I hate myself for thinking this, let alone writing it, but after Obama wins reelection this November, I want to start reading more conservative stuff so I can try to see where they’re coming from. Because we are going to have to deal with them long after we become the de facto majority party. I try a little on twitter now and the signal-to-noise ratio is low, but props to these two NROers.
@rameshponnuru I disagree with your Tweet, but I think we could resolve this difference by cutting taxes.
— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) September 7, 2012
arguingwithsignposts
Yep. Just ask Gen. Sherman.
Richard
Prediction- at least one “fact” checker with invoke birtherism in analyzing Obama’s speech, you know, just for the sake of “balance”.
Smiling Mortician
Ponnuru is right and Geraghty is funny? What the hell happened? I’m a little frightened.
Violet
@arguingwithsignposts: My family member said that Obama was throwing down the gauntlet. Telling the American people, “Give me a mandate. I’m done trying to work with those motherfuckers in the GOP. Give me a fucking mandate so we can get shit done.”
General Sherman.
PeakVT
I want to start reading more conservative stuff so I can try to see where they’re coming from.
For FSM’s sake, why? I’ll tell where you they are coming from: the dark heart of the human Id. If you want to figure something out, try taking on swing voters or non-voters. That would be useful.
arguingwithsignposts
@PeakVT:
I was thinking another dark place, but lower on the human body, and facing backwards.
Hunter Gathers
That’s easy, and doesn’t involve delving into the fever swamps.
Just visualize yourself having a tiny dick.
If you do that, you will understand the conservative movement.
Spaghetti Lee
On day 2,534 of the experiment, the subjects began to exhibit self-consciousness, previously only found in higher life-forms.
SatanicPanic
The only reason to know where they’re coming from is so you buy them a bus ticket back.
Jess
That’s what brought me to this blog back during W’s first term; it was one of the few places where actual discussions across the aisle could take place. But then Cole went and converted on us. And Sullivan became an Obot. Are there any reasonable conservatives left? All snark aside, it does seem to be an oxymoron these days…
mb
@DougJ: Just say no.
Comrade Luke
Reposting from another thread. Apparently this is Anthony, from Opie & Anthony.
I really want this to be a blowout. I’m so tired of them. All of them.
arguingwithsignposts
Um, because asshats like you are too stupid for reality?
GregB
Running Ramesh Ponnuru through the anagram generator was a bounty.
I like: A Sperm Hour Nun and Puma Reruns Hon
The Other Bob
I would love to be challenged by some good arguments from the right. I just have not found any sane conservatives writting anything anymore. So much of conservatism has been discredited or is just raving mad, there is knowhere to go.
Yutsano
Remember folks: they read these assholes so we don’t have to.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Comrade Luke:
To reiterate: What is best in life? To crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
THAT’s what I’d like to see in this election.
Schlemizel
Yeah I have a rabid weasel trapped in the barn – hope to understand it so I can deal with it.
You aren’t going to until the disease is cured. Eventually their fever will break but till then they are just rabid weasels.
SatanicPanic
@Comrade Luke: That’s fucking stupid. Why are the polls so close if Obama is so bad? I hate radio.
penpen
That rarest of beasts, Republican self-deprecating humor, spotted in the wild.
Anya
DougJ, don’t you have a wingnut relative you can observe?
DPS
We know where they’re coming from. Greed, hate, and fear. Everything else is window dressing.
MattR
@SatanicPanic:
Coincidentally, hate radio is one of the main reasons the polls are so close.
@arguingwithsignposts: I swear I had not seen your comment when I replied on the other thread with “Wish I tweeted so I could respond with “If you haven’t realized that many Americans are dumb and misinformed, you’re part of that group”“
PeakVT
To be slightly less dismissive, there just not much point to figuring out where most conservatives are coming from because they’re not amenable to rational arguments. There are conservatives who are like Cole – intelligent and willing to adapt to new data in other contexts – that might be persuadable. But the model for them is I think is already clear: pound them with facts until they relent.
SatanicPanic
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: We have them on the run. Compare the conventions- the mopey, sad sack Republicans vs the ass-kicking Democrats. We may not be in the place we were in 2008, but I’ve never been prouder to be a Democrat than I am right now.
spiffy
@Comrade Luke:
This stain on society and his radio partner are/were Breitbart fans and had him on their show all the time. That’s all you need to know about where his mind is.
Dave
Really hard to know where conservatives are coming from because they only ever think they’re talking to rubes. They’re coming from rubesville. They only hang out in rubesville. Even when they concede that Obama made a good point, it’s for cred they can spend later on rubes.
Anne Laurie
@Schlemizel:
Weasel Defamation Society on line one.
Friends to the Hydrophobic Society on line two…
Turgidson
Looking at the Tory douche’s recap posts, the utterly, tiredly inevitable “meh, I’m sooo over Obama’s speeches now. His earlier albums were better” reactions are rolling in. Some are even saying Biden’s speech was better. I like Joe and liked his speech, but give me a fucking break.
Fuck off, wannabe hipster pundit dipshits. He wasn’t talking to you, you fucking twits. He gave the speech the occasion called for and nailed it as usual.
But they had to try to find something to say that didn’t acknowledge that the Democratic convention killed the GOP convention 3 times before it hit the ground and then burned the corpse. It was obvious to anyone with an IQ above room temperature and a soul. But that rules most of those smug douchebags out.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Just ask Cole. He delivered a tour de force blog entry (blentry?) maybe a year or so back regarding the wingnut mindset from the vantage point of one who’d been in the tribe and spoke with its denizens. Upshot: Yes, they hate us because we champion those who’ve had one hand tied behind their back. Yes, they hate us because of our compassion. Yes, they hate us because we embrace those who are different, foreign even. Yes, they hate us because we clutter our minds with book learning’. Yes, they hate us because sometimes we stop to wonder if we should ask questions before we shoot.
Of course I’m paraphrasing. Poorly. ‘Twas a thing of beauty, that blentry.
jwb
@MattR: Or the polls are oversampling white people. I think Obama’s doing at least 5 points better than the headline polls are showing, and all you have to do is look at how the media are covering the race and, even more, how the Obama and Romney campaigns are acting to see that this race is not close to being tied. Yes, there’s still the SuperPac money and all the ad time that it can buy, so I’m not taking anything for granted, but this race is simply not where the polls are showing it to be.
Anya
I am going to bed. Literally.
Good night everyone.
suzanne
You want to know where they’re coming from?!?! They’re coming from IGOTMINEFUCKYOUISTAN.
It really is that simple.
Xantar
@Hunter Gathers:
As a solid Obot with a tiny dick, I resent your remark.
Suffern Ace
@Turgidson: They want this to be his tank helmet moment. I wonder if they’ll up the volume so you can hear him breathe and claim there was a loud sigh.
MattR
@jwb: That sounds eerily close to what I keep telling my aunt.
If you go to places that remove the media filter and are more concerned with accurately predicting results, the numbers show Obama with a sizeable advantage. Intrade has Obama at 58% while at sportsbook.com the odds of an Obama victory have jumped from -165 (~62.3% chance of winning) to -200 (~66.7% chance of winning during the course of the Democratic Convention. (EDIT: IOW, the free market doesn’t like Romney’s chances)
DougJ
@Anya:
Nope.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Xantar: Bro’ representin’!
Spaghetti Lee
@Turgidson:
Yeah, that particular reaction is so odd that I can only think they were going to push it no matter what. If you don’t agree with what he has to say, then whatever. But I’ve seen some pundit tweets about how banal and dull it was. Really? In what way?
At risk of sounding too much like DougJ, some pundits have a mindset where they’re so cynical about politics, the only thing they like is a floundering politician they can cluck their tongues at and be smug about and smugly muse about how they should have listened to the pundits. Obama came out and said “Fuck you, I’m still going strong, I still believe in this country, this is important and we’re gonna win.” He didn’t give them a chokejob to play with and bat around, and now they’re all grumpy and dyspeptic. It was a great fucking speech. Who effin’ cares what pampered Beltway assholes say.
Spaghetti Lee
@jwb:
Sometimes I think that’s true, and sometimes I’m seized with a fear that this is a lead-in to the mother of all con jobs, that the GOP is going to suppress and block enough votes to pull it out, and the media is keeping the polls close because everyone would smell something rotten if Obama was up by 10 going into election day and then lost. Probably not logical, but it’s on my mind.
JustAnotherBob
@Violet:
“Give me a mandate. I’m done trying to work with those motherfuckers in the GOP. Give me a fucking mandate so we can get shit done.”
I’ll vote for that.
Turgidson
@Spaghetti Lee:
Agreed. A big tell is that they’re all conjuring different little micro criticisms. It didn’t soar. It didn’t make the case for a 2nd term. It didn’t give enough policy detail. He was too defensive. He didn’t defend his record enough.
All contradictory and all bullshit and/or missing the point.
If the speech was an obvious dud, or made a huge mistake or omission, the critiques would mostly be calling out the same thing(s). The fact that they’re all over the map shows they’re reaching, and were going to do whatever they had to to find fault. Eh, let them. Like I said, Obama wasn’t talking to them anyway.
1badbaba3
You want to understand them? Get one of those John Henry hammer thingys and have someone smash it into your head until you are in a coma.
Okay, now you’re ready. Enjoy.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Spaghetti Lee: Consider that of the worst of the recent round of voter suppression laws, Pennsylvania’s seems to be the one case not currently having been stayed or such, and yet just today (yesterday, in the easterlier time zones) it along with Michigan has had its ad buys pulled by Romney and various rightie PACs. All those efforts to load the dice, and still (for the time being, at least), it’s not considered a decent investment by the dice loaders.
max
@arguingwithsignposts: “Just ask Gen. Sherman.”
Heh. Did you not like that? Darn.
I want to start reading more conservative stuff so I can try to see where they’re coming from.
Read the WaPo ed page for the ‘reasonable’ line, you can read AmCon for the conservatives from the same planet line and beyond that I cannot help you. You could have spent thirty years being saturated in the stuff because you just cannot get away from it… but it isn’t worth the trouble. I know this from personal experience, regardless of my Sherman-quotin’ ways.
Can’t find the link, but I noticed a story in the Dallas Observer about three weeks ago – two Aryan Nations guy broke into this other white guy’s house and spent six hours beating him to death. For claiming to be an Aryan nations member. Lot of that kind of thing going around, now that I mention it. Swastika tattoos have been making a comeback for a decade.
max
[‘Perhaps that helps some.’]
jwb
@Spaghetti Lee: That scenario has occurred to me as well—though my fear runs more toward straight vote rigging than suppression. On the other hand, the Obama campaign is not acting like they are overly concerned about vote rigging (as opposed to suppression), and I have to figure if anyone would be in a position to know which was the greater threat it would be the campaign.
cbear
That’s nice, I think you’re gonna need one of these.
You might also want to invest in really big fucking shovel.
Hill Dweller
@Spaghetti Lee: As I was saying on the other thread, Obama’s given more great speeches than any politician I’ve ever seen. He can roll out of bed and give a better speech than almost anyone on the planet. The tone and substance was a choice. They obviously didn’t want soaring rhetoric.
The suggestion that this was a mistake and/or an inability to deliver/write a good speech is comical.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@cbear: A barrel of methylene?
Drugs are bad, m’kay?
Thor Heyerdahl
@Turgidson:
I instinctively read the room temperature in Celsius, which makes it even funnier.
Steve
DougJ, I hate to say this, but David Brooks made the exact same point a week or two ago. Something about how both sides love to dream that the other party will somehow cease to exist, but to govern you have to accept that that won’t ever happen.
Shawn in ShowMe
To see where who is coming from? Ann Coulter? New Gingrich? Ralph Reed? I think it’s pretty well documented where they’re coming from.
GregB
My brother got into with a wingnut co-worker who tried to the top the debate with a line about how he was “tired of fighting and protecting America so socialists like my brother could support people like Obama” who tear down America.
My brother, who served in the Coast Guard pointed out that said wingnut never served in the military.
They live in a fantasy world where they are all mountain climbing, marathon running wolverines.
Suffern Ace
@Hill Dweller: I think they’ll gel around the idea that he doesn’t really want to be president any more. Explaing the supposedly poor performance.
Turgidson
@jwb:
The fact that one of their prominent campaign gurus (maybe Burton) was just recently bragging about how awesome the ground game will be this time gave me a sense of relief. It’s not really their style to be outwardly cocky, so I think they must be feeling pretty good about where they’re at right now.
As is Team Obama’s way, they probably studied up on these bullshit voter ID laws and have been working quietly and methodically to make sure they neutralize them as much as possible down the home stretch via outreach and education, etc.
RadioOne
If Obama wins re-election,I expect, not predict, that GOP tactics and policy are going to be 10 times more right wing then where we are right now. After four long years of trying to figure out where the fuck they’re coming from,I’m opting out after this election.
jl
@Hill Dweller:
Absolutely agree. The way they varied the tone of the big speeches was great, and the discipline and skill of the execution was impressive.
Was going to listen to some talking heads, but somehow I ended up skipping through best parts of C C B and O speeches. Really great sense of emotional rhythm, and played up strengths of each speaker.
Other speeches not really a part of that emotional arc. Not sure how it would play to most voters, but I loved the Granholm speech. I don’t care if it was over the top. When I think about the jackasses she had to deal with while her state was melting down, I said “Yeah, you tell ’em. Shove it down their throats and then kick it back up their asses till it hurts, lady.”
Mnemosyne
@Hill Dweller:
Obama’s speech was the verbal equivalent of this iconic poster.
Don’t be surprised to see the campaign roll out something with a similar message in the next few days.
Turgidson
@Suffern Ace:
He hit the mic with his hand a couple times when he made hand gestures. Maybe that will be the scandal du jour tomorrow.
(ah hell, it very well may be. our failed media experiment is that pathetic)
Cain
@Jess:
BY all rights, I’m probably a classic conservative.
jl
@Steve: I think Brooks is wrong. The GOP was not always the way it is now. If the GOP does not change back to its more savory past soon, it also won’t always be like it is now either, unless they can suppres so many votes they can steal all elections forever more. Because otherwise the GOP won’t be a major party much longer.
jwb
@MattR: I find Nate Silver’s model more convincing than the markets, but that’s neither here nor there. I see that the Iowa markets have Obama’s lead in the vote share at about 6%, which is about exactly where my gut has it as well. Oddly, Mittwit seems to have received a bounce in the VS market from his convention. Mittwit’s support in the WTA market on the other hand seems to be collapsing and did so right through the convention.
Chris
Don’t do it. I thought the same thing after the 2008 election and read or skimmed PJMedia daily for about a year or two. The level of hatred and ignorance, and the lengths they’re willing to go to to go on exercising them no matter the facts, is fucking breathtaking (the worst of it never comes from the authors, always from the comments sections) and seriously not good for your ability to keep your faith in the human race. The MSM does just fine at giving you the conservative viewpoint, no need to go for the full unfiltered dosage.
Chris
@Hunter Gathers:
AHAHAHAHA…
… and the worst part is, it’s SO true.
Mandalay
@jwb:
I think it is more that the media are not analyzing the relevant poll data. They love to discuss how close the race is because some likely voter poll shows support for Obama and Romney to be almost identical.
But you don’t see much discussion of the likely victor on a state by state basis, which is what really matters. Because that would show Obama pounding Romney, but pointing that out would decrease viewer interest, so the media pretends it is anyone’s race.
Princeton Election Consortium has this to say:
jl
I been listening to new Biden and Obama stump speeches as they have come out over last few months. Interesting how the two swapped, and mixed and matched some of their favorite stump speech lines. They repeated just what they wanted to to get it across to voters, and maybe ram some arguments and facts into the media celebs, mostly on economics.
Foreign policy got less attention, so key points allocated across speeches with less repetition.
The Obama introduction to foreign policy is an interesting mash-up of Biden and Obama stump schtick.
Edit: In other words, a fricken Wagnerian work of political speechifying art, with Leitmotifs and all that kina shit.
Dennis SGMM
@GregB:
And millionaires if it wasn’t for the gubmint keeping ’em down. If they could just whip out that Makita cordless and drill for the oil under their backyard they, too, would have an elevator for their cars.
GregB
@Mandalay:
But, but the Million Chick-Fil-A March proved Obama is toast!
Turgidson
@jl:
Yeah. It’s not like political parties in this country haven’t died or radically changed before. It hasn’t happened in a while, but that doesn’t mean it can’t.
The GOP can’t go on like this forever, can they? They drum another constituency out of the tent almost every week and only get more ignorant and hateful. I know peak wingnut has proven to be a lie so far, but there has to be a bottom somewhere. There just has to.
Or, at least, there has to hit a point where they really are just a regional, rural rump that can’t win a national election or congressional majority anymore, no matter how much hate and propaganda they throw against the wall. 2010 really dimmed my hope that we’re anywhere near that point, but it has to exist somewhere.
trollhattan
They’re coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!
Get out, nao.
Matt B
@Mandalay:
Also, how many polls at this point include the Libertarian candidate in their questions?
(And I don’t think Nader’s on the ballot to screw thing up for us this year.)
Chris
@PeakVT:
… that, and let the utter depravity of their own party drive them away.
Matt B
@Mandalay:
Sam Wang’s polling methodology didn’t do very well in 2004, as I recall.
But Nate Silver is saying similar things, so I’m feeling pretty optimistic.
Thor Heyerdahl
Missed Granholm’s speech earlier. Damn! did she bring it and pound the Republicans over and over just like Joey Kocur did to opponents back in the day with the Red Wings.
MattR
@jwb: It’s like you’re in my head tonight ;) I was gonna mention Nate but decided not to because I don’t think he would be that helpful in convincing the skeptical. I have a feeling that they would trust the money of the markets over Nate’s math.
@Mandalay: That is the other part of the conversation I keep having with my aunt. Because of the Electoral College we are not really running a national election, but rather 50 simultaneous statewide elections. It is the results of those that matter and not any national numbers. (Though a larger popular vote margin does give more ammo for the “mandate” argument)
jl
@trollhattan:
And @DougJ
“…start reading more conservative stuff so I can try to see where they’re coming from. ”
I guess a person could learn something reading John Adams, and John Marshall, John Jay, Daniel Webster and Henry Clay and whoever else comes to mind.
What those guys have to do with the loons and radical reactionaries and corporate flunkies who call themselves conservative these days, I do not know.
MattR
@Matt B: I find myself shocked to say this but “You go Virgil Goods”. Hopefully his being on the ticket in VA will give Obama a little extra cushion there.
@Matt B: It seems like there is a consensus among all the different (non-MSM) models, markets, etc that Obama is a significant favorite at this point. But I just can’t allow myself to get too giddy before my pessimistic side reels me in.
Arclite
That’s pretty funny. Who says Conservatives can’t be funny?
Yutsano
@Thor Heyerdahl: Well she can’t be our President because of our natural-born restriction, but I have zero objection to her becoming the first female Prime Minister. :)
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Meh. I see them with that exchange trying to satirize us as much as The Onion is satirizing them with this nice little entry.
? Martin
I don’t think you can read anything formal online to understand Republicans. Most everything is going to be too strong advocacy. You really need to listen to moderates. They at least won’t drown you in wingnut, and you’ll likely find a few areas of common ground to build off of.
Dennis SGMM
My expectation, from paying attention to every election since 1964, is that Obama will get a solid majority in the Electoral College and a 2 to 4 point (Max) win in the popular vote.
House Republicans, who will still be in the majority, will declare that he has no mandate. Senate Republicans, who will have a narrow majority, will collude with the House to stop any legislation that might do any good. The Dems will fight rearguard actions using the filibuster and other parliamentary tactics.
The result will be four more years of Congressional gridlock.
Chris
@jl:
When the GOP was better, the Democratic Party was worse. Whatever name and party affiliation it goes by, there’s an enormously powerful reactionary element in this country. It can be overruled issue by issue, it can even be suppressed temporarily for a certain period of time, but so far it’s always managed to reemerge.
jl
@Thor Heyerdahl:
Damn you, I need to go to sleep and you got me to listen to it again.
I think a lot of the passion, and some of the intense and impassioned stuff out of the pols at this convention is because it is personal with them. They have been seriously pissed for four years, and probably on instructions, explicit or implicit, to keep cool from WH, been simmering and stewing all this time. Now time to let it out.
Barney Frank let it out in an interview: Bush effed up, asked us for help, and we gave it. And look at their crap since Obama came in.
And how would Granholm be remembered today if there had been no auto bail out? Miserable disgraced governor who oversaw the probable total destruction of a major US industrial city (it is bad enough as it is) and demotion of a major state to God knows what. Can you blame her for going over the top. And it sure worked for the crowd, people were in tears one second and cheering the next.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Yutsano: Actually second. Kim Campbell was the first but only took over party leadership and never won a federal election as leader.
Unless you meant the first US Prime Minister :)
Chris
@Mandalay:
That, and I think in the last thirty years the media institutionally has bought into the notion of Republican Advantage Always (or as they call it, “the center right nation”) and simply can’t believe that things may be changing.
Krugman points out in “Conscience of a Liberal” that the Democratic wave of 2006 was predicted by the polls long before election day but still caught tons of pundits completely by surprise.
JustAnotherBob
@Chris: @Chris:
” there’s an enormously powerful reactionary element in this country”
White males are declining in relative numbers, whites are declining. Will the reactionaries be replenished from the ranks of African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics?
Or do the angry old white farts just get more and more marginalized?
Thor Heyerdahl
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
The Onion’s piece on Biden is hilarious too
jl
@Thor Heyerdahl:
Both were funny, but the pic for the Onion Obama piece was hilarious.
Chris
@jl:
That’s been one of the most disgusting things in the last four years; compare the Democrats’ rally-around-the-flag/President effect after 9/11 (which went way farther than it should have to the point of giving him all those Iraq votes) with the Republicans’ I-hope-he-fails point-blank refusal to work with him on anything after the financial crisis, and it’s hard to miss who cares more about party than country.
MikeJ
@jwb: Ladbrokes has Obama at 4/11, (i.e., bet 11£ and a win gets you your 11£ + 4£.)
I’ve never trusted intrade or the Iowa markets. Too small, too easily gamed. Ladbrokes is betting their own money against you. Well minus what they can lay off on the other side, but they’re having to give 2/1[1] on Romney to get any action.
[1] 10$ bet gets your 10$ back plus 20$ more.
GregB
The foundation for a Mitt Romney win was under Ohio. He blew that up with his let the auto industry go bankrupt foolery.
States the media are claiming to be battlegrounds are far from it.
They have been calling Michigan and Penn. battlegrounds and they won’t be.
Silver has NH at over 80% chance in Obama’s column.
Romney will need to run the tables but he’s shown no ability to do that whatsoever.
Also, look at Silver’s chart and you’ll see a distinct Obama trend upward.
Much of the media wants a better horse race than the facts are showing.
Add to that the endless braying of the lunatic fringe—the very same people that were sure Palin was a big winner of a pick for McCain….
Karl Rove had THE MATH for a permanent Republican majority in 2006 by the way.
Redshift
@Thor Heyerdahl: I was lucky enough to see it in person, and the Granholm speech was amazing. If there weren’t subtitles on the jumbotron, I probably would have missed half of it because of the crowd roaring in response. “In Mitt Romney’s world, cars get the elevator, and workers get the shaft” was easily one of the best lines of the night.
? Martin
@JustAnotherBob: We’ve always shed layers of division on these things. Previous generations waged social wars between Catholics and Protestants and Italians and Irish and Germans. Those wars basically broke down and those groups integrated and they picked new targets.
When I visit my kids schools, probably half the kids have parents of mixed ethnicity or are same-sex couples. They’re not going to see black/asian/hispanic divisions because they’re all going to be bits of all of them, in the same way that many of us have Irish/German parents or Catholic/Protestant parents. So that’s going to fade away. Same with the religion and the sexual orientation. You can already see it – it’s a done deal – they’re just not old enough to vote and be polled on it yet.
My guess is that it’ll be replaced with an even more abstract division – it’ll be political affiliation. And I think we see that now. Democrats and Republicans are replacing all of those other divisions with hatred for each other. And yeah, it’s a both sides do it thing, see DougJs previous tweet. Nobody here holds back on Republicans.
That’s relatively new to see broadly in society. I don’t think you had that kind of political animosity just toward your neighbors in the past as you see now.
Chris
@JustAnotherBob:
I suspect they’ll replenish themselves by changing the definition of “whiteness,” just like their counterparts from yesteryear did. The Italians, the Jews, the Poles, even the Irish weren’t considered “white” a hundred years ago; a Ku Klux Klansman from the 1920s brought to the present day would have a fucking heart attack if he saw what passes for “Real American” among our conservatives.
But the definition of “white” and “Real American” changed, so the conservative base of today is something that would have been considered unacceptably multicultural less than a century ago. Eventually, the same thing will happen again.
(I’m not trying to be too negative: as I’ve said before, the current conservative base isn’t prepared to accept such a change yet, or in the immediate future. So in the short term at least, I think they are going to back themselves into a corner like you said, and I think we will be able to exploit that electorally, for a time, and use that opportunity to change the system for the better. I’m just saying that eventually, they’ll bounce back).
e.a.f.
don’t try understanding them. you never will. these people come from a different place. I don’t know what that place is but trust me it is different. The RNC, I hadn’t seen that many white people in one place since the 60s & I live in Canada.
I dont’ think republicans can be that bright. The U.S.A. has this huge deficiet & then they want to cut taxes? Like excuse me, but when my account is in overdraft I have to put money into the account to pay things off. Don’t the republicans get that. Oh, right they don’t want to personally pay it, they want people who have little money to pay for it. O.K. got that, but that doesn’t make sense either. If people with little money have to fork over what little money they have they won’t be able to pay for food & then you’ll be back in 1951 when children actually did starve to death in the south. O.K. that is most likely where the republicans come from. I dont’ think you want to be able to understand that at all.
The prophet Nostradumbass
OT: If you are on Twitter, and aren’t following George Takei, how come you aren’t?
irmaladuce
Kathryn Jean Lopez & Rod Dreher are the only conservatives you need to read. Their hand-wringing never fails to amuse.
Joseph Nobles
Polititroll strikes again!
Did Mitt Romney say “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”?
Half True.
karen marie
@JustAnotherBob:
When my friends who live in absolutely-solid states suggest they might not bother voting because Obama is going to win their state, I tell them it’s not enough for an Electoral College Victory, we need him to win the popular vote as well. That means All Hands On Deck.
Another Halocene Human
@Matt B: Nader, no, Jill Stein, yes, but just this week a guy with a Jill Stein button quickly let it be known that he wasn’t going to vote for her.
Even the biggest NDAA crybaby lefties HATE Romney. :DDDD
I have to say, I never expected this kind of massive incompetence out of the GOP.
karen marie
@jl: You express my reaction to Granholm’s speech perfectly.
hep kitty
I missed President’s speech last nite. Granny has to get to bed early. Gonna watch it later today. Anybody around this a.m. that saw it?
raven
@hep kitty: Yea, we are old but we stayed up for it. I think he rocked the house.
hep kitty
@raven: Mama gotta get up early in the morning. I can’t get up if I’ve slept past ten.
Good, I thought Clinton’s was so brilliant, I wondered how he could top that but I’m sure he did.
hep kitty
@Thor Heyerdahl: Freaking hilarious!
raven
@hep kitty: I’ve been up for an hour and I’m 63.
hep kitty
@raven: I take lots of prescrip drugs, it takes me a while to get going for work. If I don’t sit down with a cup of coffee and get my bearings, I will hurt myself or spill something, no joke. And yeh, need lots of sleep, at least 8 hours.
raven
@hep kitty: Sounds like my bride, I’ll get her up in 20 minutes and we’ll walk the dogs a couple of miles and gets java. By the time we get back she’ll be awake.
hep kitty
My ex used to practically eject out of the bed and land in his jeans and was out the door while I was still trying to get my eyes open, which I thought was quite an extraordinary feat.
Oh here comes Obama and I gotta get ready for work. damn.
I may have to be late
hep kitty
DNC convention, real emotion and tears from delegates
RNC convention, frozen, desperate smiles with dead eyes.
Aimai
This thread is so full of win. That is all.
hep kitty
@Aimai: Hey you didn’t sign your name for the first time!
aimai :)
Schlemizel
@Anne Laurie: THANKS! that made me smile – a lot!
Jamey
@Comrade Luke: reply to Anthony’s Tweet: Because people like you are so fucking stupid. #BabaBooey
Schlemizel
@Spaghetti Lee:
I have those same fears. I’m going to do everything I can to combat them just to prevent it from happening but that dark image is going to be with me until Nov 6
Schlemizel
@Matt B:
No but the Green party has a couple of women – sorry not gonna look up the names – running.
Got into a spitting contest on FB with a liberal friend who was pimping them because “Obama and Willard are so much alike”. It was frustrating because after listing causes she knows Obama has been & will be better on she still wouldn’t budge. After pointing out people said the same about Gore/Bush & look how that turned out she denied Nader had any impact on the outcome. Finally I said “Well, you just go ahead and maybe we can relive 2000 and have a second Bush Presidency” – she stopped responding & took down the thread
danielx
@Jess:
David Brooks is what passes for a reasonable conservative these days, and you know about how often he admits that the DFHs usually end up being right.
For the rest, try to find a pit full of rabid wolverines and spend a half hour or so observing them and assigning names – Rush, Newt, Sarah, Rick and so on.
presquevu
For me, the simplest explanation of their point of view is this:
Anything that makes employees uncomfortable = good. What they really want to strike from the ACA is portability of health insurance when changing employers. Employee stress = motivation to keep their jobs. If your means of support comes from owning, rather than doing, cost of labor is a zero sum game.
brantl
@SatanicPanic:
FTW!
Where these people are coming from is an impatient 7 year old’s attitude toward removing a problem. “I said this would fix it, now get rid of that problem, by doing what I said, without significant thought as to whether it would solve the problem, or what the side-affects would be!”
Engker (ex-pinhead governor of Michigan went on Nightline some years ago, and said that X% of people were off welfare. Koppel asked him where they went (you know, in case they were stealing cars and knocking off banks, you know?), and Engler said,”Who cares?”, this is the Republican party to a T.
J.D. Rhoades
@Comrade Luke:
ISTR that was the complaint Hillary Clinton was bleating back in the 2008 primary. “Why can’t he close the deal?” And we know how that came out.
aimai
I need to stop signing my name because its bleeding over into my real life and I have to catch and erase it all the time.
@hep kitty:
But aside from that I find myself waking up drained and sad. The convention was great and I’m thrilled with the Dems for only the second time in my adult life. But I see that the lightest head fake with Simpson Bowles, which to me means simply that Obama knows he has to keep appearing “reasonable” about the deficit and SS until he is firmly back in power, is taken by Atrios and others to be complete capitulation to the destruction of SS. I can’t figure out why people have such a hard time understanding that we can’t get anything done unless we get back into power. Talking the most liberal game in the world won’t get us enough votes to get over the top so talk whatever talk will and then fight it out.
Must stop reading blogs.
aimai
Bruce S
The best way to “understand” where today’s remarkably insane “conservatives” are coming from is by reading the apostates from the hard-core movement right-wing like David Frum, Bruce Bartlett, even Sullivan. Unless you’re doing a master’s thesis in psychology, I don’t think it makes much sense to immerse oneself too deep in the bilge. First of all, it’s not conservatism any more, it’s a combination of radical rightists, the “cultural resentment”-driven, people who are quite simply ignorant and opportunistic shills for an increasingly socially unhinged economic elite. Increasingly they are simply immersed in appealing to the worst retrograde impulses – they’re not “conserving” anything and they don’t practice or even preach a coherent political philosophy. More than ever in my memory, the “conservative movement” is a near-total fraud.
cmorenc
@DougJ:
Does this mean you’re going to try to slog through “Atlas Shrugged”? Please tell us this doesn’t also mean you’re going to try to make a BJ reading club project of it.
JoyfulA
@Turgidson: A friend of mine in Pennsylvania got a phone call from a Democratic Party worker alerting her that her voter registration has a middle initial and her driver’s license doesn’t, so she’s reregistering to vote.
JasperL
@Bruce S:
Don’t forget that they’re authoritarians! John Dean did a series of articles on it, and it helped me more than anything understand what we’re dealing with.
I was trying to find a link when I came across the wiki entry with this passage (‘RWA’= right wing authoritarian):
That’s our right wing in a nutshell…
fasteddie9318
The guy who wrote Party of Death is now The Most Reasonable Republican in the World. There is no hope for understanding these people, sorry. They’re way too far gone.
McJulie
@Spaghetti Lee: I get paranoid like that sometimes. I worry they let Obama win in 2008 because they wanted him to take the fallout for the crash. And now they’re waffling, because they only want Romney to win if the economy is going to recover on its own and they haven’t been sure.
gex
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn: Here is that post
Bookmarked, so I can point out to relatives who are Republicans what former lifelong Republicans can actually see if they bother to look.
gex
@Turgidson: Now you know why they need their women to never use birth control and to keep the baby when raped. They have to make more hateful white conservative people because it’s easier to make them than to convert someone.
Chris
@JasperL:
Yeah. Thank God our leaders and the Russians’ were able to restrain the RWAs in both camps from starting a fucking nuclear war.
Xecky Gilchrist
I want to start reading more conservative stuff so I can try to see where they’re coming from.
These people lie even about what Reagan said and did. First sources are going to get you exactly nowhere, and present day stuff is just Annoy The Liberals By Any Means Necessary.
Ruckus
@Xantar:
See, the thing is you are not ashamed of the tiny dick you claim to have. Conservatives are ashamed. As well they should be. Look what having a tiny dick and being ashamed of it has gotten us.
Really the conservative mind set (as in concrete) is not hard to understand.
They are followers.
They are the cult members you always thought they were. People with money must be the leaders, why else would they have money. People on the TV must be leaders, why else would they be there. People who have huge glass cathedrals must be leaders, why else would they keep telling us that.
EasyPeasy.
TenguPhule
And use it to build conservative sized roach motels armed with flamethrowers.
What? I can’t be the only one that it came to mind to!
Haydnseek
@DougJ: You don’t know where they’re coming from? Since when? Don’t you read your own stuff?
Ruckus
@TenguPhule:
I believe that was already tried in yurp a few decades ago.
Not sure it was effective for those that tried it past the short term.
/snark.
PanurgeATL
@JustAnotherBob:
From what I can see, the answer is that they’ll open up membership in the Real Man’s Hippie-Bashing Crewcuts-Beer-and-Football Club to non-white men.
Raven on the Hill
Oh, the Democrats are already the conservative party, so you already are. If you want to know what the next generation of the opposition is thinking, try reading the younger progressives.