, single payer health care and peace in our time.

    We're still going to have to take our country back by force, and we're still going to have to fundamentally change our system of governance. And we're still a long way from having the courage or the resolve to do so...

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  6. Unfortunately, I think that has unanticipated consequences of its own, and will not lead us to a promised land of liberal democracy, single payer health care and peace in our time.

    well, of course not. Failboating on the part of the right does not mean automatic wins on the part of the left. Forfeiture on the opponent's part does not equal victory (unless we have replacement refs, in which case Anything Can Happen!)

    Because, and some of you may have noticed this, part of the right's mission over the last forty years has been to demonize liberals and liberal goals, although liberal policies remain pretty popular. The result is nowadays, much of america likes progressive policies, they just hate the liberals associated with them. Electoral successes of full-throated liberals are scarce on the ground.

    So again, it gets back to boots-on-the-ground hard work and organizing. Get a few lefties elected to school boards or dogcatchers or whatever. Volunteer for the political parties. Get the lefty voices heard, get some good results, move up the ladder, help someone else move up.

    Unless, of course, America really IS a center-right nation, as the even-theliberal David Brooks has always told us, and there actually is antipathy towards progressivism. In which case even Jill Stein is pissing in the wind.

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  7. I don't think the US is a "center-right" nation, or that the national population, as a whole can be linked to a particular sort of ideology. But the outcome can be similar - in this case, Americans are SO tribal and suspicious of 'the other' that they like government programs that benefit their tribe but see it as a zero sum game where programs that benefit someone else will necessarily cost them things they value. And just as religious leaders have done for millennia, political leaders exploit that ethnic, sectarian and tribal distrust to gain power and wealth. And with the unprecedented communications available to the demagogues today, they have created a sharply ideologically divided population that is good for them and very, very bad for the nation...

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  8. Americans are SO tribal and suspicious

    Yeah. I hate those fuckers.

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  9. It's not as if there were any number of other factors that can change the outcome of elections, obscuring the overall demographic trends mikey is talking about.


    Yes, there is the corrupt Democratic party, which is controlled by people competing for the same favors from the same plutocrats as the GOP.

    Please, never tell me again that I don't understand the legislative process. I grew up in D.C., because my dad was a reporter. I was a frickin' intern on the House Agriculture Committee when I was 18 years old.

    P.S. I've posted this link before, but I'll do it again. May, 2008, people!

    The Wall Street plan for the Obama-bubble presidency is that of the cleanup crew for the housing bubble: sweep all the corruption and losses, would-be indictments, perp walks and prosecutions under the rug and get on with an unprecedented taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. (The corporate law firms have piled on to funding the plan because most were up to their eyeballs in writing prospectuses or providing legal opinions for what has turned out to be bogus AAA securities. Lawsuits naming the Wall Street firms will, no doubt, shortly begin adding the law firms that rendered the legal guidance to issue the securities.) Who better to sell this agenda to the millions of duped mortgage holders and foreclosed homeowners in minority communities across America than our first, beloved, black president of hope and change?

    That's exactly what happened.
    ~

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    1. There's certainly nothing in there I disagree with. The thing that continues to befuddle me is that you and I, Thunder, agree on just about everything. The wealthy and the corporations have co-opted an obsolete and vulnerable system of political governance and now that they are its owners it exists primarily to serve them. There is simply no possibility under the current system that any of the financial criminals would EVER be held to account.

      About they only place we part ways is that I see a Republican administration, the way the party is currently constituted, as certain to implement ALL the policies you are concerned about and a whole bunch more. So your blithe willingness to demand change through the system (protest voting) in a way that could enable a Republican administration is, frankly, like the Republicans screaming about the deficit while refusing to consider revenue increases. No matter your actual intent, it calls into question your actual motivation, because you don't seem to be concerned about creating the precise conditions that you seem to most abhor.

      THAT is the disconnect I struggle with...

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  10. Yes, there is the corrupt Democratic party, which is controlled by people competing for the same favors from the same plutocrats as the GOP.



    That's as may be, but I was under the impression that mikey's post was about the demographic changes that are challenging the Republican Party, which is what I was talking about.

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