From Andrew Sullivan
The truth is: there is a conservative majority in this country not because the religious right is a majority but because the Republicans have also been able to corner the market on the themes of achievement, individualism, energy, action. And they have also won over those who disdain the politics of resentment, whining and permanent criticism. If James Dobson represents one wing of contemporary Republicanism, Arnold Schwarzenegger represents the other. Democrats will never win over the Dobsonites. But they can win over the blueish voters who voted red last time because the pious, do-good, elite whining of Gore and Teresa and Hillary seemd so alien to many Americans' entrepreneurial, anti-p.c. and irreverent popular culture.
Generally a very good read and I agree (except that Team America was too damn long.)
2 comments:
It seems that anything that is good about being liberal is called conservative? All the satires about liberals, I mean, who writes them? the liberals. and who really laughs at them: the liberals.
But then, you have liberals that insist on bi-lingual education (or you're anti immigration) no border enforcement (when you put up a fence in and the immigrants died going through the desert, that was murder by the US?), when reporters get protected from the inconvenience of having to go some time for the crime (Martin Luther King went to jail for his beliefs...) and when you get right down to it, Jesus did not almost get killed on the cross. (By the way, the immigrants are wanted to keep the wages low, so the liberal totally screws the lower income people by trying to save the world, dupes for business)
But if you act to protect the environment, is that being liberal? Is it OK to rip the top off a mountain? OK to fish the ocean until it is dead? Is it OK to give endless tax givebacks to people who do not need them at the cost of the finacial well being of the country?
Who is not enforcing the gun laws? And who is prosecuting the corporate thief? What are "conservative" issues and what are "liberal" issues.
Was the bumbling policy in Iraq conservative? Was opposing it liberal?
But then, only look an Arianna Huffington on the DNC that wants to rush to the center after losing 51 to 49: she'd disgusted with that, and so am I. And guess what: that's exactly the kind of thinking that lost the election for Kerry and Gore before him: the rush to the middle.
So, who is going to rush to the middle to appease the Islamic terrorist? Well, it wasn't Dean. Terrorism was bad and lets get the fuckers, but Iraq is wrong, lets get out. That is NOT accommodation. But is there NO place in the Democratic party for a stiff spine?
Does every Democrat have to say that any and every abortion is totally OK?
Well, it might be conservatative but it sure as hell is NOT George Bush: ill spoken, ill prepared, prodigal wastrel, ideological, and letting his goons do the dirty work. And the Bush "conservatives": what the hell are they going to do when the bill comes home? Yeah, it's all right and good and noble, but, umm, it is all based on bad checks and float.
Another question:(ala Andrew Sullivan) this whole notion of the "liberal": are there really such people? How many.
I suggest the notion of liberal as those who afflicted The Incredibles is a straw dog...
Like old Italian, Irish, Jewish, Black whatever jokes, they really describe a mythical class. Having laughed at these mythical characters, we then proceed to despise them.
It's true that it doesn't take many... I think I recall one person who was strongly for bi-lingual education and called me a racist, and was really serious and pissed about it, because I thought English ought to be the language of the land. Like French in France, German in Germany, and whatever the UPers speak in the UP ;-)
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