And the determination of the movement to hold on to power at any cost has poisoned our political culture. Just think about the campaign that just ended, with its coded racism, deceptive robo-calls, personal smears, homeless men bused in to hand out deceptive fliers, and more. Not to mention the constant implication that anyone who questions the Bush administration or its policies is very nearly a traitor.
When movement conservatism took it over, the Republican Party ceased to be the party of Dwight Eisenhower and became the party of Karl Rove. The good news is that Karl Rove and the political tendency he represents may both have just self-destructed.
* juancole:
"The fourth popular revolution of the twenty-first century (after the Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan) swept America on Tuesday, as voters engaged in the moral equivalent of storming the Bastille. The United States of America has roundly repudiated the Bush Administration and Republican Party dominance of all three branches of the Federal government and its dominance of many state offices, as well. Corruption and war drove this slap in the face to the Old Regime crafted by Newt Gingrich and Traitor Rove.* juancole:
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In my view the real significance of the Democratic victory is four-fold.
First, it demonstrates once again that the American public simply will not put up with a return to the age of colonialism and does not want to occupy Asian countries militarily....
Second, Bush is not going to be able to put any more Scalia types on the Federal benches or the Supreme Court.
Third, a Bush administration war on Iran now seems highly unlikely. A major initiative of that sort would need funding, and I don't think Congress will grant it...
Fourth, there will now finally be accountability. It is obvious to me that the Bush administration has been engaged in large-scale crimes and corruption, and has gotten away with it because the Republican heads of the relevant committees have refused to investigate these crimes....
"Note to John Dingell: Weldon's nexus of the Niger forgeries, Italian military intelligence, a sweet contract for the Italian military-industrial complex, and sinister contacts with shadowy figures from the Iran-contra scandal with a view toward getting up a war on Iran-- this deserves investigation as much as anything Bush and his cabinet have done."wow - he's going out on quite a limb there.
4 comments:
I am interested in this line,
"The United States of America has roundly repudiated the Bush Administration and Republican Party dominance of all three branches of the Federal government and its dominance of many state offices, as well..."
I don't believe the Bush administration policies could be repudiated at the local level. It's hard to tell that national or international issues played a role in ellecting state legislators, mayors, etc. I thought the local officials are evaluated on their stand on local issues.
I am not sure that we had a real chance to vote on the president's agenda. Yes you could vote against a republican because he or she associated with the President's party. But, I'm told many of the Dems are more conservative than the republicans they replaced.
I remember Rep. Rangel spoke about our needing a draft. Sen. Clinton talks about various needs tin the middle east, and then I think the Dems could easily push for the same kind of nonsense, only more reasonably.
There never was an effort to debate the war, and so, there is no body of elected people who are committed to it.
I'm pessimistic.
i'm pessimistic too - but let me quibble with a few points at the margin. Rangel's 'call' for a draft wasn't because he wanted to further the war machine - but rather that he believed that such a call would slow the war machine (AFAIK).
But, I'm told many of the Dems are more conservative than the republicans they replaced.
2 things: a) this is a spin that the 'conservatives' have been touting all week - becuase they dont want the election to be seen as a repudiation of conservatism - tune in to Fox and you'll see this talking point spin 5 times an hour. b) i'd be happy to trade 'conservative dems' for 'corrupt republicans' all day long - so at least we made ground there.
we certainly havent witnessed a progressive revolution - but we stopped the corrupt, republican machine - and for that i'm grateful (and surprised)
(and yes - the AIPAC dems are still a real concern - up to and including feingold)
Steve: "I don't believe the Bush administration policies could be repudiated at the local level. It's hard to tell that national or international issues played a role in ellecting state legislators, mayors, etc. I thought the local officials are evaluated on their stand on local issues."
I wouldn't have made the connection between local level politics and bu$h policies except for being led to it by a comment I heard on the TeeVee during the election analysis about the implications of 9 states going Dem-controlled legislatures and also picking up 6 governor's 'mansions' - how those changes bode well for 2008 and the presidential election. When I turned that thought over in my over-taxed brain (and remembered the mess of Ohio under Gov. Taft and SoS Blackwell) the light went on . . . State governments controlled by Dems means better support for the national ticket. Duh!
And that is true WITHOUT emulating that gawdawful abomination and all-purpose election rigger, Ken Blackwell.
The discussion also went on to point out how these local elections also pointed to much deeper shifts from previously red states to deeper purple or even bright blue. I think the point was this was a more lasting change than just flash-in-the-pan rage at the current crop of corrupt D.C. thugs. I can live with that!
Thank you for these replies. I wanted to say, about this,
"...I think the point was this was a more lasting change than just flash-in-the-pan rage at the current crop of corrupt D.C. thugs."
...that I am not sure what to think about changes at the local level that are supposedly reflected by such results. I thought the reasons there were red states and blue states had more to do with the entrenchment of party organizations and the commitment by people to wildly different ideologies. I thought this, and then thought that if their opponents made any headway, it was because the otherwise powerful party machines sat on their hands.
I thought Republicans were losing support, not because people didn't believe in their nostrums anymore, but because they were momentarily discouraged, or feeling tired, or had some momentary doubt that their position was God's gift.
I say this, because I do not have the sense that there was any real debate about whether invading other countries to promote democracy is an insane idea or not. For example.
I am pessimistic that a change of elected leadership at the local level, and at the national level, means any real difference in our commitments.
It seems, for example, that we could be lead to invade or attack or steal from a different list of countries now that the dems are in charge. I hear we will now be putting more efforts into wrecking latin america, all because they are "leftists" and trying to help their own people instead of the companies that fund the dems.
sigh...
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