The Left Coaster: Comment on Don't Assume We're Dancing On Their Graves

Comments: Don't Assume We're Dancing On Their Graves

When they ARE in their graves will you organize a TLC communal golden shower field trip?

Posted by TIKI AL at May 8, 2009 10:25 AM

Absolutely right, Turkana - in fact, they're trying to win the black vote with overtures like this one.

Republicans do not know how to approach you. Democrats and the Democrat-dominated press have misled you and stoked up your wrath to the point that you will not listen to us.
So I propose this: how about listening? How about listening to what Republicans have to say, instead of what the Democrats say we say? How about listening to what we have to say before booing us out of the building?

Maybe if they'd stop telling blacks to stfu and listen and stop approaching them with ropes, the GOP'd have better luck, eh?

Posted by Twinky P* at May 8, 2009 10:26 AM

When they ARE in their graves will you organize a TLC communal golden shower field trip?

I'm in, TIKI!

Posted by Twinky P* at May 8, 2009 10:30 AM

Funny critters those republiKKKans...they just don't understand why they scare black folks off while they're wearing those funny, long white "prayer robes" and carrying nooses...

Another thing about those republiKKKans; they never give up holding on to those 13th century Spanish Inquistion values...

They love them some torture and genocide of them inferior little brown wogs..you know the "Others"...

As our crack TLC troll patrol ably and willingly demonstrates republiKKKans will never change...

Tiki, Twinky; are you sure they wouldn't enjoy a golden shower party?

Posted by headxray at May 8, 2009 11:21 AM

Unfortunately, the destruction of a major party in the US seems to require that a new party have already "emerged" before the old, dead one implodes. That will be the thing to look to. Despite their historic defeat, Repubs think there's no room for reform, and no call for reform is coalescing, far from it.

The crucial component propping up the Repubs now is the corporate media, and the capitalist-extremist financed Conservative Noise Machine. Without Fox Nation and Rushbo coast-to-coast radio, the Repubs would likely have been torn limb from limb in 2008. Instead, their media and Noise Machine saved them from being utterly and completely a southern white party.

They likely know that, that's why Fox has gone off the deep end, totally off the tracks to rank propaganda.

Since Repubs are the only alternative major party, of course they can "come back"---in fact they WILL come back in the face of policy failure. That's why their exclusive focus is on opposing every Obama policy and doing everything possible to have the country fail economically and diplomatically.

Without that failure, Repubs are a minority party for quite some time, until they purge their failed "leaders" (Rushbo, Rove, Gingrich, Cheney, Kyl) and somehow generate new ones that don't have the BushCheney stink.

Ideas are a real problem, as they are against the theory of elective government as a force for progress. This isn't the brightest group of white guys in the room, ever. Plus they are mostly motivated by hate, wealth and exercise of power---that's it.

Certainly not intellect, reason or a vision of the country that is (at all) reality based. To hate social security, the federal gub'mint, the environment and ALL taxes is not exactly fertile ground for reality based policy prescriptions.

So, not too much to work with. My guess is that they work tirelessly for economic failure, a dysfunctional Congress, preach daily hatred of Obama and his "socialism", magnify the danger of the "other" (muslims, terrorists, illegals, intellectuals, atheists, and crazed lib'ruls), deify the "defense" budget and study the Nazi movement of the 20s within the Weimar Republic.

That plays to their strengths and the prejudices of their irredeemable "base" of racists, cretins and know-nothings, while they receive crony capitalist financing and softball stories from the corporate press team and wait for the feckless "independents" to return to hating as a political policy.

Then they'll be right back in the Rove pigsty!

Posted by euzoius at May 8, 2009 11:36 AM

Whoa! For a moment there I thought you were going to say now that the Democrats have captured the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate it was time for the us, we of the Democratic rank and file, to clamor for good government and more better policies while spending less time chanting Republicans teh suck.

I guess I needn't have worried. Go Geithner!

Posted by CMike at May 8, 2009 12:08 PM

The message the last two election cycles was "change". Or "hope" and Change" if you want. Well, as CMike says you've got complete control. You're the status quo now. Deliver, and it's a problem for us Republicans. Don't deliver and we get to push the "change" slogan next time. Your time is short as are memories of Americans as y'all note. You've got to "hope" that this guy can deliver and your party gets the credit.

It's very telling that Turkana calls it the Reagan/Bush economy. Not the Reagan/Clinton/Bush economy, everyone relishes the 22 million jobs created in the 90's. To a lessor extent, the millions of jobs created in the last eight years. With our current president, we've now lost 2 million, so far. Today, we received notice that unemployment numbers were less than the last two months at 539K. The market saw this as positive news. Is it?

We, Americans, need our economy to rebound. We've got to "hope" something makes things better. I'm rooting for better. That said, we far from better now.

Posted by peter at May 8, 2009 01:54 PM

I, too, am elated at the apparent success of the Democrats in recent years. I, too, despise what the Republicans had become. Then there is two concerns, though, which I have.

First, the public is volatile and fickle. I do not believe that the Obama victory was a victory of liberal philosophy so much as a victory of personal charisma. When (if) the thugs are able to put forward a candidate for high office with an amiable personality and good TV appearance, that candidate has a very good chance of winning elections and carrying lots of others on his coattails. Part of the problem is that Americans vote "for the man," and part of the problem is that people are habituated to voting patterns by the voting traditions of their families. They may be so turned off by a candidate that they will vote against the party Grandpa always voted for, but they will like return to the fold at another election. I think the obit for the Republican party is a bit premature.

The second concern I have is, are we ready for a one-party government? I would love to see the choices of the voters come down to the Progressives v. the Blue Dogs, but that seems unlikely. We need a second party to challenge the overweaning power of any dominant party. I wish that today we weren't confronted with a party whose principal visage is a fat, drug addled radio demagogue, but it seems it is. Are you not also concerned with the failure of the two party system? Do you foresee an alternative to the current dichotomy?

Posted by candideinnc at May 8, 2009 03:41 PM

"I won't be happy until I'm considered a centrist."

Hey, be happy! In North Korea you would be considered a centrist. I understand that the cost of re-location is not very much.

"Let them split into two deeply unpopular rump parties."

Blue Dogs?

"...they had to steal the 2000 election."

Get over it. The election was not stolen (even though ALGore tried).

"And anyone with any knowledge of history knows that the seemingly impossible surprisingly often comes to pass."

True: a "community organizer" has become POTUS (...for a single term).

"We can enjoy this moment but we cannot celebrate until the Republicans truly have gone the Way of the Whigs."

Doubtful.

"Kleptocrats also never give up."

Witness The Obama Administration (Chrysler, GM, BofA, etc...etc...etc).

"dishonest and cynical and cruel. "

Pelosi, Reid, Rangel, Geitner, Dodd....and the list goes on and on and on.

Regards,

Bagley

Posted by Phoenix Rising at May 8, 2009 04:21 PM

Tiki, Twinky; are you sure they wouldn't enjoy a golden shower party?

You have a point there...

Posted by Twinky P* at May 8, 2009 04:34 PM

I forgot bagle boy was around, I'm certain he would be 1st in line for a golden shower..

Posted by headxray at May 8, 2009 06:00 PM

I'm looking and I'm looking. We are all very eager to talk about all the crap that Bush did - fine and dandy, rake 'em over the coals I say. BUT: I can't find one liberal or left wing blog upset about, or even willing to mention the killing of civilians in Afghanistan this week via aerial bombardment. So, when Obama's army does it . . . well .. . we'll just pretend it didn't happen. What a sorry lot. Does anybody believe in anything?

Posted by emjoe at May 8, 2009 08:22 PM

The country already was dramatically turning against the Republicans by 1992.

Not at all clear. There was a general sense of lingering frustration, yes. But at that time the Republicans had had the presidency for 12 years but the Democrats had had the House for almost 40 years, and 58 of the previous 60. The D's had also had the Senate for 52 of the previous 60, including the previous 6.

So, it's not surprising that in typical American fashion the voters first turned out the sitting President (with a lot of help from a popular 3rd party candidate) then 2 years later gave the Republicans their first majority in the House in 2 generations. For some reason Americans seem to feel comfortable with divided government.

It's worth noting that the Republicans held on to Congress for 12 years, with the brief Senate exception in 01-02. Yes, all their majorities were tiny, and yes they clung to their leads by taking full advantage of every electoral trick in the book. But the mere fact that the Republicans even kept close for that long should tell you something.

Simply this: a sufficient chunk of the moderate electorate was tired of Democrats in the early 1990s and ready to give another party a try. And once the Republicans got that chance, that same portion fo the electorate was happy to keep voting for the Republicans even though they we're doing particular well.

A similar thing has happened now, but in reverse. A significant chunk of the moderate electorate is tired of Republican rule -- in fact a much larger chunk than was tired of Democrats in the early 1990s. Furthermore, those 12 years of being out of power allowed the Democrats to rinse their image of all the negative stuff that the party carried around in 1994.

The moderates are now happy to vote Democrat, even if the Democrats don't do particularly well, because that's the current order of things. It's going to take a long time for the Republican party to rinse itself of the stain of the past 8 years -- probably longer than it took for the Democrats.

Posted by Anonny at May 8, 2009 09:22 PM

These words were much needed this morning. I have described myself as so far left I circle around right, again. Sometimes I get paranoid they are just letting Obama and the Democrats fill the trough again and in 2016 are going to swoop in and take it all away from us again.

Posted by Jim DeRosa at May 9, 2009 08:35 AM