Will they never learn?
Jan. 20th, 2010 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumAre they bloody daft? The real thing in Mass. was healthcare, and Obama (with Reid and Pelosi's help) giving the store to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
As they built the bill, the Republicans want it to pass, because the dog's breakfast they've created will please no one. Add that they are wimps when in... the minority, and allow the republicans to be bullies (when the Dems have the majority) and the results are a disaster.
Look at the polling: the US is a center left country (this is when you poll on issues, divorced of party), and the Republicans are a kleptocratic bunch of very right wing types and we are headed for failed state status.
Bowing to the Fox News agitprop wing of the Republican Party will only serve to more fully marginilize them. They need to grow some gonads and make a real difference beteween the parties.
I've seen things where the message the party is taking from this is, "We are too left, we have to move more 'to the center.'" Bullshit. The lesson to take from this is that when one's constituency is pissed off they vote for someone else, and situationally in the US there is only one other party to vote for. Becoming more like that party isn't going to make your constinuency happier with you, and gormless examples of spineless pandering isn't going to win votes from the other side.
That comes across as nothing more than a craven desire to suck on the public teat.
If they want to keep the votes of the people who aren't Republicans... they have to stop acting like Republicans.
As they built the bill, the Republicans want it to pass, because the dog's breakfast they've created will please no one. Add that they are wimps when in... the minority, and allow the republicans to be bullies (when the Dems have the majority) and the results are a disaster.
Look at the polling: the US is a center left country (this is when you poll on issues, divorced of party), and the Republicans are a kleptocratic bunch of very right wing types and we are headed for failed state status.
Bowing to the Fox News agitprop wing of the Republican Party will only serve to more fully marginilize them. They need to grow some gonads and make a real difference beteween the parties.
I've seen things where the message the party is taking from this is, "We are too left, we have to move more 'to the center.'" Bullshit. The lesson to take from this is that when one's constituency is pissed off they vote for someone else, and situationally in the US there is only one other party to vote for. Becoming more like that party isn't going to make your constinuency happier with you, and gormless examples of spineless pandering isn't going to win votes from the other side.
That comes across as nothing more than a craven desire to suck on the public teat.
If they want to keep the votes of the people who aren't Republicans... they have to stop acting like Republicans.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 04:30 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how far it would go towards solving our problems, but I do second your idea of firing the non-elected leaders of the Democratic party, for starters. And a fair number of the elected ones as well, though the Voters would have to take care of that. For all the talk about democratic/grassroots Primary elections, the shadowy Party Bosses seem to pretty much determine who's going to get the backing & financing that will give an aspirant a chance to win. And for some years that backing has been given to candidates who were & are to the right of the traditional Democratic Party Center -- and possibly somewhat to the right of the national political center.
I was born during the Coolidge Administration, with FDR being the first President I can remember, and from my point of view the past three decades have seen the Democratic Party come to occupy the place on the political spectrum that used to be filled with the center-left wing of the Republican Party. In a two-Party system like ours, I think having (in practical effect) nothing but two Conservative Parties is likely to be disastrous. But I don't know what, if anything, can be done about this with any reasonable probability of success.