Reading Ed Kilgore’s offerings this morning is really depressing. The Republicans are working on a toxic trifecta of opposing the Voting Rights Act in Alabama, complaining about blacks voting in elections in Mississippi, and adopting Mitt Romney’s self-deportation immigration policy in DC. This is not good.
This party has become unmoored. I’m not old enough to find this party as recognizably American. This is a Jim Crow party now. That’s where it is being led, even though I don’t believe it’s where the leadership wants to go. But, Eric Cantor just got guillotined, so what leadership thinks doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
I have a hard time believing that the Republicans are going to have the good election night in November that everyone seems to think they will have. Things are too out of joint. The party is at war with itself.
I’m all for the GOP self-deporting….
Eventually we really will meet the conservative movement’s event horizon. Maybe sooner than we think.
They won’t reach it until 2020, if even then.
There is no event horizon.
Until the fundamental depravity of mankind is somehow repealed, there’ll always be room in the world for a party founded on appeals to the worst in people, and there’ll always be enough people upon those appeals work to grab the occasional election.
Throw in the unrepresentative nature of the Senate, and a self-selecting electorate, ‘occasional’ may be optimistic.
But a party that cared about equality, or at least not so much inequality, public education and a number of other issues could make hay against a party like the current GOP. The fact that we have people in the party like Robert Gibbs. Ben LaBolt, Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emanuel and Pat Quinn mean we’ll never take advantage of the GOP’s current position.
The Democratic party is a coalition.
In Europe, you fight the election, form the coalition, then govern.
Here you form the coalition, fight the election, then govern.
Nobody likes coalition government. And it can get ugly. Theodore Bilbo was, inter alia, a big supporter of Social Security.
Lots of optimism in this thread I see. As usual. Because cynicism about everything is a great attitude for getting things done. Lincoln, FDR and Eleanor, Gandhi, MLK, Mandela – all the great figures of history were just a really cynical bunch of folks, weren’t they?
That’s what I always say. When the going gets tough, give up!
Um, I’m not sure your examples optimistically waited for the opposition to ‘come apart.’ Pretty sure they were fairly ‘cynical’ about winning the day by acclimation. Granted, my understanding of history is spotty, but I believe Mandela took up arms, MLK and Gandhi engaged in widespread and utterly hardassed civil disobedience, and Lincoln, you know, presided over that kerfuffle.
I’m talking about their vision and attitude towards change. They were practical in the short term, almost certifiably optimistic in the long term. “Better angels of our nature” ring any bells? Satyagraha? “Freedom from fear?” “I have a dream?” All that stuff.
Wasnt Lincoln considered to be depressed? Also blind optimism ‘ futures gonna be fine ‘ is part of what is destroying us on climate change.
Where’s this blind optimism you’re talking about? This isn’t “La la, everything will be fine,” it’s “I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.” I mean, yes, Lincoln was depressed, but he never said, “Gee, these people really seem determined to secede. I guess there’s nothing we can do. The slave owners are just too powerful.”
Indeed. What’s happening in Mississippi is very interesting.
Mayor Flaggs of Vicksburg was very interesting
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/21/us/politics/cochran-asking-blacks-to-rescue-him-in-republican-prim
ary.html?_r=0
[note: some ppl can’t afford to sit around, spout cynicisms about human nature and give up]
Oscar Romero, now there’s someone who let the human obstacles get in the way of his doing anything. and how about Cesar Chavez?
I wouldn’t think so, either, were it not for the fact that their followers are too inconceivably stupid and/or delusional to know any better.
True, but the Republican followers are a given. The key here is to turn everyone else out to vote against hate and stupidity.
And at this point it seems reasonable to predict that the Republicans are going to do a better job of getting Democratic voters to the polls than the Democrats.
Don’t we all wish that the Republicans have a bad time with this year’s elections? The sad fact is that they’re only alienating the same constituencies that they’ve already alienated. The outcome of this election will be only slightly affected by the latest round of GOP hijinks. The only question remaining to be answered is how low the turnout is among Democratic voters.
Wishful thinking. The economy still is not great, and Obama care isn’t popular (which energizes the base). Obama himself is in the low-mid 40’s.
Sad but true.
I’m old enough to remember the old days when Boo was predicting an imminent Republican collapse over the debt ceiling hostage crisis. And Romney. I love Boo, but he seems to believe in shark jumping. Because he instinctively recoils at transparent lies and wholesale immorality, he expects other to react the same. He thinks ‘Republican’ is a political party, not an ethnic affiliation.
We have been witnessing a Republican collapse. Just look at the number of Senate seats they’ve thrown away over the last two elections.
And in fact, one of the best reasons to predict the ultimate doom of the Republicans is precisely what you said: it’s an ethnic affiliation. A shrinking ethnic affiliation that has no use for any other ethnic affiliation. So it has no prospect of either growing or forming any alliances.
Do they need to grow? Can’t they do tremendous damage just by digging in? And isn’t a damaged government the seed corn of their movement?
I guess I’m not sure what ‘Republican collapse’ really means. If they’re so collapsed that they can’t ever elect a President again, or win the Senate, but they’ve got a deathgrip on the House, with a caucus in which Gohmert is the median conservative, is that a collapse?
They can’t affirmatively pass a platform? Who cares. They’re not affirmative. They’re nihilists. I mean, say what you will about the tenets of national socialist, Dude …
Yes, they do need to grow. Frightened and angry white people are, thankfully, a shrinking demographic. This is why they do not, in fact, have a deathgrip on the House. Maybe for the moment, but what happens when Texas turns blue, for instance? That’s going to be a simple result of the growing Latino population. Which is a group of voters that the Republicans could possibly compete for if they didn’t also have to appease the xenophobes, but as it is they’ve guaranteed that Latinos will support Democrats for the foreseeable future.
It’s bad enough when a party only appeals to a shrinking minority. It’s even worse when the one appeal that holds them together is hatred of everyone else.
That’s kind of a moot issue. I extrapolated the demographics trends to look for states flipping in the presidential vote, and Texas didn’t flip until something like 2048. North Carolina flips in the 2020’s and then Georgia in the 2030’s. But it’s only in the 2040s that the Republicans will lose their basic advantage in the Senate (ie more Republican states than Democratic ones) so their demographic death is a long way off.
What model did you use? Because both the Houston Chronicle and Nate Silver have said that a 65-75% Latino advantage for Democratic Party will put Texas into play in 2020/2024, not 2048.
http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012/11/exclusive-analysis-if-trends-hold-texas-will-be-a-toss-up-st
ate-by-2024/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/operation-gringo-can-republicans/
I personally think that 2020 is a bit optimistic. But certainly by 2024/28 at current trends. The Democratic Party in Texas is in horrid shape after its collapse in the 90s, which is what’s holding the party back, but if they can claw their way back from the grave in NV and VA they can do it here, too.
Obamacare isn’t popular? with whom?
With people who have not experienced it. Sadly, Republican doctors are busy jacking up prices and limiting treatment, telling their patients, “Obamacare made me do it.”
Can’t fix the Republican Party; we’re too busy fixing Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, fixing the Democratic Party, the neo-lib-con party pushing “free trade,” more deregulation and outsourcing, destroying public education, etc., doesn’t seem to be a priority for its members.
Or their institutions supporting opponents:
Too Bad I Can’t Chop Up My HRC Award Twice
To be clear, the HRC endorsement is from the Human Rights Commission and not Hillary Rodham Clinton. And if we’re honest, the significant amounts of money for the big push in LBGT rights came from lib-GOP-tech-Wall St newly rich.
Once marriage equality becomes the law of the land, expect even less support for liberal politicians from the LBGT community.
When you say “LGBT rights” let’s remember that we’re (in general) talking about “marriage”, something a lot of leftist queers don’t even support.
And when we say “LGBT community” we mean those with power who, frankly, have done jack shit to advance any LGBT cause. HRC is a failure of an organization.
Do we even have ENDA yet, HRC? Nope. But we very well might have a national right to work law if the SCOTUS goes full metal jacket on Monday.
Marriage is culturally conservative and on that basis was disparaged by straight lefties back in the mid-sixties to mid-seventies. However, the economic advantages for marrying over co-habiting are so great that the cultural objections sort of withered. So, not surprising that it became a major goal of those in same-sex relationships. Particularly among those of higher economic status.
○ Mark Mayfield, Mississippi tea party official embroiled in Thad Cochran photo scandal, commits suicide
Will refrain from making any comments about Mayfield’s death and urge others to do the same b/c being mean or engaging in snark isn’t helpful.
Will, however, remind others that McDaniel’s poll ratings went up after Mayfield chose to attack Cochran through the unfortunate health condition of Mrs. Cochran.
why? I’m very curious about his death, looking forward to learning what happened. the whole Mississippi situation is pivotal right now
Mark Mayfield RIP
Circumstance of his death
thanks, I’d read that. I mean autopsy report, note [?], recent activity, statements from friends and family,
Here’s a tidbit for consideration:
Some will recall that Janis Lane made the news a few weeks ago. She was one of the three amigos that wandered into the Hinds County courthouse on the night of the primary election and got locked in.
interesting
I have no problem celebrating the death of a trashbag.
Most people would agree that it was a good day when shitbags like Hitler or Stalin died. I laughed and laughed when trashbags like Falwell and Breitbart died.
That a Tea Party Captain killed himself, especially after everything that happened…is justice.
I smile and I’ll never apologize for it.
The only good fascist is a dead fascist.
Only angry people are motivated enough to come out for the midterms, and we know who they are. Until the left is equally incensed that they will wait in line, the results will be the same: the minority right wing will continue to run the nation.
I’m curious where the strategic movement and funding towards Jim Crow is coming from for the teaparty – I would assume the Kochs are doing major planning and recruiting their blackmailable front ppl candidates b/c the Michele Bachmans, Sarah Palins, etc of this world are pretty much only capable of moving from grift to grift. and the followers are pretty much just followers
WaMo front page is too broken to read right now – a script keeps freezing on me and freezing my browser.
Firefox running on Windows 7.
I finally ditched Firefox and switched to Chrome. Got tired of those sorts of things happening on a regular basis.
Now?