In his response to E.D., Larison makes this point about a possible House turnover:
After all, even if the Republicans won the House there would not be much that they could do once in office, except waste their time as they did in the ’90s hauling executive branch officials before committees to testify on this or that outrage of the week. They would likely be stymied by the Democratic majority in the Senate on any major legislation, and Obama would veto just about anything they passed if it somehow got to his desk. At the same time, Obama would make them into a much more effective foil for his arguments once they had some hold on power, and out of frustration they would become increasingly obsessed with “getting” Obama and become even less interested in representing the interests of their constituents.
Larison thinks that a turnover would not be in the best interests of Republicans, and that “they will proceed to destroy themselves in very short order.” This may be true – if Republicans win the House in November, voters will inevitably chuck them out, probably as early as 2012. But that win, though fleeting, is still a central part of the Republican game plan.
The Republicans have been an effective minority party for the last few decades in part because they’re able to marshal a focused, interested minority against a somewhat apathetic majority. Though Greenwald and Kos identify a number of legitimate reasons for an enthusiasm gap on the part of engaged, focused voters, there’s also a simple “interest” gap. A lot of people don’t vote because they view it as a pointless act. The more Republicans make government into a meaningless sideshow, the fewer voters will be interested in voting.
The sheer stupidity of a Republican-led Congress isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It helps to convince younger, intelligent, uninterested non-voters — a group that would probably vote for Democrats — that their lack of interest is a rational choice.
MikeBoyScout
sadly true
DougJ
Indeed, they’re trying to blow a house up, not renovate it.
kth
Yes, exactly: since the ratio of teabaggers to firebaggers* is about 5 to 1, a scorched-middle strategy will always benefit the evildoers.
*not for a moment alleging moral or intellectual equivalence between those two groups, just an equivalence in ideological commitment
arguingwithsignposts
Larison is wrong here: The Republicans are *very* interested in representing their constituents. It’s just that their constituents aren’t, you know, average Americans.
rnoble
Those same young people could be convinced that it mattered if the Dems were better at getting shit done when they had power. Sure we got healthcare (although pretty watered down from the campaign retoric) and a sort-of end to the Iraq war, but there are any number of issues that are percieved as fairly easy that democrats haven’t acted on, or have barely acted on (DADT, GITMO, etc.). It can sometimes seem like the Democrats are only marginally better then the Republicans.
Davis X. Machina
Republicans aren’t actually small-r republicans. They’re monarchists. In their heads it’s always 1535 or so.
A royalist party in a republican parliament has no real interest in increasing its share of votes in that body, never mind cooperating with the small-r republican parties in governing. Their purpose for being is to shut it down, or at least neuter it, so that there can be a restoration of the monarch, and parliament can return to its heaven-ordained role.
Once that happens, they can go back to voting thanks to the monarch, and supplies for the monarch’s wars. The courtier class can return to jockeying for appointive office, royal monopolies, and preference generally. The warrior types can go a-Crusading, and the monkish can fight heresy at home.
The weirdest transformation of political terminology hasn’t been what happened to the word ‘liberal’ since John Stuart Mill — it’s what happened to the word ‘republican’.
morzer
@arguingwithsignposts:
Well, they are your average old white rich pyschologically frail Americans….
Corner Stone
And this is exactly why I never give Larison any credence on pretty much anything.
He has yet to understand the nature of the beast.
matt
Maybe we can convince the youngsters to vote ironically.
El Cid
I think this is fairly wishful thinking.
On the plus side, at least George Will and the Mustache of Understanding are accompanied by Paul Krugman on This Weak.
@Dogsdoingthings
Dogs feasting vigorously to celebrate their takeover of the House, and exploding one by one.
cmorenc
@mistermix:
A corollary is a key intended effect of the typical GOP tactic of carpet-bombing opponents with nasty character-assasinating negative advertising: the point is precisely to turn off less-definitely committed voters from interest in participating, and turn the election into which candidate has the largest core of vote-no-matter-what partisans. They know that their 27% of crazies outnumber the 20% or so of hard-core committed liberals, even though the “softer” votes more often trend democratic, if only they will come out on election day. This is exactly the dynamic that’s driving the 2010 midterm elections, so they hope.
Janet Strange
In Vo’s race in Texas a few years ago, the chair of the Republicans in that district actually bragged that the lower the turnout, the better Republicans do, so whatever they could do to keep people from voting was their strategy.
Whenever I hear people, especially young people, take the cynical I hate ’em all and I’m not voting for any of ’em position, I want to say, “you’re not being smart and independent when you think that way – you’re giving in to their manipulation. They want you to be apathetic and not participate in the political process. They want you to be just be a mindless consumer, or cannon fodder, or obedient worker bee, depending on what gives them the most money and power at the time.”
As Davis X. said, they hate democracy. They want a monarchy, and a nobility to run things. The more cynics that refuse to act like citizens in a democracy they can create, the closer they are to their goal.
El Tiburon
Links to Greenwald and Kos in one post? Toss in one to FDL and the transformation to the Dark Side is complete.
Nick
This is key. A few months ago, someone, I believe PPP, polled the voters who were likely not to vote this year and turned out they approved of Obama and the Democrats in Congress. What would possess them then not to turn out? They just plain don’t care. It doesn’t interest them. It’s just all above their paygrade.
Republicans do not want the government to function, because when it does, people like it, and the media helps them out by furthering the idea of hopelessly dysfunctional government. You never see a discussion of filibuster reform on any network, do you? When someone tries to discuss it, it gets dropped faster than an American Idol judge. It backs Democrats into a corner.
And when Democrats actually pass shit, it’s presented as some shady compromise too confusing for anyone to understand (which of course is the media’s job to explain) and choc full of special interest gifts (remember when Bernie Sanders community centers was called “pork?”) When they fight, as they did with unemployment and the 9/11 health bill, it’s presented as partisan bickering and as was said by a CNN anchor “This is why you have an 11% approval rate!”
doctorpsycho1960
@matt: Matt, you may have found the salvation of the republic.
geg6
If I had a gun, I would seriously contemplate shooting myself come November. Which is my entire motivation for voting and all the motivation anyone should need. Because a GOP congress is the equivalent to the entire country committing suicide. I truly hate the people I am forced to share America with, a hate that burns like fire. I just signed up to volunteer for Sestak and Onorato, but have little hope it will do an ounce of good. I am in a state of despair and see no reason to snap out it. Anybody have one for me?
Corner Stone
@Janet Strange:
Given a limited set of resources, can you argue they are not making a rational choice? Who is making the cogent case that voting makes a difference at this stage?
The Democrats hold both parts of Congress and the WH. And?
Napoleon
I still can not believe we are actually talking about those clowns taking the house in November. Thank God I don’t live near the edge of a cliff.
I have a feeling that Larson is right, they will destroy themselves, but this is not going to be pretty for the country.
By the way, if they take one or both houses I think there would now be a 50/50 chance Palin is their nominee in 12.
Chad N Freude
@morzer: You’re referring to the psychologically frail funders. The constituents really are psychologically frail, otherwise they wouldn’t be so panicked.
Mogden
The best outcome for Republicans would be a narrow loss in the House combined with a gain of 5-7 seats in the Senate. Enough new members to stymie legislation, but still leaving the Democrats in control to take the majority of the blame.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
well, you’re certainly not, but I’m sure Janet is trying to.
kay
Oh, sure. I have several.
Because Republicans have now raised the bar so anything less than a majority in the House is a huge loss. Because not winning the House discredits Tea Baggers. Because not winning the House means you will never again have to hear the phrase “enthusiasm gap”. Because Democrats holding the House means hundreds of professional pundits are horribly disappointed, and that’s a good and worthwhile goal all by itself.
House races are individual races, and a couple of wins that could have been losses are all you need to retain a majority.
Upsets are always more fun than sure things, and the losing narrative is now so established and so set in stone it would be enormously gratifying if your one win denied them the majority bragging rights.
Shalimar
While everything Larison says is true, I think the biggest problem is that there aren’t enough Dems who share progressive policy goals (or any other coherent vision for that matter), so Democrats can’t stand as a group against the obstruction. Electing more Dems who agree on a program going forward would be a better solution than purging conservatives like Bobby Bright and Ben Nelson, but this is not going to be the year that happens.
And when you get down to it, even with unified party goals and clear majority support from the nation, Democrats would still be at a disadvantage. It is much easier to tear something down than it is to build it up in the first place.
Corner Stone
@Nick: What would you say to a 20 something unemployed college grad?
You are the king of “All is futile!”, so this should be interesting.
morzer
@kay:
Because Nancy Pelosi as Speaker is a damn sight better than the Smirking Orange as speaker.
Cat
@geg6:
Because as a true progressive you aren’t doing this for your own benefit. You are doing it for the benefit of everyone, even the teatards and the teahadists.
People should be voting democrat because the Dems are going to end pointless foreign wars before the Republicans. Even if its just one day, thats some number of peoples lives which are not going to be maimed or destroyed by the stupid pointless war.
Even if the Dems just hold the line and keep things status quo. Voting Dem is better then the backsliding towards an unjust society the Republicans would bring.
By voting Dem and supporting Dems you are doing good. Time will grind the Republicans
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
Yes. Doing nothing and watching your country DIAF is not a rational choice.
Nick
@Shalimar:
I have long said, to deaf ears, that the Democratic Party voting bloc is far more conservative than the Republican Party is liberal.
morzer
@geg6:
Because despair is what the evil Republican bastards want. Because despair is not going to do anything except make you feel miserable. Because despair never accomplished a damn thing except killing you slowly.
kay
@morzer:
Because nearly every single pundit, both major and minor, called it 60 days out, and it would be a lot of fun to watch them lose, on television?
I’m not delusional, I know pundits can’t and won’t be discredited, and whatever happens it will be declared an unequivocal win for Republicans, I’m just talking about purely personal enjoyment, and that comes down to a couple of races, either way.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
What I always tell them. Republicans think you should starve because you’ve been collecting unemployment too long and it’s making you not want to work. Oh? You do want to work? Well the Democrats have this bill that would give incentives to businesses to hire people like you, but the Republicans are still blocking it. Oh you didn’t hear about it? Yeah the media has been busy with the Fox News mosque lately, so here’s the President talking a little bit about it. Oh, you say you’re only 24? Well, you’d be happy to know thanks to a law passed ONLY BY DEMOCRATS and signed by President Obama, you can stay on your parents healthcare plan for another 2 years. Yep, Republicans want to repeal that, say it doesn’t give an “incentive to make something of yourself.” Assholes, huh?
and you Corner?
Cat
@mistermix
Who cares what the long term ramifications of a Republican win in 2010 is to the Republican party.
It has catastrophic short term and long term ramifications to the AMERICAN public that is not in anyway worth watching the Republicans self destruct.
Janet Strange
@Corner Stone: Sigh. Because even though Obama has failed to deliver my pony, there are a lot of my students in their early 20’s who now have health insurance through their parents who didn’t have it before the ACA passed. And it means a lot to them to have that fear of not being able to afford health care lifted.
Because even though we’re not as “out” of Iraq as I’d like, and Afghanistan is a black hole I can’t see the other side of, at least this administration isn’t invading countries that pose no threat to us just because of some delusion about “American Empire” and the new American century.
“The other guys are worse” is not enthusiasm generating, I know. But “worse” 2000-2008 resulted in lots of people dead or maimed for life. Not to mention the jobs lost, savings evaporated etc etc. “Worse” can have horrible consequences and stopping it is worth doing.
Chad N Freude
@kay:
I think you’re overly optimistic. Within a day of the ballot counting, anything the Republicans win, no matter how paltry, will be played by the MSM as a Republican triumph/crushing defeat for the Democrats.
kay
@Chad N Freude:
I don’t think so, in terms of their voters and the general public. They’ve set the bar really high, partly because they see the value in a self-fulfilling meme.
I think they take the House or it’s a loss.
Chad N Freude
@Cat: I so agree with this! We would move from Catastrophe to Apocalypse (the real-world kind).
Corner Stone
@Nick: I guess I know 20 somethings that are either smarter or more despondent than you because what usually happens is they say some variant of, “Well, I didn’t elect the media. I elected the Dems to a majority in both parts of Congress and the WH. And?”
They don’t care to listen to excuses.
Linda Featheringill
@geg6:
In my visit to the DCCC site, I got the impression that many of these races will be fought, tooth and nail, on an individual basis. Sort of like house-to-house military fighting.
In a battle like that, every skirmish counts.
Gird your loins and go forth. You have a lot of brothers and sisters in the cause that are doing the same thing. Even if you can’t see them.
And good for you for volunteering! :-)
[We would like to receive reports of your experiences.]
Nick
@Corner Stone:
no, no you apparently don’t, because
youthey missed the part where I did the media’s job and explained the good things Dems did for them.YouThey are so focused on the one sentence where I criticized the media, you missed the part about jobs and healthcare.Chad N Freude
@kay: Let’s talk about this on November 4. (I hope you’re right, I just think, as a semi-pro pessimist, that it’s not going to happen.)
Bill H
Republicans may be stupid, but it is increasingly difficult to argue for the brilliance of the fucking Democrats.
The best we can do is children sucking off their parents for health insurance and “we’re not gratuitously invading other countries.” Wow, color me impressed.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
Well then they’re idiots, because last few ballots I’ve cast, I only got to vote for one Rep. and one Sen. and, if I’m lucky, a president/vice president, at a time. So, no, they didn’t “elect the Dems to a majority.”
I think this country is suffering from clinical depression.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
So if you knew a 20-something who was despondent and talking about suicide, you would hand them a gun because clearly their most rational choice would be to kill themselves?
WereBear (itouch)
Yes. Doing nothing is rarely a best choice.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Please stop trying to reinterpret things people have asked to fit your bogus needs.
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
There’s something to that. It feels like we’re at that point pre-therapy when you end up sitting in your apartment staring at the walls for a week because you just can’t come up with any reason to leave the house.
Nick
@Bill H:
Yes because in a world where employers are offering new employees healthcare less and less, children “sucking off their parents” and ending imperialism is a terrible thing. What’s next, people sucking off their government for healthcare? that would be even more unimpressive i guess.
Some people will never be impressed…ever
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
You said that 20-somethings should despair for their future and have no reason to do anything to try and prevent the Republicans from winning this fall. So why would you try to stop someone from killing themselves when you feel that way?
Corner Stone
@Nick: You added to your post after my response.
It originally ended with “Oh you didn’t hear about it? Yeah the media has been busy with the Fox News mosque lately, so here’s the President talking a little bit about it.”
Nick
@Corner Stone:
YouThey still missed the part where I DID THE MEDIA’S FUCKING JOB AND SHOWED A DEMOCRAT (President Obama) MAKING AN ARGUMENT. When your friends tell you they don’t see the Democrats fighting, do you show them when they do? Do you go to CSPAN.com and show Democrats on the House floor calling out Republicans? Do you show them the Presidents stump speeches and Saturday address? What, do you think I just tell them “the media doesn’t cover it, oh well” No, I actually do the media’s job.Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: No, not even close asshole.
I asked if a cogent argument could be made to persuade them their choice was not rational.
I never once said what they “should” do.
God, you do this all the time.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne: Hi. You mentioned on another thread the secret formula for getting the social-you-know-which-word past the Filter You WordPress censors, credited to Yutsano. Would you share it? I missed the posting where it was revealed.
Corner Stone
@Nick: Admittedly, I know a small sample size of 20 somethings. I don’t work with any, so I only interact with them through an alumni association.
They don’t seem to be too pleased.
Nick
@Corner Stone: Well you have a choice, you can either show them they have some reason to be pleased, or you can just crawl into a hole.
But something tells me you agree with them.
Corner Stone
@Nick: Listen Nick. If you’re going to edit your posts please show us the courtesy of indicating they have been edited.
arguingwithsignposts
@Chad N Freude:
I believe it involves using the number 1, as in socia1ism.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
The news media is engaging in some wishful thinking about “Speaker-in-waiting” Boehner and too many are buying into it. I believe the Republicans will gain many more seats in the House but not get an outright majority and a few more seats in the Senate without winning a majority there either. It will then be up to the Senate Democrats (with not-so-gentle nudging from voters like you and I) to exercise the nuclear option because with >200 bills currently in limbo due to Republican obstructionism, they have to realize it’s the only way they can responsibly govern.
Chad N Freude
@arguingwithsignposts: D’oh!
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
I don’t know many who voted for Democrats who would be classified as “pleased” with the state of things. But I don’t care how you slice it, “at least we’re not bug-fuck crazy and intent on destroying the country for our rich friends” seems pretty damned rational to me.
Linda Featheringill
Maybe some of the participants on this blog are depressed.
Not just one or two, but several of us.
We know it’s going to be a fight. But who knows which little battle will make a difference in the longer run?
Look at all the folks who worked for Al Franken and stayed with him through that whole rigmarole. And they won.
And that victory has been good for all of us.
I guess my point is: Pick a limited battlefield and then fight like hell. We can add up the score later.
Chad N Freude
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): I love your use of “responsibly”. Is there any reason to believe that the D Party wants to govern responsibly?
Kirk Spencer
@Napoleon: At this point the going bet is 80% that the Democrats retain control of the Senate, and 85% they retain control of the house. It’s just under 100% that they will lose seats in both places.
Me, I think both sets of odds are wrong and the Democrats have a stronger chance of keeping control of both houses. In the Senate, for example, the odds are based on Kentucky being an R lock despite Rand cutting his lead from almost 20 to about 5 points (and two months left to go). Murkowski was supposed to be the R candidate, and Miller’s lead is smaller (and given he’s of the same ilk as Angle and Rand it’ll probably get worse). Over in Delaware, Castle is a strong R likely to win. It’s a tossup, however, whether he’ll take the nod or if it’ll be O’Donnell, and if she wins she’s polling behind Coons (the front runner on the D ballot). In sum, the Republicans keep nominating extremists like Angle (who has saved Reid), and are likely to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.
The house has similar issues in the highly competitive seats.
I’ll wait to the end of September to see what things look like, but for now I just don’t see the flip of majorities.
GregB
If Democrats stage even a half assed rally we could at very least keep both the House and Senate.
It would be an enormously crushing blow to the assholes who want to turn America into Pinochet’s Chile.
It will probably also cause some violent backlash by the wingnuts, thus showing to most Americans their true colors.
Because they believe they should win and when they don’t they will resort to second amendment remedies.
It’ll be their deathknell.
Kryptik
I find myself unconvinced by Larison, because if I’ve learned anything these past years it’s that a Democrat is much, much more likely to cross over on stupid Republican proposals and wants than a Republican will on anything that comes from a Democrat period.
I just can’t see the number of Dem senators who would cross over to support Republican empty investigation du jour, simply because they’re convinced that trying to defend Obama will hurt their chances back home. We’re seeing it all over the goddamn House, and we saw just how spectacular the Senate Blue Dogs tended to give away the farm on key legislation over and over again, compared to the almost literal monolithic voting record of the Republicans. That’s not even taking into account the sadly growing possibility that the Republicans just might actually get the fucking Senate too. And that said, I can’t see Obama effectively painting the stonewalling Congress that could result, because fuck all if the media has been willing to characterize anything as of late as anything but ‘Obama and the Dems ruin America again’.
@GregB:
I’m just not convinced either that the media would be willing to cover the Democrats retaining both majorities as a ‘loss for the Tea Party, nor would it likely diminish their ridiculous influence on the current GOP.
The spin is in already: no matter what happens in November, it’s all bad for Democrats and Obama, and it’s all their fault because they ‘hate America’.
Fuck it. I’m voting, but only because I’m fucking supposed to. I’m not holding any illusions that my vote will matter, or that I’ll be on the winning side of anything anytime soon.
GregB
Oh yeah and Charlie Cook and Scottie Rasmussen can shove their baked cakes up their asses.
Redshift
@Corner Stone:
From anyone but themselves, apparently.
In life, sometimes you only get part of what you want, and sometimes it takes longer and is more work than just one exciting campaign, and sometimes you have to work just to keep things from getting worse. So in those situations your advice as an elder is “fuck it, why bother”?
Chad N Freude
@Linda Featheringill: Al Franken is the Black Swan of US politics. The fact that I said that indicates just how depressed I am about all this. I’ve suggested several times that John use the tagline “Most depressing blog on the Internet” without success, which deepens my depression.
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
I have to run, but, you know, I do think there may be a split on here between people who have actually struggled with depression and know that it takes years and years of tiny steps and professional help to improve one’s own life. Then we extrapolate that out to improving the entire country of 300 million people and realize it’s going to take a long time to fix things.
So, yes, the tiny step of allowing young people to stay on their parents’ insurance rather than throwing them to the wolves is a good thing. You can’t look at that one step and decide, “Well, that single step wasn’t big enough, so we have to stop walking and sit down.”
Mnemosyne
@Chad N Freude:
The “L” in the word is secretly a capital “I.” Courtesy of Yutsano, I should say.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne:
Extremely well-put.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mnemosyne:
I stand corrected. I thought it was a “1.”
Kryptik
@Mnemosyne:
The problem we’ve got here is that currently, we’re on the brink of the country firing their psychiatrist and deciding to enlist the help of Dr. Laura instead.
Lots of little steps forward means that one big misstep back can ruin everything. Our country is ready to gleefully relapse, so painfully hooked on the GOP juice that it’s relapsing and reading to hook itself back up.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne: Thanks. @arguingwithsignposts responded before you did, and of course I thanked him with the most profound expression of gratitude in the English language:
Thanks for the typographic correction.
Nick
@Kryptik:
I’ve never been on the winning side of anything, except in 2008 and I didn’t vote for Obama in the primary.
Until I reregistered to vote in NYC, I never voted for the winner of an election, except NJ Governor and Senator, and they weren’t real races. I didn’t change until 2009 because my parents live in NJ-7 and I wanted to be able to vote for Linda Stender in 2006 and 2008 and President that year (in case NJ was in play), Stender lost both races. The one time I ever voted for a Republican, the guy fucking lost.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne & @arguingwithsignposts: Medication helps. Please don’t ask me how I know this.
PanAmerican
There was that student loan & grant reform package tucked inside the HCR bill. According to our Speaker in waiting:
Cat
@arguingwithsignposts:
The country thought the dems would bail them out of the mess the Republicans created and it turns out they can’t or won’t. Its pretty disheartening to realize there aren’t any quick fixes to 8 years of republican presidents and 10 years of republican controlled congress.
arguingwithsignposts
@Chad N Freude:
Unfortunately, a sizable portion of our country seems interested in another binge of hookers and blow. And others (see Corner Stone’s 20-something friends) seem intent on letting the freak show happen.
Redshift
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Just to be clear, voting a change in the filibuster when the rules are adopted isn’t the “nuclear option”; it has been done several times before The nuclear option was appealing to the chair to rule a filibuster unconstitutional in mid-session (in fact, in mid-debate), and can only happen with a chair who is partisan enough to rule that way even though it goes against decades of precedent and Senate parliamentarians.
demo woman
When Perot ran, his charts convinced some that he was capable of understanding economic policies. Would it help or hurt the President to have a few charts? The employment picture that has been shown on several blogs would highlight the job growth. I’d love to see a chart on the growth of wealth in this country. That would show what class welfare looks like and would make it harder for the repubs to run on don’t increase taxes on the wealthy.
Nick
@Kryptik:
you know, as someone said, the country is suffering from clinical depression. As a depressions survivor, I’ve been there. I’ve wanted to fire my shrink because she wasn’t telling me what I wanted to hear. That’s where the country is now. Their shrink is not telling them what they want to hear “We can fix it easily and cheaply! We can do it without making you suffer! Brown people and muslims are not to blame!”
Republicans are telling them what they want to hear; “Brown people and Muslims are fucking it up! Tax cuts are the answer!”
In the real world, you can be committed, we can’t commit the entire country, though we probably should.
quaint irene
Big article today in our paper, ‘Will There Be Another Republican Revolution?” Felt like saying, ‘Guys. It’s a beautiful lazy Sunday, in that last real weekend of Summer, Labor Day weekend. There’s even a hint of crisp fall in the warm air.
So can we at least take ONE day off from all this sturm and drang?
Nick
@Cat:
Then they should’ve paid better attention when Democrats told them it would be a long, difficult climb back to prosperity. They never promised quick fixes.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Chad N Freude: There’s a reason I included “with not-so-gentle nudging from voters like you and I.” I think *we* have to make the Dems govern responsibly. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Nick
@demo woman:
that chart has been on the Senate floor more than a few times. All the media has to do is pop in a fucking tape.
Here’s some
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-gap-between-the-top-1-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Redshift: Thanks for making that clear :).
Redshift
@Kryptik:
For some reason, that brings to mind the idiot marketing director at the company I worked at in 2004, who actually said that she liked Kerry better, but she was voting for Bush because she liked to be on the winning side.
Really. No paraphrase, those were her exact words.
Nick
@Redshift:
I heard the same shit that year. and in 2000.
arguingwithsignposts
@Redshift:
Not so surprising from someone in marketing, actually.
ETA: mandatory “I’m sure there are some wonderful people who work in marketing, but …”
demo woman
@Nick: You mean that lame or limp or whatever Sarah called it, MSM. Yeah right. Thanks for the link.
If I were running for reelection in the democratic house, I would carry those charts with me.
Redshift
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): There are only a few things I’m pedantic about, but that’s one of them. I’ve always found the evil “break the rules to change the rules” kind of fascinating, in part because the presumed response in the Senate was, weirdly, “we all know that the means you used to make this change is total BS, but now that it’s done, we have to respect it.”
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@DougJ:
they have invented Amos ‘N Andy Government.
Redshift
@arguingwithsignposts: For a long time in my working life, I was regularly reminded of the Dilbert quote, “This may seem like criminal fraud, but actually it’s marketing!”, but our current marketing guy is actually quite decent, and doesn’t lie about our products at all (and even more surprising, even understands them somewhat.)
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s slightly humorous to me that you say this when essentially what you want others to do, is in fact, marketing.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
I live to make you smile, CS.
ETA: And where did I tell you what “I want others to do” other than vote?
Corner Stone
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
We should consider what other options are available because this will never happen.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts: Thanks dawg!
Chad N Freude
@demo woman: I don’t think it was the charts, I think it was because he was such a successful businessman he just had to understand everything about economic policies. His charts just made him look like a fool (well, maybe not to the “some” you allude to).
Chad N Freude
@arguingwithsignposts: My encounters with marketing people have not been the high points of my professional life. I’ve never understood how smart people can be so dumb when they’re in marketing.
demo woman
@Chad N Freude: His flip charts were over the top and your comment brought back fond memories of his debate performance. LOL
Visuals help if they are simple.
Frank
@Corner Stone:
Yes I can. By the way, anybody who is not voting (and this goes for all the dailykos’ers who claim they are not going to vote) give up any right to complain about what is happening to our country.
They could have voted and decided not to. If they lose their job, or if the GOP defunds HCR, don’t blame anybody else. They can only blame themselves for not voting.
It always amazes me when we look back at our country’s history that people actually are not voting, when there tons of other countries where their citizens don’t even have this privilege.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts: Hmmm, you may be right here. I read this:
And considered it a call to action as a means of salesmanship.
Maybe I’m guilty of Mnemosyning you.
Sorry.
Linda Featheringill
A little something that might make you feel better:
How to make an entire meal out of a tiny cherry tomato. http://t.co/kOi65Pf
Posted by LunarMovements on Twitter.
[yeah, I am one of the people that follow her]
Jennifer
@WereBear (itouch):
Yes. Doing nothing is rarely a best choice.
In the immortal words of the Wise One, Geddy Lee:
“If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.”
That having been noted, I’m about to the point of “f*** it, if my fellow citizens are such morons, let them have the government they deserve,” which is a very depressing but inescapable thought. Since I’m quoting others here, one Poor Richard (aka Benjamin Franklin) noted, “Experience holds a dear school but a fool will learn in no other.” Our teatard friends and neighbors have the equivalent of Phd’s in that school after the debacle of 2001 – 2008, and it seems they still haven’t learned, while many of the rest of us are pissed off that we keep having to go back to school every 2 years to keep our credentials, with many of us deciding along the way that it’s no longer worth it.
I know this is a deeply cynical point of view, but I’m to that point where I think, “Yes, if they win, it’s going to be a disaster for a lot of people. But I’m a smart girl and I’ll get through it, so I’m not the one who will get the royal screwing.” The people who WILL get the royal screwing are largely the ones who will turn out to vote for the craziest loon on the ticket and the aforementioned apathetic youth, who have a chance approaching zero of finding employment if the Republicans re-take Congress. I’m sorry for their hardship, but … experience holds a dear school but a fool will learn in no other.
For my part, I will be turning out to vote, but I won’t be voting in our Senate race, because there is nothing that will convince me to ever again cast a vote for Blanche Lincoln. Sure, the guy running against her is crazy as a loon. But he’s going to win regardless of whether or not I vote against him. As such, I think the only thing to be salvaged out of this race is a humiliating defeat for Lincoln, which might finally convince the Democratic party apparatus that throwing their support behind a primary candidate – even if incumbent – who has approval ratings hovering around 30% in order to knock off a challenger who at least had a chance of holding the seat is not the best political strategy. Blanche can suck it, and will, come November, and my abstention from voting in the race won’t make a whit of difference.
Corner Stone
@Frank:
No they don’t. This is a stupid meme I keep seeing repeated.
Chad N Freude
@Frank:
Privilege or right? Or maybe just an annoyance that they can’t be bothered with.
Nick
@Jennifer:
If this was Pennsylvania, I’d agree, but its Arkansas and you can’t possibly believe Bill Halter would stand a chance. If Halter had stood a chance, the party would’ve pushed Lincoln out like they did with Chris Dodd. The party’s not stupid and it’s not as if Halter would have been anymore liberal.
The lesson from her loss won’t be “let’s not support unpopular incumbents,” it’ll be “fuck Arkansas, with a long rusty pointed stick until it bleeds”
Chad N Freude
@Jennifer: They learn nothing from their experience. They have no concept of causality and no critical thinking skills. It’s all reflex.
Not voting for the lesser evil is not necessarily a good thing.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Because it’s true. They don’t have a right to complain about a process they want no part in.
If you don’t play the game, you can’t complain when you lose.
Chad N Freude
@demo woman: I don’t know how much experience you have of sitting through PowerPoint presentations, but Microsoft has made it so easy to build incomprehensible visuals that my 7-year-old grandson can do it.
Jennifer
Guys, Lincoln is going to lose no matter what I do. Since I hate her with the burning intensity of a thousand suns, I’m going to exercise my right to NOT vote for her. An effective Republican (which is what she is) is a worse thing to have in the Senate than an ineffective one (which is what she’s running against). I say let the loon have it. We’re heading for at least 2 years of stalemate so there’s not really any harm he can do.
Plus, as noted, he’s going to win no matter how I vote (or don’t vote) in the race.
E.D. Kain
This makes sense to me. Hence my belief that Republicans have no interest whatsoever in the hard work of governing.
Nick
@Jennifer: Fine, but you can’t possibly believe it’s gonna send a message to the Democratic Party. It’s not.
Vote Green or something, I don’t care. You’re right she’s gonna lose, but not because she hasn’t been an effective Democrat. she’s going to lose because she’s a registered Democrat. That’s why Halter was dead meat too. The party threw Arkansas the day Obama was elected.
If she switched parties a year ago, she would have either been primaried out or if she won, be on her way to reelection.
Let’s face it, if she had the same voting record under President Hillary Clinton, she’d be winning reelection with or without your vote. She’s losing because a black man is President, not because she voted against the public option.
Corner Stone
@Nick: Bullshit. They aren’t robbed of their voice or legitimacy if they choose to not vote.
Frank
@Corner Stone:
Of course they do. You can call the meme stupid all you want, but it sure does not make it so. By not voting, they are making a choice. For example if they are Democrats who are going to sit home, then they can only blame themselves if Congress decide to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent for the wealthy instead of a stimulus package for the rest of us. They made a choice.
They can’t complain and whine about how bad things are when they decided to just take their little ball and go home during election time and then hope somebody will take their whine seriously after the GOP wins in November. A while back I read dailykos every so often. I stopped reading it as I have no longer any clue on whose side they are on. It sure is not my side.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Yes Corner, they are. They’ve chosen not to take part in the process, that means their opinions are not part of it either.
Corner Stone
@Frank:
Let me ask you something. If they vote D and then the tax cuts are extended or made permanent, they then have a legitimate right to bitch? Or if they vote R or I or Green, etc?
Bullshit. It’s still their voice, no matter what they decide to do with it.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
This is the key. Whether you agree or disagree with the heat of a thousand suns, it’s still someone’s choice. It’s still their voice.
wrb
@demo woman:
I’ve been thinking just that- the president needs to do a teaching speech with charts. Show the reversal in new jobs claims, show where the deficits came from, show how spending that creates jobs and increases revenues decreases deficits over the long term. Show where things could be without republican obstruction and where they could go if republicans win and shut down government.
Jennifer
@Nick:
Nick – uh, no, she wouldn’t.
You’re correct that Obama’s election makes any race in the state a lot tougher for a Dem. But Lincoln was unpopular before Obama was elected and her continued shilling for big business during the worst economy in 80 years, her transparent whoring during the healthcare debate and the realization in many voters’ minds that the only thing she’s ever really cared about is holding her seat have combined to put her behind by 28%, on average.
Even Obama had greater than 27% support here in the 2008 election. But that’s where Miz Blank stands now…27%. Bill Halter would have had no problem polling at least 10 – 15 points higher than that – though he too would have had a hard time winning the race.
But 27%? That can’t be accounted for without the factor of voter animus towards the candidate herself.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
yes, because they’re part of the process. They have something to expect for their vote. This is the perfect example of having your cake and eating it to. “I’m not going to help you win, but I want you to do X, Y and Z if you do” That’s like an employer saying “i expect you to do all these things, but I’ m not gonna pay you for it”
the incentive to do something in a democracy is that you will, be rewarded with votes and be reelected. Otherwise we might as well have mob rule. Why would anyone promise to do something for you if they can’t count on your support when its needed?
gypsy howell
I wouldn’t count on that at all. I can’t imagine him vetoing anything that Congress passed, no matter how vile, repugnant or destructive. He’ll just say he’s following “the will of the people.”
Frank
@Corner Stone:
When I read postings such as yours, if makes me long for the days long ago when I was a Republican. Republicans tend to vote no matter what. They will bitch, but eventually they tend to get their just rewards. Democrats (not all are this, but the loud ones fit the criteria perfectly) on the other hand, seem to just want to leave the game as soon as it doesn’t go their way. Perhaps we need better Democrats in Congress but we sure as hell need a better base as well. One that doesn’t give up at the very sight of adversity.
Case in point; I’m angry as hell at the Dems for their pathetic and bigoted response to the mosque/community center. And I have said as much to my reps in Congress. But even if I am furious at them, I am still going to vote. That’s my obligation to my team and to ensure that I have a right to keep complaining to my reps.
Nick
@Jennifer:
An Arkansas poll from October, 2008 had her at a 54% approval rating.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/12/2010-senate-rankings-revised-and.html
By March, her approval rating dropped to 45% (with 40% disapproving) and she was tied to trailing Republicans. What changed between October and March? She didn’t shill for anyone in that time.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0309/Poll_suggests_Blanche_Lincoln_vulnerable.html
Moses2317
Mistermix – great post. I followed up on it at my new, still under construction blog, Winning Progressive. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Corner Stone
@Nick: Some of you need a civics lesson.
There is no “Vote or Die” law as a pre-req to being a citizen in the US.
P. Diddy liked it, and so did some X Games athletes, but that does not mean it’s codified anywhere.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@E.D. Kain:
Take heart. I am not convinced that Democrats do either.
The attempt to push Obama “to the center” is really about something else, namely, an attempt to get the two “sides” talking at the same tables. Without that, we are Italy.
Like it or not, the right is correct about some things, one of which is that the failures of government are systemic. People don’t trust any institutions right now, no matter which “side” they are on. And … why should they?
Corner Stone
@Frank:
Of this I have zero doubt. Welcome to a broader world amigo. There exist many choices, dichotomies, differences and arguments.
I’m sure after a lifetime of doing what you are told it’s all a little mystifying for you, but you’ll adjust after a couple decades.
Chad N Freude
@wrb: If he did that, the media would spin it as Obama emulating Glenn Beck.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
you are free to not vote if you so choose. no one is making you vote, but doing this have consequences. Just as you are free to burn an American flag, doesn’t mean you won’t get the shit kicked out of you for doing it. You are free not to vote, doesn’t mean you will be listened to afterward. You want to take yourself out of the process, fine. Bye.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Nick:
I am in favor of this, especially if I get to pick who gets taken out of the process.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone:
Hot chick on date: Oh, I can’t decide. You order for me.
Guy orders something he likes.
Chick: Ewww! I don’t like [insert disliked food of your choice].
Frank
@Corner Stone:
Funny stuff!
Did you not read the part where I wrote that I had been a Republican and switched parties? I guess I am a tad more open minded than you are…
So you think people that vote just do it because they are doing what they are told to do? Wow! Just wow! Ever heard of civic duty, civic pride?
arguingwithsignposts
@Jennifer:
Sadly, those are famous last words for a lot of people. None of us believes we’re the ones who will get the reaming.
fasteddie9318
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
Most of those systemic failures have been deliberately put in place by the right so they could use them as ammo to win votes from people who were pissed off at the systemic failures and looking for a candidate who runs against the very concept of government. How you find compromise with people whose very existence depends on the dysfunction that follows from a lack of compromise is beyond me. What’s also beyond me is why voters keep hiring elected officials who profess to believe that the work of elected officials is consistently evil. Would they feel comfortable if the airline they fly regularly started hiring pilots who believed that flying planes was total bullshit and that people should walk everywhere? Would they like it if their supermarket hired a butcher who was vegan and thought all meat eaters should drop dead? How about firefighters who think people are worthless pussies for relying on the fire department to put out fires for them? Yet somehow Republicans who think government blows keep getting elected to run government.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
Actually, you fucking moron, if someone assaults me they will go to jail. That is part of being a human being and a citizen in the USA.
I can burn the flag, I can not vote and even after I don’t vote I can engage and castigate my representatives!
Imagine the fuck that!
Corner Stone
@Frank: I’m not taking shit from any clown that ever voted for a Republican.
Much less for the majority of their life.
Nellcote
@demo woman:
Those charts are elitist! Or so say the Khmer Rouge/Teabaggers.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
A system of mandatory voting might actually be a good thing for this country.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: Am I still going to get a shot at the title later?
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yep, right along with mandatory military service Mr. Heinlein.
General Stuck
Corner Stone doth protest too much. Kind of makes you wonder it he didn’t vote in 08. Well did ya CS? For Obama?
Chad N Freude
@arguingwithsignposts: Compulsory voting. Interesting read.
Jennifer
@arguingwithsignposts:
I think you misunderstand.
Every time a Republican gets elected, I lose a job. During Bush II and the fallout from Bush II, I lost 2 of them.
But I manage to get through it because as I said, I’m a smart girl, and unlike many who sit and wait for the right job to come around, I’ve learned that ANY job will help pay the bills and you’re better off to have one that isn’t what you had in mind than to have none at all. And also, anyone who shows up on time, isn’t a complete moron, and does the work they’re supposed to do rather than looking for ways to slack off can both find and keep SOME kind of a job, even in an almost-depression. So, yes, barring an all-out depression or disability, I will manage to get by.
fasteddie9318
@arguingwithsignposts:
There are a lot of less draconian steps that could be taken before mandatory voting, like a national election holiday and investing in better voter accessibility, but all of this assumes that TPTB actually want more voters. I think they’re quite happy with the system the way it is.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: Not bad. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, you do have a sense of humor.
ETA: Are you equipped for the role of the Hot Chick? Could you play one on TV?
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: I’m the funniest guy you’ll never know.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
Because going into a voting booth once every couple of years is EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING THING as spending several years of your life in an authoritarian government job.
And, fwiw, I would be in favor of some sort of public service (read not necessarily military) requirement for young people (maybe a year between h.s. and college) with pay. So there.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Hills, obviously. It’s all for Hills.
Isn’t that what you want to hear? Or in Stuckspeak, “What you want to here?”
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: World War II and the Vietnam War were not Heinlein novels.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: The truth would suffice. But am certain I won’t get it from you.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: You should manifest it more often.
kay
@Chad N Freude:
I’m not, temperamentally, a pessimist, so maybe that is the difference.
If I lose, and I often do, I like to lose once, and quickly, rather than talking about losing daily for 60 days. I could not approach my job like that, for example. I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed.
I see the benefit of the emotional shield of anticipating huge losses while “hoping for the best” but that approach has never worked for me, personally.
I usually think I’ll win until I lose, honestly. It doesn’t make losing suck less but it does makes living suck less.
I also have this old-fashioned idea that media should allow us to have the election before they call the election results.
I completely understood Karl Rove making up that stuff about “special math” in 2006. He simply can’t say “get out there and VOTE because you are going to LOSE!”. I saw what he was doing, and I approved. He wanted to spook his opponents, while getting out his voters, and it worked like a charm.
arguingwithsignposts
@Jennifer:
That’s getting dangerously close to the “the unemployed are just lazy” GOP talking point. Cases where that strategy didn’t work.
I’m glad you are confident in your abilities to get by. I’d take a job at McD’s if I were to lose my job, but the mistake is believing there are lots of those jobs sitting out there waiting to be filled.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: I do dog. But I’m tired of people telling me what I have to do, what I have to say (or not say), and what I have to believe to be true.
If I want my “pony”.
And threads like these are good examples of that.
Chad N Freude
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m not worried. I’m old enough to be a Walmart greeter.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: Would it damage our friendly relationship if I said that I agree that non-voters surrender their right (as opposed to their ability) to complain about the result of an election?
Jennifer
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’d take a job at McD’s if I were to lose my job, but the mistake is believing there are lots of those jobs sitting out there waiting to be filled.
Obviously, it depends on where you are as to how many jobs are sitting out there waiting to be filled. But it’s a strategy that’s never failed me, precisely because so many at my skills level won’t even consider it, and come on, who’s more likely to get that job at the Hallmark store, a stable adult who has 20 years of experience working, or a high school kid?
I’m not calling anyone “lazy” or undeserving for being unemployed. But it is a fact that an awful lot of people out there consider certain work to be beneath them, either because it doesn’t pay as much or because it’s considered lower-status. When I lost one of my part-time jobs while I was in grad school (I had 4 of them at the same time), I bought a lawnmower and went and talked to everyone within pushing distance about mowing their lawns. Most women won’t do that, but I had figured out that the lawn mowers were making $15 – $20 per hour, which was more than enough to replace the lost income from the job, and also figured, correctly, that my neighbors would be more willing to hire a neighbor in need than some random guy knocking on doors.
Jobs go to people who are willing to do them. It’s a fact that there aren’t enough of them to go around right now – but you can bet the ones that are available are going to the people who demonstrate most effectively that they are willing to do them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone:
All this is true; no one will stop you from speaking about political issues, but, and I believe this is the point people have been making and you have been intentionally ignoring, you will have lost some moral authority. Your criticisms will be those of a Monday morning quarterback, a spectator, rather that the views of a participant in the system.
quaint irene
Look at what his teleprompter got him.
eemom
As a general rule, litmus tests are not a good thing. But, in my experience, there are a few that yield accurate results pretty close to 100% of the time.
One is that people who admire Ayn Rand are assholes.
Another is that people who think there is any justification, EVER, for not voting (other than physical inability to do so), are worse assholes.
Now, it appears, there is a third: people who not only think there is a justification for not voting, but lack the basic honesty to connect the dots between that choice and their responsibility for the results of an election, are nihilistic parasites of society who exist for no other purpose than to spew hatred in cyberspace.
I name no names, of course.
Chad N Freude
@Jennifer: There’s a rumor floating around that some employers won’t consider overqualified people with marketable skills because they expect that they’ll leave at the first opportunity. The rumor appears to have been started by people who don’t “consider certain work to be beneath them, either because it doesn’t pay as much or because it’s considered lower-status” and have been repeatedly turned down for such jobs because they’re overqualified. I have, in the distant past, been turned down for a job that I really wanted because my level of experience was too high.
Chad N Freude
@eemom: Would you please stop talking about Meg Whitman.
/snark
Jennifer
@Chad N Freude:
Chad – so have I. But I’ve also been hired for several of those jobs in the past just by honestly telling the prospective employer: “no, I’m not making a commitment to stay here forever, but I’ll commit to staying for at least X months, and since I can be trained in a day rather than several weeks or months, it’s not like you will have invested much in hiring me for the shorter term.”
This can be surprisingly effective, though as noted, it doesn’t always work. But the point is, if one guy says “I won’t hire you because you’re overqualified” even after you offer this rationale, the next one or the one after that will.
Linda Featheringill
@Moses2317:
Winning Progressive:
The site looks good. I am working this afternoon but will take a serious look at it this evening.
Good idea, though.
:-)
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: Not at all. You’re entitled to believe any silly thing you care to.
*mwah*
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Come on man. “Moral authority”?
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: Shouldn’t that be “mwah-ha-ha-ha”? Or is it a new Internet abbreviation?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Don’t vote. Bitch up a storm. Enjoy life.
ruemara
@Jennifer:
I’m glad that where you are, Hallmark store will consider someone with 20 years of work experience-in another career-over a high school kid. Where I’ve been, I have pounded the pavement looking for a retail gig, any gig, to no avail. It took me 7 months of stalking a local bookstore, where I got to know most of the managers as a local and even then it was temporary, then another 5 months of stalking and hanging out, checking to see if they would hire again. Was it a small store? No. Did they have available positions? No. Why was this my only option? Because all the other interviews in my field went nowhere, the whole damn time. I spent over 2 years there, working for a tenth of my salary in 1999 and I was grateful. For someone who has lost damn near everything over the past 10 years, I’d appreciate it if you could cast your vote for a Democrat, no matter how stinky and not very liberal, because your choice affects national policy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: And yeah, moral authority. No one will stop you from expressing your opinion, but you could easily find that your opinion is more easily dismissed by others if they become aware that you thought voting was pointless.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus: The beauty, or ugly, of people who don’t vote, like Corner Stone, is that they can bitch about everything and everybody, free spirits of a sort.
Chad N Freude
It’s like a kid who doesn’t tell his parents what he wants for his birthday and then complains because he didn’t get it.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: I was smooching you.
Jennifer
@ruemara:
Um, I’m not really sure that I have an obligation to vote for a Republican who calls herself a Democrat who is going to lose whether I vote in the race or not because of a bad experience you had 10 years ago, and frankly, I think it’s a big presumptious of you to assume that I DO have that kind of an obligation. A vote for Blanche Lincoln isn’t going to change what happened to you 10 years ago; in fact, should she somehow manage to win with or without my vote, she would continue to vote for things that make what happened to you 10 years ago more likely to happen to you, or other people, again – just as her opponent will.
Corner Stone
I think, as usual, some here are confused. It is IMO that not voting has as much of a legitimate expression in modern politics as voting for one of the legacy parties, for the I or the Green or the None of The Above.
If others want to say that exercising your voice in the manner you choose is not legitimate then I think that’s a hard case to make.
Would you say voting for the Green is irresponsible? Bernie Sanders? Nader?
Or does only one of the two “approved” candidates make your voice legit?
Voting, or not, is one expression of being a citizen. There exist others.
Pretty narrow minded view of civic responsibility if you ask me.
But, meh.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: No, it’s like an adult citizen making a choice.
They don’t have their voicebox ripped out if they choose what others consider incorrect.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Meh. Edited to say “Meh”.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
No. We are not talking about the same failures. If a system produces the opportunity for boneheads to fuck it up without a correcting mechanism, then all systems in government will just degrade steadily into complete failure. Nothing can get corrected until there is failure and collapse.
I suggest that this is not a very efficient model. I don’t really think this is what the founders had in mind.
The boneheads are not going away. They are always with us. An effective system includes the boneheads but doesn’t let them degrade system performance unto failure.
Frank
@Corner Stone:
And we are done discussing. I don’t talk to people who with lack of argument resort to insults. Have a nice day!
Frank
@Omnes Omnibus:
And this is exactly it. I bet maybe as much as a majority of the dailykos users claim they are not going to vote. I guess as a protest. Well, this means that the influence of dailykos would lessen as well. Who would take that website seriously when they didn’t even bother to vote? Compare that to the tea baggers. They are being taken seriously because they are going to vote.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone:
Not necessarily. No. Probably. No.
Of course, there are other ways of being involved as a citizen. Voting, however, is, and always has been, one of the central ones. Why the hell did people fight so hard to get the right to vote if not for that? Permanent residents in the US have almost every right that citizens have with a few exceptions: voting, serving on a jury, running for office, serving as a commissioned officer in the military, serving in certain other government positions. So if people want to exercise their right not to exercise their rights, they can. I can also form an opinion about their civic mindedness based upon their actions.
General Stuck
This thread was educational.
Jennifer
Sorry, I don’t buy the moral authority argument myself, and I’m a pretty staunch voter who shows up at the polls every time they’re open.
Take my example – I’m not going to vote for the idiot Boozman, but he’s going to win. It will be his job to represent me and my interests, even though he won’t, because I’m a citizen of the state he represents. We have secret ballots, so it’s not up to him to try to determine whether or not I personally voted, or voted for him, if I need his representation on anything – that’s a duty of his office.
Corner Stone
@Frank: Good. Fuck off.
b-psycho
@Omnes Omnibus: The problem couldn’t be that they’ve concluded that “the system” just may be so deeply unjust & corrupt that it doesn’t deserve validation?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
This misses the point, IMO. People fought for what they were denied as equal citizens. It’s an equal rights argument, IMO.
ruemara
@Jennifer:
Happen to me 10 years ago? Lady, this is still going on now. Are you delusional? Do you think the jobs bill languishing in Senate wouldn’t be great if we had some democratic party unity in the current Senate? So voting for the republican will make that better. What’s the point, you think you don’t have a decent option & fuck those who directly experience what you claim to have never experienced. As stupid as Blanche Lincoln is, she’s not as batshit insane as the opposition. Whatever. You made your choice.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
BTW, glad to see that in your eyes I not only have to vote to be a valid citizen, but I must also vote in a manner you approve of to consider my good standing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jennifer: I was talking about moral authority in the context of a discussion. If a person tells me that they are disengaged from the process, that they think everyone sucks, and they have no interest in doing anything about it, I, or any other listener would have some justification for not taking seriously the person’s ideas for what should be done
@b-psycho: Well, to the barricades then.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: How the fuck do you get that from what I said? You asked whether I thought it was irresponsible to vote in certain way. I answered.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: If it doesn’t matter, why fight for it?
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus: It was a false rope of desperation to climb out of the clown pit he dug for himself today. He might as well keep digging to China.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I linked the two together. Not voting is irresponsible. Voting for Nader (or any stand in) is irresponsible.
Doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: If you weren’t able to sit at a counter and order, wouldn’t you fight for it? Even if you never wanted to actually sit there and eat at that counter?
It’s a basic equal rights thing to me. YMMV.
Bob Loblaw
@Frank:
Obligations to “your team” breeds as much complacency as not voting altogether.
There’s absolutely room for tactical non-voting, assuming you have enough people in on the tactic.
If labor, or Hispanic advocates, or whoever want to destroy a career or two to make a point every now and again, take the two years of opposition in the district and come back firing, they should certainly be free to do so. In fact, it’s a strategy that should probably be pursued with greater frequency. In this country, voters are all too often loyal to party and not policy, even when the two are out of alignment.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I’d gladly suspend my right to vote, in exchange for getting to pick who gets to keep theirs.
Heh.
Not kidding.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: If that doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to you, you are a remarkably limber person. It was not what I said.
I think voting Republican is irresponsible. I think voting for Nader in certain states in 2000 was irresponsible. I think riding a motorcycle without a helmet is irresponsible. I think not polishing and otherwise taking care of your shoes is irresponsible. Doing any of these things doesn’t diminish your citizenship, but it may damage your reputation for good sense in my eyes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I would fight harder for the right to vote, so I would be in a better position to change the other things. It is also not a binary, either-or choice.
Corner Stone
@Frank:
Frank to D Rep: Buster, I am beyond the moon pissed at you!
D Rep: Thank you for letting me know Frank, I’ll try to do better. Have my actions caused you to maybe go and vote for the R Rep?
Frank: {GASP!} No! I…I could never vote R AGAIN.
D Rep: Oh? Then you’re staying home this election season? That’s patently Un-American!
Frank: NO! I’m still going to vote for you, no matter how you vote on the floor, the speeches you make, the interviews you give, or the positions you put me in. My vote is yours! Four Evah! But I expect you to listen to me whine once in a while!
D Rep: Sure thing Frank. Sure thing.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I always wore a helmet.
Had a Suzuki GSXR 750 for a couple years. Freaking awesome times on that bike. Sold it when I got married. I loved it when I had it, but sure don’t miss it now that I am a parent.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree. I also believe different people have different priorities. That’s what makes it all go round.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Well, at least you show sense about something.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re free to feel and believe anything you choose. Just as I am free to feel your argument has no weight or merit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I am glad you finally see it my way.
Jennifer
@ruemara:
I don’t know why you insist on making this personal.
I’m sorry for your troubles. I’ve had my own these past 10 years. Perhaps because I have the “good fortune” to live in a state where a recessionary-style economy is pretty much the norm, the current recession hasn’t been as sharply noticed. Whatever.
But you’re sitting here insisting that your economic circumstances are my fault if I don’t vote for Blanche Lincoln. Blanche Lincoln, who is the reason we didn’t get a public health insurance option. Blanche Lincoln, who is going to lose anyway.
I didn’t say I wasn’t going to vote. I said I’m not going to vote in this race. I am not going to reward Blanche Lincoln with my vote for having destroyed public option. I’m similarly not going to vote for her opponent, because he’s insane, though he’s going to win regardless of what I do. After he wins, he’s going to vote the way Blanche Lincoln herself voted a good bit of the time. Doesn’t matter. The Senate isn’t going to do anything for at least 2 years anyway, because people like Blanche Lincoln so often sided with the Republicans when the Democrats had a 59 seat majority that nothing got done, and now the voters are angry and they’re going to whittle that Democratic majority to make sure that nothing continues to get done.
But sure, it’s all my fault, because I’m not willing to say, “Thanks, Blanche, for killing public option – here’s my vote.” Sorry, but that’s just a childish interpretation.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I am nothing if not agreeable.
Ask anybody.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I’ll ask Stuck.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: May I ask your gender? Not that it matters.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@kth:
> since the ratio of teabaggers to firebaggers*
> is about 5 to 1
You are sadly backwards. The number and ratio of firebaggers to teabaggers is thrice greater than the ratio of teabaggers to balloonbaggers. Also, the angle of the dangle is inversely proportional to the heat of the meat.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@Chad N Freude:
I think his gender matters. Especially to him.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: Yes, I’m a beautiful full breasted female, about 5’10” and size 2. Long, luxurious flowing locks down to my ass.
Think Giselle Bundchen.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Anybody stupid enough to ask that idiot about anything deserves every thing they get.
Corner Stone
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: I was always told “mass of the ass”, but I guess we can be accommodationists here.
I mean, we give it up for every thing else, amirite?
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
Stick a fork in the cornerstone, he/she/it is pretty much done after this thread/
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: I am becoming adept at translating Cornorese. So you’re actually a forty-to-fifty-year-old male with a paunch and a developing bald spot. Got it.
buckyblue
But repubs don’t do silly, benign governance as if Grandpa Simpson was running the show. They do batship crazy stuff that makes people think, “We’ve gotta get these fuckers out of there.” They start yanking government checks to the old folks, when over half of them (the old folks) are living on that check alone because they’ve spent the entire rest of their paychecks during their earning years trying to keep their heads above water because stuff that should be reasonable, like seeing the doc., went through the roof. If this were the republicans of the ’70s or early ’80s, I might be worried. It’s the libertarian republican/teabag express, I’ll sit back and watch it implode and wait for the landslide in ’12.
Chad N Freude
@buckyblue: What makes you think that the Tea Party folks won’t vote against their own best interests? There’s considerable evidence that their perceptions are so skewed that they will.
Cain
@Jennifer:
Why not vote a third candidate? Don’t choose not to vote at all. At least vote green or some other.
Also, it’s Neal Peart’s lyrics, not Geddy. That guy just likes to watch baseball. ;)
cain
Cain
@fasteddie9318:
1) to win the culture war – abortion, terrorism, etc
2) pay less taxes, and to not spend your tax dollars on those Others.
cain
Jennifer
@Cain:
Well, good point. If we have a non-Libertarian, non-White Supremacist type running as a 3rd party candidate, I’ll go ahead and vote, even though it still won’t affect the ultimate outcome. If we have one of those types running, they’re keeping a very low profile.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: Not even close amigo. I’m spry, youthful and vigorous.
Leave my hair out of this.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: So which month were you on the cover of Men’s Health?
General Stuck
Just to mention that in the current times, that for purported liberals, voting is a zero sum proposition where not voting for the dem is a vote for the insane wingnut. There is no rationalization around this calculation in the real world we live in. NONE. And it is the same for writing in a vote, or voting for a third party like Nader etc….. It is your right to vote or not, but is the height of hypocrisy to condemn a converted republican that now votes democrat, nor bashing someone because of independent registration. Don’t try and bullshit your way through that. And “nothing can be done” starts with fucking voting for the democrats.
We are in a political and ideological war for the heart and soul of our country, it is choosing sides time for voting, unlike any other in recent history. Everybody knows that. Except for nihilistic moran wankers, apparently
Davis X. Machina
@General: You write, deity bless you, as though politics wasn’t primarily a form of self-expression, or social signaling through choice of consumer goods.
I want to live in your country. Instead I’m stuck in one where Marketing is a college major.
Send immigration info stat.
General Stuck
@Davis X. Machina:
Hop in your spaceship, blast off and take a right at the moon. Third galaxy on the left. :-)
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: While you get to wank on as some ersatz enforcer on this blog, you do not get to tell other people how to express themselves. Either in normal times or politically.
But good on ya for trying it on, you fucking wanker.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: Playgirl, amigo. Cover of Playgirl.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: I don’t have to enforce anything, you enforced yourself today as the lying hypocrite I always knew you were. It is you that has been enforcing, or trying to, with your liberal brand bullshit and bashing and smearing those you thought didn’t measure up to that phony bar of being a good democrat, beginning with the fact our blog owner once was a republican.
“Nothing can be done” my ass, coming from some twerp that doesn’t even bother to vote./ You can still spread your bile on this blog, but I will be there to shove it back down your Texas pie hole.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: As usual, you have your head up your ass.
Please show me anywhere I have said I do not vote, or did not vote, or will not vote.
Find it you fucking jackhole. You can’t.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: Okay, who did you vote for in 08 for president in the general election? I asked you earlier and you didn’t give a serious answer. So out with it. or stfu.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Hills. It’s always been for Hills.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: Hills wasn’t on the ballot, so you wrote it in?
Corner Stone
Hillary! I loves you baby! Never leaves me punkin!
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: Write in votes don’t count for candidates that do not file as a write in candidate in the state of Texas. And Hillary did not. so you didn’t vote.
Corner Stone
Hills!!
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: clown!!!
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: I’m still waiting for you to show how all those really mean things you said about me are true.
Go ahead. Show us all how what you claimed is true. Good luck you old honky.
General Stuck
Nothing more need be said.
Nick
@Jennifer:
Jennifer, if I held out my vote for every politician who killed something I supported, I’d never vote.
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
Exactamundo. Compare with 1932 Germany: “Oh, even if the National Soshulists do control the Reichstag, there’s nothing much they do except waste time…”
BZZZT! WRONG!
They can shut the government down. In the middle of a global financial meltdown, that’s lethal. That’s like stepping on the breathing tube of a patient who’s on a ventilator.
Your party walks out of the legislature and shuts it down a few times and after a while, it becomes clear to everyone that nothing’s going to happen. The whole government is just deadlocked. So then what?
As things get worse and the population gets desperate, the party that makes sure there’s gridlock comes up with a magical solution. “We need special powers,” they say, “unusual powers. For the duration of the emergency.”
Bingo. End of democracy.
The drunk-driving C student got halfway there during the last 8 years. Unusual powers to deal with the emergency — arresting people without charges, torturing ’em without a trial, assassinating people in foreign countries we haven’t declared war on using umanned drones.
When the Repubs shut down government this fall and everything gets gridlocked, they’ll demand new and more extreme powers “for the duration of the emergency.” And what will those power be?
Three guesses.
One kristallnacht coming up. They’ll go after the Muslems first, then it’s the rest of us…
Carol
But Special Powers “assuming that there’s a legal way” goes through the executive. And that’s the last thing they want to give to Obama: he just might ram through a few things that are very popular if he no longer had to deal with obstructionist Republicans (His Dems will support him). Impeachment is impossible without Democratic support, so then wha?
mclaren
@Carol:
It ain’t necessarily so.
Lots of minions today have got amazing unconstitutional powers. Customs officials, for example, can deny you entry into the United States. Even if you’re a U.S. citizen. Then what? Talk about power!
There are currently a couple of U.S. citizens who’ve been denied entry into the U.S. while abroad. They’re now effectively stateless persons. Their lives are over.
Then there’s the power of the TSA goon. You twitch wrong and you get beaten, tased, handcuffed, hauled into a special jail cell. You may be killed. And there’s no accountability. They can beat you death like little Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange while singing “Singin’ In the Rain” and there will never be any charges.
Then there are the muggers with badges, formerly known as cops. They can beat you, tase you, kill you, for no reason…and no charges. No accountability.
Anyone who wears a badge today is pretty much Sauron. You twitch wrong, you die, and they get away scot free.
And if you want to talk about real power, how about the guy at the window of the DMV. You don’t have all your papers in order? No picture ID for you. And without picture ID, no life. You can’t get on a bus, you can’t board a train, you can’t fly on a plane, you can’t drive a car, you can’t open a bank account, you can’t go into any government office or government building.
The “special powers” have already been granted to every minor thug with a badge, and they’re going berserk beating and tasing people right and left. It’s all about control. Like the comandant who got his kicks shooting Jews in the concentration camp in the movie Schindler’s List. He did it just to show the prisoners how helpless they were. That’s the attitude of the average cop toward the average person on the street. They sit in a squad car and one of ’em say to another, “Those punk-ass bitches walking down tghe street aren’t scared enough of us yet.” And the other cop says, “Yeah, let’s kill one.” So they get out of the car and demand to see somebody’s ID and he twitches wrong and they beat and tase him to death. And it’s all legal. No accountability. “The investigation has concluded that the use of force was appropriate under the circumstances.”
As for purported problems with Obama wielding special powers… See, this is something Democrats don’t get. Republicans cleverly deduce that the typical liberal will not grotesquely abuse special powers granted to the president. He won’t, like, you know, order innocent people tortured to death. And they’re right. Obama wouldn’t do that.
But a Republican president? No qualms. The drunk-driving C student probably ordered prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib just so he could jerk off to the torture tapes. That’s where all the missing CIA torture tapes are. Dubya has ’em and he pops one in the VCR when he wants to get down and dirty with Laura.
Granting special unconstitutional powers to the president is one of the Catch-22s Repubs enjoy. They know liberals have a conscience and won’t use ’em, so only Repub presidents will. It’s the same kind of Catch-22 as Repubs wrecking the economy. They know they can do it with impunity because the Democratic president will always come in and clean up afterwards. Then when the economy is in decent shape again, the Repubs can take over and wreck it again and give away trillions to their cronies and trash the country and they can do it without a worry in the world, because Republicans are irresponsible and don’t give a shit…Democrats are the ones who act responsibly, so they’re always the ones who feel compelled to fix the chaos the Republicans create. This enables the Republicans to create more chaos, more theft, more insane unwinnable wars, more bribery, more torture, more mass murder of peasants in third world countries.