Paul Krugman:
[...]
How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally laid out at the Heritage Foundation!
My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.
Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.
The point is that today’s dismal G.O.P. field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic conservatives played a cynical game, and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” conservatism in the worst way. And the malady may take many years to cure.
I used to read Krugman religiously. Then he started drinking the Koolaid and lost a lot of his credibility. But he has a valid point here.
I remember when Ronnie Raygun ran in 1980. He promised he could cut taxes and increase government revenue. My math skills are such that I need to unzip my pants to count to eleven and that still didn’t make any sense to me. But I was young and dumb and full of shit so I voted for him anyway.
Raygun promised to cut taxes and slash government spending. One of the first things he did after taking office was push through a tax cut. But he never delivered on the spending cuts, he ran up deficits instead.
For over three decades virtually every Republican candidate in the country has campaigned on promises to cut taxes, reduce the size of government, eliminate regulations and strengthen the military. They also support “fixing” or privatizing Social Security, outlawing abortion, protecting us from Teh Gay, throwing more people in prison for longer periods of time and improving our economy by shipping jobs overseas. They hate welfare and illegal immigration too.
It hasn’t just been the Republican candidates. There is a whole swamp full of bloviating gasbags and print pundits piling it higher and deeper. They even have think-tanks where they sit around trying to spin shit into shinola.
Krugman is right about all that.
But where the fuck have the Democrats been all this time? What have the lefty advocacy groups been doing?
With rare exceptions they’ve been entrenching their own positions while doing doodly-squat for us. Now we have a Democratic president who has been pushing a Republican agenda.
I am a liberal pessimist. I believe that things are going to have to get worse before they get better. But the sooner they get worse the sooner things will get better. The best way to do that is let the Republicans win.
Let them try to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Dare them to overturn Roe v. Wade. Let them do whatever they want for a few years. The Democrats should go limp. Basically a repeat of what happened in 2004-2006.
The Republican way won’t work. Some of that shit the conservatives talk about is stuff they don’t really want to do anyway. If the Democrats don’t stop them they’ll either have to pass their agenda and face the consequences or admit they were lying in the first place.
If the Republicans get their way one of two things will happen. Either they will be proven right in which case we’ll all be better off. Or their way will fail miserably and they will be permanently discredited.
Filed under: Uncategorized
how I wish the Conservative movement had a clue.
They are too extreme as is Saint Torem. I am a gay male adult who follows politics a bit and I would vote for the fuck but i guarantee my straight parents. brothers, sister and countless relatives and friends will never vote for him because of his stance on homosexuality.
I thought Republicans were already permanently discredited by the W years? What happened … of yeah, Obama came along.
I wonder if, Obama loses – will the left finally come up with a Tea Party equivalent (not the OWS)?
please…can I steal that? That is the perfect retort to all the lame a$$ O excuse makers…
Heck that’s what my Thanksgiving table looks like.
They all voted for the Transformational one…and still haven’t owned up to their naivete. Never will.
I can hardly copyright the simple truth – steal away.
My thoughts exactly.
Not political:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2012/02/13/99-confront-the-1-at-conservative-conference/
“For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions…”
I used to believe this when I was a Dem. I don’t buy it anymore. That is a narrative created by the opposition to win votes. In reality, most people from both parties want what they think is best for the people of this country, they just have different ideas about how to fix things. Trust me, the GOP is no more racist and socially divisive then the Dems.
I didn’t vote for Reagan, but even going back to the theme of “welfare queens”, the GOP was painted with a PR campaign about what haters they were for even saying it. A few years later one of our best Dem Presidents ever came along and reformed welfare. But he didn’t just do that, he got together with a Republican congress and create child support enforcement, daycare grants, and a whole system of welfare reform that lifted “welfare queens” out of poverty and graced the whole country with peace and prosperity.
I disagree for a few reasons, not the least of which was this was my attitude after the Florida stuff in the 2000 election and the Supreme Court’s extraordinary intervention. Fine. Let ‘em have it, I said. They’ll screw it up so bad we’ll have a Democratic ascendency for the next 20 years.
But that was the short view.
Turns out that the real risk of going limp and letting Bush have his way was that Obama was the natural progression. I started to clue in to this reality during the 2006 midterms. If you let one side get away with violating the spirit and the letter of our constitutional intentions, the other side will build upon it, not dismantle it. What we really need is a new constitutional convention.
As far as I can tell, Republican’s are either batshit crazy or severely cynical, or maybe both. And Democrats are either hateful bigots or severely cynical, or maybe both. And as far as I can tell neither party gives a rats ass about any of us and they’re both severely hypocritical.
When did this all happen? Or was it always this way and we just noticed?
I’ll avoid a rant here to simply say this. Republicans were fiscal hawks at one time. They wanted to raise taxes to pay for spending, but cut it at the same time. But you can’t ever cut spending, because a “cut” is throwing grandma in the street, feeding her cat food or dropping her off a cliff.
As far as Romneycare, what Mitt did and the Heritage Foundation endorsed is not Obamacare. Obamacare has a poison pill that will put insurance companies out of business by 2020 in favor of corrupt state-run exchanges. Krugman was probably promoting Hillary Clinton’s plan in 1993 and not the alternative proposed by conservatives, so he needs to shut the hell up.
Private insurers (who’ve just been bailed out by taxpayers) go out of business by 2020? Sounds good to me. They’re essentially no different from the corporate insurance hustlers on Wall Street. We’re the only country on earth where the bulk of our healthcare system is a profit making enterprise. Embarrassing if not immoral.
Good point. There’s nothing less sinister than being tricked into Universal Health Care.
Not a Hillary fan are you..
Honestly, I don’t know what her plan was.
2000 gave us an inkling that maybe our votes did not count.
2008 showed us openly that our votes did not count.
One thing that 2008 did was wake a lot of people up about both political parties. That is a good thing.
The American people are fed up with both parties and are watching more closely then they have in years to see what promises are kept and which are broken.
There is a sea change and it will make a difference
As you mentioned above this quote, the Dems installed someone who is following a Republican agenda. So what if all the things quoted here happen, but under Obama? Then what?
Given that possibility, I think that’s an even bigger incentive to elect a Republican. Stop the Democrats from shooting themselves before it’s too late. Now is that sad as fuck or what?
Well, if Republicans do “IT” there is always a backlash. Antiwar demonstrators in the streets, the ACLU filing briefs, people being investigated. IMO, Obama is the worst possible scenario, because nobody will ever hold him accountable. Suddenly the war is okay, Guantanamo is okay, unemployment is okay….and on and on it goes.
I really do believe it would better to have a Republican in charge. What we have now is Obama promoting many aspects of a Republican agenda with carte blanche and no backlash.
Yep. Which just show how pathetic the Dem party is and too large a percentage of Dem members and supposedly liberal organizations. WTF?
I guess it all depends on whether or not things can slide so far that the downturn is irreversible. How many years of crappy policy can the country take? Are you willing to risk having the entire country look like Detroit? The sheer resilience of the Republic astounds me, but there has to be a limit.
I’m just asking because I really don’t know what to do this time around.
Oh, and nobody’s *ever* permanently discredited in American politics. Just look at Nixon and Gingrich. Give John Edwards 8 years or so, and he’ll be back (as pundit if not politician).
Looks like a must see:
It’s bound to be better than this:
OT, but fun:
Naga Chili Vodka:
Sign me up.
you can not make this up
http://biggovernment.com/bshapiro/2012/02/13/obama-requests-1-billion-to-get-right-names-on-social-security-checks/
Here we go again:
For all their yapping, think there’s very little difference between the Obamacrats and establishment GOP on the economy. Most of the big decisions on taxes and spending cuts will be made during the lame luck period after the election. In the meantime, the Fed is essentially running the economy. On foreign policy, all GOP Potus candidates except Paul will be somewhat more hawkish than Obama. On social issues, I tend to think Scotus will have more play than Potus, but nominations for new Justices will make a difference of course.
If Obama wins re-election as the establishment supporting Republican puppet that he is, there’s a good chance a pure Republican will then take over in 2016 for two terms. That would essentially mean a 24 year long Republican dynasty in the White House. This is probably what most Boomers want and probably what they will get. What’s interesting is that Obot millenials will help them get it too.
This is probably what most Boomers want and probably what they will get
Wait, does that mean I win?
Here’s what I’ve learned about political activists (at least the ones online) since I’ve never been one myself: most are better at alienating than attracting…with the exception of pretty much everyone here.
One of the things that always strikes me as so absurd is that most political zealots I know have an intellectual understanding of useful, practical compromise, and the existence of people who think very differently from them. I know this because when you talk to them about diplomacy and foreign policy, they fully understand that you have to hammer out compromises, and meet halfway, and have some basic respect for the groups who are negotiating, and accept the fact that what THEY want and what YOU want are not the same, but the whole point is to find common ground. They understand that you get some-but-not-all of what you want, as does the other party. That the other side has genuine interests, and those concerns and interests have to be addressed.
And if you talk with them, they very much understand that this is the way it has to be on an international scale, because the alternative is enmity and escalation and eventual instability and chaos.
It completely and utterly blows my mind that the same people who would be HORRIFIED if our international relations were conducted by means of lies, and demonization, and hard-lining, and sneering, and accusations of implacable evil intent, seem to have zero problem with conducting our internal politics along those lines.
The same people who can readily recognize the insanity of, say, sending ambassadors to other countries to tell them all “You suck and are backward and stupid and evil, so shut up and do as we say”, have a curious tendency to think doing that with political opponents in their own country is somehow going to result in progress and effective governance.
I have watched, over my lifetime, the political animals and professionals in this country polarize, and agitate, and stoke the anger of, the public in a very cynical way, revving them up and setting them on “the enemy” just to win elections. And now they are all worried because the nastiness that THEY fostered and nourished all these years is looking to boil over and bite them in the ass, because the mobs (on BOTH sides) that they have made an art of whipping into a frenzy start eying the whole shebang as a target, not just who they are told to attack.
I don’t know if there is any way to reverse it now. It’s going to devolve further, IMO. I honestly don’t plan on staying in this country for that many more years. I think it’s toast. Not because I’m pissed off because ZOMG!! the Liberals/Democrats/Conservatives/Republicans are in power, so we are DOOOMED!!!! But because ALL of them have forgotten what a fucking Constitutional Republic is, and are only concerned about the next win for their team, not the future of the country.
Damn well said. {{standing and applauding}}
It’s getting like one of those countries where there will be no peace until half the country is dead.
Yup. I often wonder how extremists on either side plan to realistically deal with the FACT that a big chunk of their countrymen disagree with them. When you decide that the proper function of govt is to enforce your worldview to the nth degree (whether that be left or right), how do you avoid tyranny? I don’t think you can.
thank you for saying this. It needed to be said
“I believe that things are going to have to get worse before they get better. But the sooner they get worse the sooner things will get better. The best way to do that is let the Republicans win.”
Yes (honk). Santorium: not just an amalgam of body fluids: it’s our hope for America.