You know, if the Republican Party was for real, they'd have a candidate who was beating Obama in head to head polls, given that more than 70% of Americans believing this country on the wrong track. It's sort of like Gore losing in 2000--any half competent Democratic campaign would have won that election in a walk. (And so despite argument common in my discipline to the contrary, campaigns do matter.)

But despite Obama's serious problems and shortcomings, and despite a deep feeling of unease in the country, the Republican Party has marginalized itself and there doesn't appear to be any real hope of that ending. I know coastal elites pretty much hate America, and thus assume everyone in America is really excited by people like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann, but the data don't support that notion. (Forgetting the fact that WABC and WPHT seem to have a lot of listeners in dajafi's proposed liberal utopia...)

The reality is this: There's a real political vacuum here between the liberal elites who really don't know what it's like to worry about their health care, or putting food on the table, or what's going to happen if they were to go two months without being able to pay the mortgage and are so contemptuously dismissive of the United States States that it makes me sick and the raving religious fanatics who think an apocalypse is a policy solution. That vacuum will be filled. Not in 2012, I don't think. But eventually. And I'm not talking about a political moderate or that most foolish of pipe dreams a 3rd party. I'm talking about someone who understand Americans and has the persuasive ability to move the country in a positive direction. Who can use that ability to begin a process of recovery, who understands Americas essential goodness.

Reagan intuitively understood something about the United States, and used that intuition combined with real conviction to shift political debate. Clinton had the understanding, but lacked the conviction. Obama appeared to have the conviction, but lacks the understanding. To be fair, Obama also faced an almost impossible set of circumstances. But he also lacks the essential political skills necessary to navigate these times.

Another reality--our political system has never been more open--of course this has its downsides in that nuts like Bachmann do get more airtime than they deserve (though I suspect much of that is elite media feeding coastal elites the image of an America filled with ignorant rubes they so desperately crave) but it also makes the election of black dude with a funny name possible. So just because there is no apparent candidate to fill the political vacuum does not mean such a person doesn't exist.

I'd like to believe that's true, tv, but I think big money has become too entwined in our system for anything like that to happen. And it's going to get worse before it can get better, the supremes saw to that.

TenuredVulture wrote:You know, if the Republican Party was for real, they'd have a candidate who was beating Obama in head to head polls, given that more than 70% of Americans believing this country on the wrong track. It's sort of like Gore losing in 2000--any half competent Democratic campaign would have won that election in a walk. (And so despite argument common in my discipline to the contrary, campaigns do matter.)

But despite Obama's serious problems and shortcomings, and despite a deep feeling of unease in the country, the Republican Party has marginalized itself and there doesn't appear to be any real hope of that ending. I know coastal elites pretty much hate America, and thus assume everyone in America is really excited by people like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann, but the data don't support that notion. (Forgetting the fact that WABC and WPHT seem to have a lot of listeners in dajafi's proposed liberal utopia...)

The reality is this: There's a real political vacuum here between the liberal elites who really don't know what it's like to worry about their health care, or putting food on the table, or what's going to happen if they were to go two months without being able to pay the mortgage and are so contemptuously dismissive of the United States States that it makes me sick and the raving religious fanatics who think an apocalypse is a policy solution. That vacuum will be filled. Not in 2012, I don't think. But eventually. And I'm not talking about a political moderate or that most foolish of pipe dreams a 3rd party. I'm talking about someone who understand Americans and has the persuasive ability to move the country in a positive direction. Who can use that ability to begin a process of recovery, who understands Americas essential goodness.

Reagan intuitively understood something about the United States, and used that intuition combined with real conviction to shift political debate. Clinton had the understanding, but lacked the conviction. Obama appeared to have the conviction, but lacks the understanding. To be fair, Obama also faced an almost impossible set of circumstances. But he also lacks the essential political skills necessary to navigate these times.

Another reality--our political system has never been more open--of course this has its downsides in that nuts like Bachmann do get more airtime than they deserve (though I suspect much of that is elite media feeding coastal elites the image of an America filled with ignorant rubes they so desperately crave) but it also makes the election of black dude with a funny name possible. So just because there is no apparent candidate to fill the political vacuum does not mean such a person doesn't exist.

Maybe it's my evident America-hating liberal elitism and all, but I'm not sure how seriously to take this. A couple thoughts, though:

--The point I agree with is the implied one that if you want to understand what's wrong with our politics, it's probably a good idea to start with political coverage which is both sensationalistic and devoid of context, detail or nuance.

--Because of this (and this probably would have been a better response to my restructuring idea than the jeff/mcgraw "oh, that's silly because it's silly" comeback), the idea that the country is hopelessly divided increasingly becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy: anyone whose sole source of info is Fox News or Daily Kos is unlikely to look at politics in anything but Manichean terms. My sense is that such biased outlets are both accounting for an increasing share of how people get their politics, and increasingly informing the coverage of the ostensibly non-biased outlets (though of course the hardcore partisans say there are no such things).

--A word in defense of "liberal elites." This is the part that makes me wonder if you're funning us, because I think what non-single issue liberals have been going on about the last few years is exactly "what it's like to worry about their health care, or putting food on the table, or what's going to happen if they were to go two months without being able to pay the mortgage." The left critique of Obama is exactly that he sold out way too much to the insurance industry and Big Pharma to create perceivable, meaningful change in healthcare, and let Wall Street and the banks almost entirely off the hook in the aftermath of the enormous damage they did to our economy. If you're calling out Bob Rubin, call out Bob Rubin. But you seem to be complaining that left-leaning economic populists aren't pushing left-leaning economic populism hard enough.

--With the death of unions, there's also no structural force to push this agenda--both to rally mass support and make politicians who don't focus on kitchen table issues feel pain. I miss George Meany too, but he's dead and not coming back. Meanwhile we're waiting for something, anything, to balance out the control that "vast, remote, unaccountable institutions" have taken over our country.

--One pushback against criticisms of Obama along the lines of that Drew Westin piece from early last month is that it implies much more vast presidential powers than really exist. This is something people can and do argue over--political scientists, mostly--but I think a good shorthand is to say that in domestic matters, the president can be as powerful as Congress allows. The idea of waiting for "someone who understand[s] Americans and has the persuasive ability to move the country in a positive direction. Who can use that ability to begin a process of recovery, who understands Americas essential goodness" seems kind of naive to me. Better to focus on electing pragmatists rather than ideologues to Congress--people who have clear principles that broadly match the politics of their districts, but who don't see "the other side" as evil incarnate and understand the value of incremental progress. Again, though, that's a tough sell when you've got Roger Ailes and Markos Moulitsas setting the terms of discourse.

Better to focus on electing pragmatists rather than ideologues to Congress

Easier said than done given how gerrymandered many districts are.

Most of my complaint with liberal elitists is that they may think they understand the problems they set out to solve, but they just don't listen to the people they say they want to help. If you've seen Barton Fink, think of the John Goodman character. I probably shouldn't single you out, dajafi, but your idea about splitting up America following something Rick Goddamn Perry said pissed me off, on the back of being harassed by a huge asshole Republican at the fucking County Fair. I don't deny there are real problems, I mean I fucking live here. For those who I largely agree with to abandon my neighbors, mostly good people who have grown tired of being tired their religious faith is nothing more than a a clinging to God because they've got nothing else rather than talk to them is troubling. It's not the liberalism, it's the elitism that's the problem. Start by listening. Work the streets if you will. Stop assuming Southerners are all racist religious fanatics. If there's anything I think I get about America it's the perceptions liberal elites and real Americans have of each other. And there are ways to bridge that gap. But it has to start with the liberal elite coming down here and finding out how we live. So, in a sense, stop pushing, telling us what we should want. What we wanted in 2009 was jobs, and even more than that sense someone was listening.

It's Monday morning quarterbacking to be sure, and I understand why he did it, but I think had Obama really be sensitive to what was happening in the country he would have emphasized jobs at first and gone after some bankers at the same time. But I think the liberal elite has all too often become rather clubby with those bankers--after all, you went to the same schools and live in the same part of the world. Even if that's not entirely true, you could certainly forgive a reasonably well informed Southerner for thinking it is. The Koch brothers are evil motherfuckers, but it's important figure out how and why their message seems to resonate with so many. (Though I would in fact suggest that it's quite possible that their message isn't resonating quite as much as the media seemed think. But screaming white people makes good television I suppose.

I don't think what I'm imagining is that unrealistic or naive--a Clinton with convictions. Such a transformative President is pretty rare--Washington, maybe Jackson, Lincoln, maybe McKinley, Roosevelt, and Reagan but there's no reason such a person couldn't emerge now. Yes, the money is is a big issue. But like I said earlier, the political system has never been more open. However, I am talking about playing the long game here--I'm not talking about 2012 here. And there is an opportunity. Again, we friggin elected a black guy with a funny name. He won North Carolina! He won Indiana! He even won Pennsylvania. Don't forget how huge that is. I know I didn't think it would've been possible in 2006, and I'm pretty sure you didn't either.

On the other stuff, you know I largely agree. Our media, particularly television, is at best irresponsible. But I think too many people overestimate the actual power the media have. I've read Bagdikian, and I think he was wrong when he wrote his work, and he's even more wrong now.

Interest groups have far too much power and you're right about the decline of unions. And I don't know how from an institutional perspective you fix that. Again, I do know you've got to be thinking about the long game here as well.

And yes, please, pragmatic politicians. We're way fucked right now, and one sign of that is when someone like Tom Coburn is dismissed by the right as being too willing to compromise. However, and maybe I'm being especially naive here, I like to thing congressional unpopularity is going to result in a more pragmatic Congress in the near future. Congress changes slowly though, so I'm not holding my breath. But yeah, more politicians, and fewer people of uncompromising principle.

Congress as a whole has always had bad approval ratings, though, and that hasn't meant anything in the end.

When it comes to elections, what a voter thinks of Congress as a whole doesn't matter much. What he thinks of his own Congressman does.

Swiggers wrote:Congress as a whole has always had bad approval ratings, though, and that hasn't meant anything in the end.

When it comes to elections, what a voter thinks of Congress as a whole doesn't matter much. What he thinks of his own Congressman does.

I think that's changing ever so slightly. If you look at what's been happening since 2006, you see more seats in play than ever. I know 50, even 60 out of 435 isn't huge, but it's a start.

But didn't those "real Americans" elect the pols that believed Tom Coburn shouldn't compromise? I mean, I lived among southerners for a few years too and I recognize most of them are good people, but it seems most people everywhere are pretty uninformed (I read a good bit about this stuff and I'm still not informed enough to make reasoned judgements at times) and it doesn't have much to do with the people from the coasts being elitists.

But that's what happens when you devalue education and make people believe science and rational thought are a curse. And which party is doing that exactly?

Of course, my opinion is that it no longer matters. The Supremes and a series of legislative decisions, most pushed by the right, have firmly entrenched big money into our politics. I hope you're right about things being open, but I'm not seeing it. It takes dozens of pols, enough to get things done in Congress, to undo what has been done. You may get a great individual or ten, but that person(s) will just bang their heads against the wall trying to get anything accomplished against the big money hordes surrounding them in Congress and elsewhere. And if something does happen to get through congress by some miracle, the supremes will find a way to knock it down, even if they have to ignore centuries of precedent to do it.

Sorry, but you don't make some of the decisions that Obama has made unless you've been bought off. He's too smart for it.

TenuredVulture wrote:You know, if the Republican Party was for real, they'd have a candidate who was beating Obama in head to head polls, given that more than 70% of Americans believing this country on the wrong track. It's sort of like Gore losing in 2000--any half competent Democratic campaign would have won that election in a walk. (And so despite argument common in my discipline to the contrary, campaigns do matter.)

But despite Obama's serious problems and shortcomings, and despite a deep feeling of unease in the country, the Republican Party has marginalized itself and there doesn't appear to be any real hope of that ending. I know coastal elites pretty much hate America, and thus assume everyone in America is really excited by people like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann, but the data don't support that notion. (Forgetting the fact that WABC and WPHT seem to have a lot of listeners in dajafi's proposed liberal utopia...)

The reality is this: There's a real political vacuum here between the liberal elites who really don't know what it's like to worry about their health care, or putting food on the table, or what's going to happen if they were to go two months without being able to pay the mortgage and are so contemptuously dismissive of the United States States that it makes me sick and the raving religious fanatics who think an apocalypse is a policy solution. That vacuum will be filled. Not in 2012, I don't think. But eventually. And I'm not talking about a political moderate or that most foolish of pipe dreams a 3rd party. I'm talking about someone who understand Americans and has the persuasive ability to move the country in a positive direction. Who can use that ability to begin a process of recovery, who understands Americas essential goodness.

Reagan intuitively understood something about the United States, and used that intuition combined with real conviction to shift political debate. Clinton had the understanding, but lacked the conviction. Obama appeared to have the conviction, but lacks the understanding. To be fair, Obama also faced an almost impossible set of circumstances. But he also lacks the essential political skills necessary to navigate these times.

Another reality--our political system has never been more open--of course this has its downsides in that nuts like Bachmann do get more airtime than they deserve (though I suspect much of that is elite media feeding coastal elites the image of an America filled with ignorant rubes they so desperately crave) but it also makes the election of black dude with a funny name possible. So just because there is no apparent candidate to fill the political vacuum does not mean such a person doesn't exist.

You would have a point if you're arguement wasn't "We need to elect the right guy". The problems in American politics isn't that the public keeps electing the wrong guy over and over again, leading to the same results. If it were that easy, it wouldn't happen. The problems in America are systemic. They require real reform at all levels of government, and not one single person can solve all the problems.

And if anything, I hope Obamas legacy is one that reveals that truth to the average voter. Candidate Obama was a man who presented himself as a politician that knew of the corrupt and dysfunctional state of government. President Obama has done basically all he can to kill the memories of candidate Obama. The fact that these two men exist as one in the political world, is a perfect example of a corrupted, dysfunctional, and ultimately broken government.

Ugh. I didn't propose "splitting America up." I suggested that a radical restructuring of governance such that Vermont and Oklahoma can enjoy the sort of polity they want while sharing a currency and a military. There are many who'd argue that this was supposed to be how the country works.

I'm also not sure why it's the responsibility of "liberal elites" to reach out to "real Americans"--a phrase I fucking hate, by the way; my neighbors in Brooklyn, both the rich areas where I used to live and the poor area where I live now, are real fucking Americans as much as the yahoos who harangued you at the state fair. I'm not judging them, in moral terms; I disagree with them, but I have no interest at all in imposing my values on them. Hence my thought about a federated model.

You do realize "real Americans" is being used ironically, don't you? Especially since my whole point is that I hope that what unites us as Americans is much stronger and better than what divides us. Remember, dajafi, on our political values, you and I are pretty darn close. You and I both want to see a return to an America which attempts to provide opportunities for all, where you own efforts and talents count for more than your inheritance, where you can make decisions based on something other than fear and anxiety. Where we appeal to what is best about us, not what is most base. Where one can be on the left and a patriot. The issue is one of strategy and tone. I want someone to help me make the case to my neighbors that the Koch brothers and their minions are ass raping them on a daily basis. And that needs to happen if the values we share have any chance of prevailing. It won't happen as long as you insult them and make assumptions about who they are.

I don't think I'm doing that, though. In a way I think it's you showing elitism here, in that you're presuming to know what's best for "those people." Maybe they like being anally violated by the Koch brothers (assuming they know who they are; probably a better way to put it is that they find Rush Limbaugh credible.) What bothers me is that right now their buying into that stuff has outsize consequences for those of us who don't.

dajafi wrote:I don't think I'm doing that,although. In a way I think it's you showing elitism here, in that you're presuming to know what's best for "those people." Maybe they like being anally violated by the Koch brothers (assuming they know who they are; probably a better way to put it is that they find Rush Limbaugh credible.) What bothers me is that right now their buying into that stuff has outsize consequences for those of us who don't.

Exactly. Let's try to understand why and put a stop to it. And part of the reason is that Rush is speaking to them. And remember, Rush is pretty popular on AM radio in your part of the country. He's not on the air at all where I live. I think the counter is to listen to them. And this isn't the first time I've been accused of elitism.

Tv, I'm consistently amazed about the vitriol you direct at so-called liberal elites when you miss all the other cozy little groups who are also elite and also intent on telling people that their way is the best way for those people.

That you consistently assume that it's only liberals from the east coast who tell people how they should live their lives says more about the effectiveness of republicans at ensuring their view of the American political landscape is the mainstream view.

A Sup Ct revisitation of corporate personhood might be a fascinating point of departure. I am not familiar with the legal underpinnings of that matter, but judging from what one can glean from Wikipedia, it dangles from an unusually slender thread.

Of course this is even less likely to happen than the previously discussed reorganization of our political geography. Bring the painful reality, jeff

Wizlah wrote:Tv, I'm consistently amazed about the vitriol you direct at so-called liberal elites when you miss all the other cozy little groups who are also elite and also intent on telling people that their way is the best way for those people.

That you consistently assume that it's only liberals from the east coast who tell people how they should live their lives says more about the effectiveness of republicans at ensuring their view of the American political landscape is the mainstream view.

I really don't know why it's such an objectionable idea to suggest that rather than writing off a big segment of our nation in its electoral politics that liberals and the programs they champion might benefit if they spent some time listening. It's not as different down in the rural South as you might think.

Let's back up a bit, because I think people are misunderstanding a big part of what I'm trying to say.

I don't think the Republican/Tea Party view really reflects the views of most Americans, where ever they live. And I'm not just whistling out my asshole here, there's substantial polling data backing that up. Indeed, I think to the contrary, there is a real opportunity right now for the kind of politics dajafi and I and others on this board share. That opportunity was part of the reason Obama was elected in the first place. If the Republicans were really so mainstream, the current Presidential polls would show the the generic Republican or Romney or Perry significantly ahead of Obama.

So, how to make the most of this opportunity? My simple idea is to listen to those who are not convinced (for good reason I think) that the Democrats have good ideas to address their needs and speak to those needs, where ever they are. Don't write off the South. Howard Dean, I believe, had the right idea when he was DNC chair. Take an optimistic view that things can get better to those who have sincere and reasonable anxiety--again, Obama did this as a candidate, but he was not able to translate it as President. I think times are such that we really could be looking at a transformative President, and I'd like to see that transformation headed in a positive direction.

I might be wrong. Maybe our nation will elected Rick Perry and gleefully cheer his every move until we become something like Cuba under Batista. I rather that not happen though.

But why is it always on us to listen to them? Do you think they are listening to us? Having lived there, I sure don't.

In fact, I think we have been listening to them a lot more than they have been listening to us, if the movement in the nation's politics is any indication. Obama sure seems to listen to them more than they listen to him, for example. In fact, there have been a lot of times where it seems like he's listening to them much more than he's listening to us.

Poor tv is a victim of stockholm syndrome.

Monkeyboy wrote:But why is it always on us to listen to them? Do you think they are listening to us? Having lived there, I sure don't.

In fact, I think we have been listening to them a lot more than they have been listening to us, if the movement in the nation's politics is any indication. Obama sure seems to listen to them more than they listen to him, for example. In fact, there have been a lot of times where it seems like he's listening to them much more than he's listening to us.

Poor tv is a victim of stockholm syndrome.

It's not the loudmouths who disrupt town halls I'm talking about, it's the far larger number who voted for Obama in 2008 but feel betrayed and disappointed. I also want to emphasize I'm talking a more long term movement here.

So, to boil this down: TV thinks left wing populism might have a chance. No one else does.

Also: TV thinks the Republicans have even bigger long term problems than the Democrats. No one else agrees.