"Ready,gang!! Right-shift-go-along! On two!! Hut!! Hut!!
Hey Folks,
If this guy is right it's time to start buying guns.
We're headed to becoming a banana republic
where - just like in pre-Chavez Venezuela - the
few swells at the top ran everything.
The ONLY way his scenario can come about is
if - as some of my friends say - the Democrats
are TOTALLY part of the ruling class and
committed to serving the same people the
Republicans serve - with just a little more nuance.
The only way his scenario will be realized is if
Democrats will ignore all the issues millions of
people (whom the writer calls "pressure
groups") believe are important.
Just as in Venezuela, where a strong individual
has dared (or connived - I don't really know
which) to come to power promising to address
the needs of 80% of the people (rather than the
top 20%) the Dems could do that here. There
are a lot more of "us" than of "them," and if this
is a fricken democracy, it could work.
The ONLY way this guy's prediction can turn
out to be right is if the Dems - as I suspect
may be true - are more interested in serving
the minority that runs things than they are
in serving the vast majority of us.
This guy's column REALLY upsets me because
he's probably correct. But as far right as we've
already moved since Ronnie Reagan, that is
unacceptable.
The D's are going to have to join the nazi R's in
order to survive? Well, then, fuck the D's too.
I won't be surprised if they take this jerk's
advice, but it WON'T keep them in power.
Once there are only Republicans and
"Republicans" on the ballot, Republicans
will win.
- Uke Man
November 25, 2006
The Struggle Within
By THOMAS B. EDSALL
Washington
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Can the Democratic Party become fully
competitive? Is American liberalism dead,
the 2006 election a last twitch of life
before rigor mortis sets in? The answer to
both questions is yes. (More on this next week.)
For the Democratic Party to revive, major tenets
of American liberalism, economic and
sociocultural, will have to be discarded. The
party can join Studebaker and the Glass Bottle
Blowers union, it can trudge along as No. 2, or it
can undergo a painful transformation — without
guarantee of success.
To stay in the fight, Democratic leaders will
have to acknowledge political realities
affirmed by the electorate in 1994 and 2006.
Many Democratic constituencies — organized
labor, minority advocacy organizations,
reproductive- and sexual- rights proponents —
are reliving battles of a decade or more ago,
not the more subtle disputes of today. Public
sector unions, for example, at a time of wide
distrust of government, are consistently
pressing to enlarge the state. For these
players, adapting to a re-emergent center
will be costly.
Democrats won on Nov. 7 by carrying a 59
percent majority of independent, moderate
voters angered by the Iraq war and
Republican corruption. These voters
demonstrated 12 years ago that they can easily
turn against Democrats.
An example of the reality that Democrats
refused to face the last time they had a shot
at consolidating power materialized during
the fight to pass Clinton’s 1994 Omnibus
Crime Bill, legislation that sought to
burnish the party’s justice credentials by
increasing the number of felonies subject
to the death penalty. Instead, amendments
added to win support from the left — most
visibly, $40 million for midnight basketball
leagues — caught fire on conservative talk
radio, spread to the establishment media,
and soon became a liability.
When Democrats bend to the will of liberal
interest groups, even in pursuit of laudable
goals, the damage to the party’s credibility
can be devastating. President Clinton
succumbed to such pressure, and Democrats
in the House and Senate paid the price.
Democrats now have a chance to regain
public trust, but even a minor miscalculation
can push the party off the tightrope. Its House
majority is tenuous: 17 of the new Democrats
represent districts that voted for Bush in 2004
by at least 54 percent, according to the
political scientist Gary Jacobson.
The public will desert Democrats placing
a disputed cultural or spending agenda above
the broader public interest. This is especially
true at a time of extreme uncertainty: lethal
struggle in the Mideast, nuclear proliferation,
mounting skepticism toward free trade,
and a rising non-marital birthrate — now at
37 percent — that concerns moderate voters.
The potential for an incendiary controversy
to engulf the Democratic left has sharply
escalated with Web access to each committee
and floor vote under new Congressional
transparency rules, and the development of
aggressively partisan outlets in the
blogosphere. An army of conservative media
is determined to recreate the political climate
so advantageous to the G.O.P. in 1994. At the
same time, very liberal senior House Democrats
now have vastly enhanced power to add
inflammatory provisions to bills moving
through their committees (think Rangel and
the draft).
Nancy Pelosi and her closest advisers in the
House are more likely to support such
radioactive amendments than to serve as
guard dogs protecting a slender Democratic
majority. The first test of Pelosi’s ability to
distinguish between broad-based and special
interests will be when she decides whether
to appoint Alcee Hastings, the once-impeached
federal judge, to head the House Intelligence Committee.
Only two members of the House leadership are
intuitively attuned to such problems: Rahm
Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic caucus,
and Steny Hoyer, the majority leader. But
Emanuel has limited influence, and relations
between Pelosi and Hoyer are distant at best.
Still, the vigilance of Hoyer and Emanuel will
be crucial to a party whose renewal could
easily be stillborn. Congressional leaders are
not all-powerful, but they can set the stage for
a successful presidential candidate, or lay waste
to the center-left, dooming the nominee.
The Democratic Party can secure its 2006
gains, but to do so will require abandoning
a decades-long willingness to indulge pressure
groups on the left that no longer command
broad popular allegiance.
Thomas B. Edsall holds the Pulitzer-Moore Chair at
Columbia University. He is a guest columnist this month.
If this guy is right it's time to start buying guns.
We're headed to becoming a banana republic
where - just like in pre-Chavez Venezuela - the
few swells at the top ran everything.
The ONLY way his scenario can come about is
if - as some of my friends say - the Democrats
are TOTALLY part of the ruling class and
committed to serving the same people the
Republicans serve - with just a little more nuance.
The only way his scenario will be realized is if
Democrats will ignore all the issues millions of
people (whom the writer calls "pressure
groups") believe are important.
Just as in Venezuela, where a strong individual
has dared (or connived - I don't really know
which) to come to power promising to address
the needs of 80% of the people (rather than the
top 20%) the Dems could do that here. There
are a lot more of "us" than of "them," and if this
is a fricken democracy, it could work.
The ONLY way this guy's prediction can turn
out to be right is if the Dems - as I suspect
may be true - are more interested in serving
the minority that runs things than they are
in serving the vast majority of us.
This guy's column REALLY upsets me because
he's probably correct. But as far right as we've
already moved since Ronnie Reagan, that is
unacceptable.
The D's are going to have to join the nazi R's in
order to survive? Well, then, fuck the D's too.
I won't be surprised if they take this jerk's
advice, but it WON'T keep them in power.
Once there are only Republicans and
"Republicans" on the ballot, Republicans
will win.
- Uke Man
November 25, 2006
The Struggle Within
By THOMAS B. EDSALL
Washington
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Can the Democratic Party become fully
competitive? Is American liberalism dead,
the 2006 election a last twitch of life
before rigor mortis sets in? The answer to
both questions is yes. (More on this next week.)
For the Democratic Party to revive, major tenets
of American liberalism, economic and
sociocultural, will have to be discarded. The
party can join Studebaker and the Glass Bottle
Blowers union, it can trudge along as No. 2, or it
can undergo a painful transformation — without
guarantee of success.
To stay in the fight, Democratic leaders will
have to acknowledge political realities
affirmed by the electorate in 1994 and 2006.
Many Democratic constituencies — organized
labor, minority advocacy organizations,
reproductive- and sexual- rights proponents —
are reliving battles of a decade or more ago,
not the more subtle disputes of today. Public
sector unions, for example, at a time of wide
distrust of government, are consistently
pressing to enlarge the state. For these
players, adapting to a re-emergent center
will be costly.
Democrats won on Nov. 7 by carrying a 59
percent majority of independent, moderate
voters angered by the Iraq war and
Republican corruption. These voters
demonstrated 12 years ago that they can easily
turn against Democrats.
An example of the reality that Democrats
refused to face the last time they had a shot
at consolidating power materialized during
the fight to pass Clinton’s 1994 Omnibus
Crime Bill, legislation that sought to
burnish the party’s justice credentials by
increasing the number of felonies subject
to the death penalty. Instead, amendments
added to win support from the left — most
visibly, $40 million for midnight basketball
leagues — caught fire on conservative talk
radio, spread to the establishment media,
and soon became a liability.
When Democrats bend to the will of liberal
interest groups, even in pursuit of laudable
goals, the damage to the party’s credibility
can be devastating. President Clinton
succumbed to such pressure, and Democrats
in the House and Senate paid the price.
Democrats now have a chance to regain
public trust, but even a minor miscalculation
can push the party off the tightrope. Its House
majority is tenuous: 17 of the new Democrats
represent districts that voted for Bush in 2004
by at least 54 percent, according to the
political scientist Gary Jacobson.
The public will desert Democrats placing
a disputed cultural or spending agenda above
the broader public interest. This is especially
true at a time of extreme uncertainty: lethal
struggle in the Mideast, nuclear proliferation,
mounting skepticism toward free trade,
and a rising non-marital birthrate — now at
37 percent — that concerns moderate voters.
The potential for an incendiary controversy
to engulf the Democratic left has sharply
escalated with Web access to each committee
and floor vote under new Congressional
transparency rules, and the development of
aggressively partisan outlets in the
blogosphere. An army of conservative media
is determined to recreate the political climate
so advantageous to the G.O.P. in 1994. At the
same time, very liberal senior House Democrats
now have vastly enhanced power to add
inflammatory provisions to bills moving
through their committees (think Rangel and
the draft).
Nancy Pelosi and her closest advisers in the
House are more likely to support such
radioactive amendments than to serve as
guard dogs protecting a slender Democratic
majority. The first test of Pelosi’s ability to
distinguish between broad-based and special
interests will be when she decides whether
to appoint Alcee Hastings, the once-impeached
federal judge, to head the House Intelligence Committee.
Only two members of the House leadership are
intuitively attuned to such problems: Rahm
Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic caucus,
and Steny Hoyer, the majority leader. But
Emanuel has limited influence, and relations
between Pelosi and Hoyer are distant at best.
Still, the vigilance of Hoyer and Emanuel will
be crucial to a party whose renewal could
easily be stillborn. Congressional leaders are
not all-powerful, but they can set the stage for
a successful presidential candidate, or lay waste
to the center-left, dooming the nominee.
The Democratic Party can secure its 2006
gains, but to do so will require abandoning
a decades-long willingness to indulge pressure
groups on the left that no longer command
broad popular allegiance.
Thomas B. Edsall holds the Pulitzer-Moore Chair at
Columbia University. He is a guest columnist this month.
1 Comments:
Hi Tom,
AS I read this Edsall "expert," it seems to me that Pelosi and the Dems are in a no-win situation. Either direction is a loser. I have a feeling he isn't as smart as he thinks he is. Thanks so much for sharing this and especially for your comments. Sondra
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