“I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.”
-- Ray Bradbury
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To date, this is how the very few interactions I've had with Never Trumpers have gone, because I want to talk about the Befor...
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It's been over for a long time now. The zombie Right now exists in a continuous state of aggressively rejecting basic observable ...
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The Wisconsin recall left me more dispirited than 2010 (Fiengold loses, Walker in), or even Bush's re-election in 2001. I left the local Dem phonebank at 5 election night thinking we maybe - maybe- could pull it off.
What has me down days later is the aftertaste of seeing Citizens United really come into its own. Sure, I was glad to pay $5 to get a Barrett sign. My neighbor across the road was offered a pro-Walker sign on the phone and it was delivered and set up (including his son-in law down the block) for free the next day by two guys in a truck - with out of state plates, FWIW. The Walker supporter was disappointed he didn't live on a major thoroughfare. The guy two miles up the road got paid $100 to have his large Walker sign put up.
Brown rice and volunteers indeed.
I know what you mean about Liberals having to fight without money, but still I have given up on giving any political campaign a dime. If it is a matter of money instead of a real democratic process we have lost and the game is already over. The fat kid has almost all the marbles already. Now we are probably gonna have to literally kick his ass to get them back. . . then begins a new game, alas.
Pulling defeat from the jaws of victory against such a cruel creep as Walker may indicate that there is at least one serious methodological fallacy being fetished or coddled on the American Left.
Saying money explains Wisconsin's recall failure is as dubious as saying that money is why OWS fails while the Tea Party succeeds. The Tea Party lacked either the ambition or the merit to spontaneously turn global in less than three months - but it is excellent at rapidly focusing either support or anger at its elected Congressional representatives.
Give your opponent the same foe he already won against & thus knows how to beat? Diffuse your electoral strategy? Cross your fingers for a sudden wave of organic popular synergy to CYA? I think looking past Wisconsin & moving on isn't a good idea; serious defeats need to be critiqued & examined like the fist of an angry Goddess.
Liberalism provides an adaptational advantage in terms of providing a more broad option set & perspective. In the US it acts far less willing to use that advantage than elsewhere ... & learning why & improving from said learning matters a great deal.
tl;dr = Mistakes are wonderful clues. Using clues is how we can have nice things.
Jim-
The big Democratic mistake has been adopting the Republican narrative and then letting the Republicans lead on the issue. Wisconsin is simply more of the same. Put up a tepid Democrat whose argument is that he's a nicier guy than Walker.
Liberals are less inclined to be authoritarians. Sure, you can get 200 OWS people together, but then you ask each one what they are there for, and you get 200 different answers. Liberals are great. But, we're not known for our desire to volunteer for a position in a hierarchy. Centrists, on the other hand, are. They're just waiting to be invited inside the big tent, and told what to do to be good 'murricans.
Centrists are just authoritarians who realize the Republicans aren't the good guys, but never get told what to believe by the Democrats. A common theme that DG posits that I totally agree with, is that Republicans create the narrative, and liberals simply react to it.
Example 1: SS can be fixed by simply tweaking the FICA tax up 2%. Yet, Democrats have adopted the Republican plan of cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, and means-testing it. They argue that their way of fixing it is nicier than the Republicans. Centrists see that "both sides" agree, but notice the Republicans yelling about it. They see leadership, and Republicans are now relevant on the issue.
Example 2: The USPS has been making PROFITS for about 30+ years now, and is only in the red because of a 2006 Republican poison pill. Democrats adopt Republican talking points about closing some offices, cutting Saturday service, and selling off assets, rather than advocating rescinding the poison pill. Centists see that both parties have the same position,and again,Republicans are made relevant.
The Democratic party has all but given up on telling Americans the truth, and instead try to "pull" the conversation to the left. Centrists see that as both sides being legitimate, and assume that they have to valid choices.
If Democrats stopped ceding the narrative to Republicans, and started calling them out on their lies, centrist authoritarians would line up behind the Democrats. They did it from the 1930s to the 1970s, until Democrats were sucker punched by Reagan. The Democrats need a Reagan...a charismatic leader who isn't afraid of calling Republicans liars and morons. The fucking base would LOVE it, AND centrist authoritarians would finally have a leader to march behind. Ultimately, that is what centrists want...leadership, not boring policy explained with charts and facts. They want to be told what to think, and why.
Look, there is always going to be authoritarians in an imperial warmongering society that we have, where Capitalism (competition and structural inequality) exists as a measure of someone's worth. Centrists want to be told that Republicans don't give a fuck about them and are gaming the system for their own benefit. Instead, we get dumb-fuck statements like, "if you want to live like a Republican, vote Democrat". To me, that statement implies that Republicans are good people living good lives. If you're a Democrat making that statement, you're committing gross negligence against liberalism.
The Republicans know who the centrists are and what they're looking for, and they give it to them good and hard. And it's why they keep getting elected when they should gone extinct 30+ years ago.
Politics and elections are controlled Revolutions, yet the Democratic party treats them like they're popularity contests. Republicans know EXACTLY what they are: civl wars. If Democrats aren't actually going to fight the Republicans, they might as well join them. Which, of course, they have been doing for 30+ years now.
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