Friday, November 05, 2004
WHY THE DEMOCRATS WILL KEEP LOSING
It isn't evangelicals. It isn't that Americans are " dumb". It isn't that Karl Rove is Mephistopheles. It isn't John Edwards fault. It isn't John Kerry's fault.It isn't the DLC and Al From's fault. It isn't that Americans are evil, mindless, easily manipulated tools of corporate Fascism.
The Democrat Party keeps losing elections - deservedly so I might add - because the people who make those kind of judgements listed above run the Democratic Party. Judgements that quite frankly offend a substantial number of people who either choose to stay home or cross partisan lines to vote Republican. And it's a good thing too because the people making these judgements are by and large a dangerous bunch of America-loathing fools. Some examples:
Juan Cole, who neither loathes America nor is a fool, turned his blog Informed Comment over to someone who is - Mark LeVine, who considers America to be a " criminal nation" ( like Israel) that must be stopped and considers Bush to be a second Slobodan Milosevic for the War on Terror - deliberately confusing combat casualties with genocide ( and using a discredited report as evidence). Not surprisingly, Mr. LeVine is a follower of Communist theorist Antonio Gramsci. Does the Democratic Party really want subversives who long to destroy the old order as self-appointed spokesmen ?
Kevin Drum made the factual and rather mild observation that George Bush had won the election and had a mandate to govern. Not much of a value judgement, more of a simple acknowlegement of the reality of the result of a democratic election. His commenters went nuts. It was apparently worse over at the Daily Kos when a similar admission of a Bush victory was made.
Paul Krugman has no interest in reexamining the Democratic Party message - or perhaps in considering his own high profile role and that of the slanted Howell Raines -era NYT news coverage in his party's defeat. Or that of the forgery peddlers at CBS and of meddlesome foreigners like The Guardian and IAEA chief ElBaradei with his clumsy last minute leak of the " non-secured" explosives.
Geitner Simmons has great examples here and his superb Fisking of Gary Wills recent op-ed. which amounted to an erudite anti-religious, anti-reality, tantrum that conflicts with all of the previous public positions Professor Wills.
Armed Liberal can see the problem. So does Dave Schuyler at Glittering Eye here and here. The American people can see it too.
Perhaps the left-wing leaders of the Democratic Party are simply blinded by ideology and have taken to believing their own propaganda. Perhaps they do not see it because they think it is better to remain in control of a losing party than to lose control of a winning party. Given the choice between winning elections by adopting more mainstream positions or sticking with the radical activists on race, gender, law, the environment and class - Democratic pols choose their alliance with the radicals time and again, no matter how often the lunatic fringe drags them to defeat.
I'm glad they lost.
¶ 9:15 AM
It isn't evangelicals. It isn't that Americans are " dumb". It isn't that Karl Rove is Mephistopheles. It isn't John Edwards fault. It isn't John Kerry's fault.It isn't the DLC and Al From's fault. It isn't that Americans are evil, mindless, easily manipulated tools of corporate Fascism.
The Democrat Party keeps losing elections - deservedly so I might add - because the people who make those kind of judgements listed above run the Democratic Party. Judgements that quite frankly offend a substantial number of people who either choose to stay home or cross partisan lines to vote Republican. And it's a good thing too because the people making these judgements are by and large a dangerous bunch of America-loathing fools. Some examples:
Juan Cole, who neither loathes America nor is a fool, turned his blog Informed Comment over to someone who is - Mark LeVine, who considers America to be a " criminal nation" ( like Israel) that must be stopped and considers Bush to be a second Slobodan Milosevic for the War on Terror - deliberately confusing combat casualties with genocide ( and using a discredited report as evidence). Not surprisingly, Mr. LeVine is a follower of Communist theorist Antonio Gramsci. Does the Democratic Party really want subversives who long to destroy the old order as self-appointed spokesmen ?
Kevin Drum made the factual and rather mild observation that George Bush had won the election and had a mandate to govern. Not much of a value judgement, more of a simple acknowlegement of the reality of the result of a democratic election. His commenters went nuts. It was apparently worse over at the Daily Kos when a similar admission of a Bush victory was made.
Paul Krugman has no interest in reexamining the Democratic Party message - or perhaps in considering his own high profile role and that of the slanted Howell Raines -era NYT news coverage in his party's defeat. Or that of the forgery peddlers at CBS and of meddlesome foreigners like The Guardian and IAEA chief ElBaradei with his clumsy last minute leak of the " non-secured" explosives.
Geitner Simmons has great examples here and his superb Fisking of Gary Wills recent op-ed. which amounted to an erudite anti-religious, anti-reality, tantrum that conflicts with all of the previous public positions Professor Wills.
Armed Liberal can see the problem. So does Dave Schuyler at Glittering Eye here and here. The American people can see it too.
Perhaps the left-wing leaders of the Democratic Party are simply blinded by ideology and have taken to believing their own propaganda. Perhaps they do not see it because they think it is better to remain in control of a losing party than to lose control of a winning party. Given the choice between winning elections by adopting more mainstream positions or sticking with the radical activists on race, gender, law, the environment and class - Democratic pols choose their alliance with the radicals time and again, no matter how often the lunatic fringe drags them to defeat.
I'm glad they lost.
¶ 9:15 AM
