"Winning" by losing
I understand the frustration, but I just don't get the tactics. I mean why does the so-called professional left think you prove your effectiveness by helping Republicans win? And why blame Obama for a piss poor Congress?
Again, I do understand the disillusionment. It comes down to this, via Atrios. I didn't even read the article behind this quote that sums it up for me.
Atrios wonders what they were thinking. The answer is they're weren't thinking at all. They were reacting to polls, driven by false rhetoric. And as Jay Ackroyd often says, you do have to ask whether the Dems really want to lose these fights. But handing the government back over to GOPers isn't going to change that dynamic.
Losing won't convert establishment Democrats. More likely it will just move them farther to the right. But a GOP majority isn't going to confirm liberal SCOTUS judges and it will set back the progressive agenda even further. Hard for me to see that as a win.
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), said that Obama has only himself to blame for disillusioned voters who provided the winning surge in 2008.So in the interim, you talk down the turnout and let the Tea Party GOPers take charge? Call me crazy but I can't help but think pushing to elect the few progressive Dems that are running this cycle would be far more useful than trashing a Democratic president for stuff that's largely out of his control.
“The 20-year-old kid who voted for Barack Obama and then saw this White House cut backroom deals with special interests instead of truly fighting for big change like the public option doesn't need a public shaming,” Green said.
“He needs to see Democrats acknowledge that the Rahm Emanuel strategy of pre-emptively caving before a fight is a failure -- and that if he trusts Democrats with his vote again, he will be electing a fighting Democratic Party.”
Again, I do understand the disillusionment. It comes down to this, via Atrios. I didn't even read the article behind this quote that sums it up for me.
And Democrats may come to regret their eager embrace, this spring, of deficit-cutting rhetoric. Then, as now, the trouble in labour markets should have been the primary focus. With these figures sure to feature in Republican stump speeches for the next three weeks, those up for re-election will pay for their mistake.The Dems let themselves get played by the GOPers at every turn since 08, and longer. GOPers may have gone crazy but they're not stupid. They seized the daily news cycle with stuff like the deficit scaremongering claptrap. The Dems, instead of defending the opposite postion, and standing for something clear and easily defensible, like necessary spending to save jobs, try to out-concern troll the GOPers. That never works and then the GOPers then are the first to seize the narrative the Dems should have been promoting all along. Where are the jobs?
Atrios wonders what they were thinking. The answer is they're weren't thinking at all. They were reacting to polls, driven by false rhetoric. And as Jay Ackroyd often says, you do have to ask whether the Dems really want to lose these fights. But handing the government back over to GOPers isn't going to change that dynamic.
Losing won't convert establishment Democrats. More likely it will just move them farther to the right. But a GOP majority isn't going to confirm liberal SCOTUS judges and it will set back the progressive agenda even further. Hard for me to see that as a win.
Labels: Activism, Democrats, Election 2010, Republicans
posted by Libby Spencer at 9:06 AM
4 Comments:
The plain unvarnished truth is simply this: Obama is an egomaniac, a flim-flam, a nutcase. Nothing more, nothing less.
The above is the new right wing talking point, and too many on the left are just going along, mistaking the enemy of our basic precepts for a friend. Enabling the right is as you say, Libby, just nuts if you want to see this country serve its own public.
It's driving me a little crazy Ruth. It's important to criticize bad policy decisions, but a lot of people seem to have forgotten the nuance necessary for constructive criticism within their own family, so to speak.
New talking point, same old tactic -- you say the most preposterous thing you can think of and watch the opponent tear his hair out trying to counter it. It would seem to be pure insanity if there weren't malicious method in it.
Rupert Murdoch is a Liberal, plain and simple. Osama bin Laden is a spokesmen for the Zionist conspiracy. Jimmy Carter was a Godless, fascist tyrant and Christine O'Donnel is you. The more insane the statement, the harder it is to refute.
Post a Comment
<< Home