December 4, 2016

I'm really starting to hate the term "populist"...

it seems to me that the term has no relation to what a majority of citizens in a country really want, but only seems to follow the opinions of the loudest and most unscrupulous minority of voters, usually led by some rich asshole who has no clue about what the "common citizen" really wants or needs. And not just no clue, but an active desire to self-aggrandize at the expense of the very folks who support the "populist" candidate.

Populism has become a route to fascism, if history is any judge. Mussolini was a populist, as was Hitler. So forgive me, my inclination is to fight "populism" as it has been manifest since the early- to mid-20th Century. Real democracy requires intelligent, well informed citizens, populism seems to need citizzens to be willfully ignorant to succeed.

Count me out.

October 21, 2016

Yeah, it makes sense...

after '12 they did their autopsy, and it had some things in it that are kind of scary to Dems. It recommended going after our voter base.

From a raw power stand point, the Repubs did the best thing for the Dem party when they took that autopsy and filed it away in some dusty cabinet somewhere, never to again see the light of day.

The current white supremesist takeover of the Repub Party is something that has been underway since the Southern Strategy was adopted by Nixon. Bush and McCain could see what was happening and perhaps worked to reverse it, although a case could be made they didn't work that hard to.

October 20, 2016

It's almost kind of strange, really...

At the debates, and I'll say all three of them really, Clinton displayed one feature that many people have criticized her for. She was prepared, calculating, and ruthless. She really toyed with Trump for the first two debates, and saved the "kill shot" for the final one. She acted cool and calm while she pared him like an overripe orange and squeezed the juice out of him.

And all of that demeanor that she has been criticized for is what will make her a great president when she is executing the office of POTUS.

Now, at various times, we've seen the human, connected side of Hillary during this campaign, and that's all lovely because we want a president with a compassionate side, much like Obama has been. But tonight she showed how she would perform when facing up to the Putins of the world. So did Trump for that matter. A little pressure and he folded up like a lawn chair. I'm with her.

October 12, 2016

Hallie Jackson just asked the ultimate question...

she asked a panelist (I didn't catch the woman's name, but she was a Repub for Trump, I believe) what was more important:

Now I would argue that loyalty to the country and constitution should out-weigh both of those, but...at the heart of authoritarian systems is the idea of individual loyalty to the leader and not to the country or to abstracts like "rule of law" or "constitutional law." It is no coincidence that Hitler (I know, Godwin's Law ) had all the officers and soldiers in the German armed forces swear an oath to him, personally. That kind of shit had more weight in Europe with it's history of feudalism, but the heart of that system was, of course, a complex system of individual fealty of lords and local barons to other royalty. In many ways, Fascism is a modernized, corporatised feudal system in which national interests are seconded to "individual" desires of the corporate class.

Remember, when Deep Throat (google Watergate) came out, the attacks from douche bags like Ollie North were about his being a "traitor" to Nixon and that cabal, with no considerations of national or constitutional loyalty.

August 18, 2016

He's using his pep rallies as "focus groups" for his talking points...

with predictable results.

I remember-sorry I don't have a video clip-how he introduced the whole "Obama/Clinton founded ISIS" line. It was at one of his recent rallies. He was trying to use a teleprompter IIRC, but then he goes off script. He starts his usual babbling and you can almost see his face light up in "I have a good idea" mode when he blurts out that "Obama founded ISIS."

Now the crowd didn't immediately react, perhaps in shock and disbelief, but there was a smattering of applause, and I can imagine Trump looking at all the faces in the crowd, wondering what they just heard, but then starting to beam with realization. So he says it again, louder this time, with more force to it. The crowd starts to cheer and applaud. Then he seems to realize that he's not really running against Obama, so he repeats it again, this time adding Clinton's name, saying "Yes Obama and Crooked Hillary Clinton founded ISIS."

This accomplishes two things, at least. One, it gets his fawning supporters off on another tangent, always eager and willing to believe something evil about the President and Hillary Clinton. To them it has become fact, incontrovertible, non-arguable fact. Secondly, it cements it in his mind. It's the simple old memory trick to repeat something three times (or more) to make the memory last. It becomes fact in his mind, too. And he's off for several days on his bogus bullshit, wondering why the press is hammering him about what in his mind is established fact. In the end, he'll drop it; not because he realizes it is bullshit lies, but because he starts to realize that it isn't working for him, even though he cannot grasp why.

He does this all the time. Of course, his rallies are totally non-scientific means to select focus groups. They are already supporters, there will be no critical look at his words. But in his version of the bubble, his rallies ARE "the American people," as he mistakes the ability to gather a few thousand supporters for the actual ability to garner support from the broader electoral base. He takes in the cheering and accolades and believes that's what everybody thinks of him. If the American people don't think that, in his mind it is only because of the media mis-representing him and his words/actions. His basic thought process never gets past "How can they NOT love me?"

Yeah, narcissism at it's ugly finest.

July 14, 2016

Well said...

As an older gent, I have come up many times against that old truism immortalized by the Rolling Stones in song so many years ago...."You Can't Always Get What You Want."

I get enough accusations of "ideologue" from righties on boards I hang on, I don't need that around here. I've always considered myself a center-left moderate. The Repubs have been careening so far to the right over the years, that their supporters look at me and scream leftie/commie/socialist...whatever leftie insult they care to toss out. I've learned to more or less ignore it.

As for Bernie, he did the Dem party, and the country a huuuugggeeee service by running, and by staying in so long. I've long felt that the country has needed a solid lurch to the left just to get back to the centrist country we mostly were up until the Reagan "Revolution" started with their identiy politics and theological movements. A pox on the Repub party.

I know we need a solid center-right party in this country for long term stability. We don't need any more drift to the right. It's past time for the pendulum to swing back. I do think that Bernie supporters that pull the stay home or go 3rd party cards disappointing, but it is their choice. I suspect most of them will pull the lever for Hillary come November, and hopefully for some Dem down ticket seats, too.

June 22, 2016

It's actually the Repubs worst nightmare....

They have been accusing Dems for years of "voting in lockstep" and being some kind of unified bloc of intolerance and party line fanatics, when it has been the Repubs that have been getting 90+% voting support among members on basically anything proposed.

Now they are fractured, with an ignorant, unqualified asshole running for Pres under their auspices (Trump is the face of their party now) and the Dems are finally, actually coming together on some issues that have sweeping support among the voting public. General gun safety legislation has been runnning above 60% approval around the country, with some proposals getting 80+% approval. If there is a shred of democracy left in this country, the repubs should be going down on this issue.

June 22, 2016

I've seen a lot of teacher bashing over the years...

I missed the post above, so I'll just assume it is more of the same old boring RW bashing of anything they deem as too "liberal."

Anyway, much of the bashing seems to fucus heavily on the teachers' unions, which somehow RWers don't equate to bashing their own childrens' teachers. The old "well I didn't say/mean that" excuse for generalizing in their hatred. But since Reagan, the RW disdain for anybody who works for a living has spread to professions that used to be somewhat immune to it, like teaching and medicine. No more.

The one question I've always asked, and have never gotten an answer to, is simple. How in the hell did we let conditions get so bad for teachers that they felt the need to unionize? For the most part, people who love their jobs (and face it, most teachers teach because they love helping kids), and are well-paid and have decent working conditions don't 'rock the boat' by forming unions and agitating in the work place. The RW budget-slashers never take any responsibiblity for what they do when they slash budgets and payrolls. IMHO, teachers have not been fighting for "more" as much as fighting back and trying to hang on to what they once had.

June 2, 2016

There is a reason...

that Freedom of the Press is delineated in the very first amendment, and early in that as well. It is one of the most important.

Trump is a bully, and the RW echo chamber has intimidated and brain-washed their minions to the point that they will take his side on this. Most of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights have been eroded over the years, will anybody stand up and fight for this one, one whose existence is supposed to help guarantee all of the others?

May 23, 2016

All too true...

I've been watching since Nixon, though I should admit that I didn't do politics much for a lot of that time period. So, in that respect, I guess I'm part of the problem.

Since Reagan, though, the Repubs have driven farther and farther to the right. With that, liberal Repubs (yes, there used to be some of those around) and what we would think of as 'moderates' gravitated to their only option, the Dems. Consequently, the Dems have drifted and been pulled farther and farther to the right themselves, to where a few cycles back (think Clinton's first term) they actually crossed over to being a center-right party on most issues instead of left or center-left.

To compound the problem, as Repbubs got farther to the right, they became more and more extremist, and less open to any forms of compromise. Dems have been reluctant to drop their belief in compromise. This was showcased in the Obama presidency, where the Repubs categorically avowed that their main goal was to block everything the President tried to do, which they did, including many proposals that were decidedly not progressive or liberal in their implementation, the ACA being a huge example of this. It was somehow a 'miracle' that it passed, but it was and is in essence, a RW, corporate based solution to a problem screaming for a progressive, liberal one.

We've gotten to the point where any suggestion of progressivity or liberalism triggers an automatic response of "oh we couldn't do that." There never seems to be any vigorous response of "Why not?" to that rather vacuous statement. The country does need a huge shot of progressivism and liberal action, and we can't seem to get it.

As to the thought behind the OP, IMNSHO the Right is to blame as primary instigators, but the left, such as it remains, has been complicit and enabling in the process.