Krugman on the future of the GOP post 11/5/08

[Uzybone]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/opinion/03krugman.html?ei=5070

"But the G.O.P.’s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.

This will pose a dilemma for moderate conservatives. Many of them spent the Bush years in denial, closing their eyes to the administration’s dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law. Some of them have tried to maintain that denial through this year’s election season, even as the McCain-Palin campaign’s tactics have grown ever uglier. But one of these days they’re going to have to realize that the G.O.P. has become the party of intolerance."

[yurbud]

1. and what will replace it?

[pokercat999]

2. Republican chickens.........com'n home to roost !! as the

good Reverend Wright might say.

[garrick]

3. Now I understand why the g.o.p. can't attract minorities.

This election cycle has been a huge eye-opener for me. As a right leaning african-american I never could understand
why the g.o.p couldn't attract more folks like me. It actually baffled me. But having seen the behavior of the
right, particularly the christian conservatives during this election cycle, I understand now. I grew up in the
south but the hatred and contempt towards Obama just breaks my heart. I honestly thought the g.o.p was better than
this.

And I just don't see how the republicans can EVER make things right with minorities.

[acmavm]

4. You grew up in the South and you thought the 'GOP was better than this'?

How is that possible?

[glitch]

16. Democrats used to be the party of racists in the South, Republicans were the party of Lincoln.

A long, long time ago.

[acmavm]

18. Yeah and Lincoln's been spinning in his grave for a hundred

years.

[glitch]

19. We could probably use the grave spinning of all the founders and leaders

as an alternative energy source.

[garrick]

31. Optimism

Never much cared about skin color. I quickly learned to avoid the racists and just concentrate
on living my life. Sounds naive I know, but I had a successful career in the military and I became
a published photographer in my post military days.

I won!

[tom_paine]

5. Now you see. They hate your guts. You are window-dressing and wallpaper to them.

I hate to be so blunt, but now you really see.

They do pay handsomely in both power and money to African-Americans who are corrupt enough to be Loyal Bushies and doubly so if they are Inner Circle.

Ask Ken Blackwell, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, and Armstrong Williams (to name but a few) to tell you how well they are taken care of by "Sean Hannity's money". This is a little hyperbole in two of the three cases, but some research into the odious Rev. Peterson will show that he does indeed suckle at the teat of Sean Hannity's Lucre,through a Front Group of "African-Americans", who's Board is 12 white guys and a token African-American.

Look it up and see if I am lying. As a formerly Republican African-American, you should take a good long, deep look at the company you so recently kept, whether you even knew at the time or not.

Here, allow me to get you started:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Jesse+Lee+Peterson%22+Hannity

Follow the money (as always). It has nothing to do with that Jesse is Hannity's "pastor" (yeah, right) but with the BOND front group which either directly or one layer behind it lies the board of 12 white guys and token Jesse gathering in all of Bushie Whitey's Payoff Laundered Lucre (or perhaps one of his cronies, it has been awhile since I have uncovered and looked at the disgusting Mr. Peterson's bio, so I may be off in a few minor details, but I will stand behind the overall story being TRUE TRUE TRUE).

I am sorry to be so harsh with you, and I am glad you have woken up. But where the hell were YOU? I am a white guy myself and it was quite plain as the nose on your face for DECADES.

You were a chicken voting for Col. Sanders. A turkey voting for the Thanksgiving Dinner...and YOU'RE for dinner (all the rest of us bottom 90% of the country, too, so you're far from alone), but you ARE mostly alone in being a member of a group of people who, from your own heritage, should have been able to see the spiritual descendants of your slavemasters rapidly bringing the Republican Party to heel and taking it over.

It took decades and you just now noticed???? :wtf:

For more than 20 and even 30 years, it has been obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Lee.

AND YOU JUST NOW NOTICED?

I'm sorry, but I am pissed. Glad you woke up. Better late than never and all that, but damn.

Ronnie Reagan started it when he went to Philadelphia, MS to kick off his campaign in 1980, with a long speech (wink, wink) about states' rights (wink wink) to the all-white crowd. Really, Nixon started it with his "Southern Strategy".

Know what Philadelphia, Mississippi is known for? The ONLY thing it is known for outside of Neshoba County, that doesn't involve produce or consumer goods?

I could link you to the history, but that can be such dry reading. Hollywood did a mostly accurate version of the real history of THE ONLY THING Philadelphia, Mississippi is nationally known for.

Where your hero Ronnie Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign (wink wink):

http://www.amazon.com/Mississippi-Burning-Gene-Hackman/dp/B000059TFO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1225710939&sr=8-1

And YOU JUST NOW noticed?

That would be like a Jew supporting Hitler right up until the evening of Kristallnacht, wouldn't it?

I'm sorry. On this historic election eve where we're very likely are to have our first African-American President, I cannot keep silent and be politically correct or "nice" to you, though I probably should.

Instead, I have the incredible urge to ask you if you have ALWAYS been the last to figure obvious stuff out or is this a more recent change for you?

You ought to be asahmed of your clueless self. And you've got a lot of atoning to do. Not to me, not to anyone, but to your own self and your own conscience for what you have allowed yourself to be a tool for these past 28 years.

They shed the funny hats, put on business suits, joined the Republican Party, but they are still, at bottom:



They may disenfranchise you African-Americans by the hundreds of thousands with computers instead of with lynchropes and arson, but the intent and result is just the same, only with less blood and death.

Glad you finally woke up. Now, get off your ass and make resitution to your conscience. Only you can decide if and how that should be done.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

11. Being this harsh to someone has finally figured it out is really counterproductive

A lot of people have woken up because the enconomy is so bad and Bush has been so extreme, but people can't see until they can see. The lightbult comes on when the individual is ready.

Being harsh or angry because they didn't figure it out on your time schedule is simply not the way we need to behave now.

We are going to be welcoming a lot of new people to the Democratic fold, some of whom, like my ex-mother-in-law, voted for Jessee Helms and every other reactionary repub they could for years.

Berating them is dumb. We want to keep them with us, not cause them to withdraw from the process completely.

Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican?

Did you know that until the civil rights movement, the southern Democrats were the party of the KKK and Jim Crow laws?

[tom_paine]

20. Of course I knew about MLK being a Republican, and the KKK being Democrats up until the 60s.

The parties flipped racist roles in the 60s, though it started in the 30s under FDR and the transition was completed by Ronnie Raygun in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980. (wink, wink)

You may be right in what you say, and I acknowledged as much in my reply to the OP.

However, maybe mollycoddling the clueless and unconscious is partly what got us into this problem, the same way our Democratic Leadership's obessseion with being Mr. (and Ms.) "Nice Guy" has turned most (with a few notable exceptions) of our Democratic Congressional Leadership into the spitting image of the 1933 German Social Democrats in almost every way (look up the history of Germany 1929-1934 if you do not believe me...the facts speak for themselves).

Maybe our unwillingness to speak plainly and bluntly about things which LONG AGO needed to be addressed in this way, is part of the reason we stand in the middle of an utterly wrecked and morally/spiritually bankrupt nation ruled by the vilest criminal tyrants for 8 years.

So I cannot agree with you. Anyone figuring it out ast this late date is a fucking clueless idiot...plain and simple. No getting around it or sugarcoating it. A contemptible clueless blind fool with as much historical knowledge as my wooden tool shed.

Just like the people who "figured out" that Hitler was a bad guy...ohhhh, about he time they started LOSING in '43.

You might be right in what you say, but I no longer care.

I stand 1000% behind my words to the OP and to you. (though please do not intimate this as a personal insult, for I am not trying to be mean to you, just as blunt as the times call for, and you are certainly NOT one of those who figured it out just yesterday)

The OP, in his or her own way, owes the same type of restitution to their conscience as a Good German standing in the rubble of Berlin wondering how he could have bought everything that paperhanging sonovabitch had to say for twelve years...but he DID buy it, and NOTHING can change that.

Just like NOTHING can change what the OP has allowed himself or herself to support for at least a decade and maybe 30+ years for all we know.

I stand behind my words. And I would and will be happy someday if I get the chance to speak them to someone's face in person. I have been hoping for 8 years for such an opportunity and believe me, I have availed myself of the ability to speak blunt truth many MANY times in the last 8 years to people's faces.

Though not that particular blunt truth. Not yet. I can only hope. OTOH, if and when Obama wins, there is much work for all of us to do, thus such petty considerations may go by the wayside.

GOBAMA!

[bemildred]

14. Welcome to "the left" garrick.

I'm an older white male, and I think Obama is the greatest thing, politically speaking, since sliced bread.
:hug:

[tom_paine]

21. I think most of us, if not all of us, agree with that lovely sentiment.

:toast:

[glitch]

17. Welcome to DU! It's a tough place sometimes but so diverse you can get to the truth.

Or as close as we can get nowadays. :hi:

[TygrBright]

25. Sorry, chum. J.C. Watts' Daddy was right: "A black person voting for a Republican....

...is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."

'nuff said.

ironically,
Bright

[Laelth]

26. Welcome to DU!

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

[olegramps]

29. You grew up in the South and can't understand their racist attitude?

This puzzles me since I have lived in the South and have many relatives who live there. The vast majority of them are outright racists. I am not demeaning you, I just don't comprehend how this can be.

[johan helge]

6. Sooner or later, losses will force the Repubs towards the centre

Krugman's article indicates that it can be later. That's good, because that means they will loose some elections before they move towards the centre.

[Demeter]

22. More Likely the GOP Ceases to Exist as a Viable Party

and good riddance to it

[vssmith]

7. It is not true that most Republicans are racist,

but it is true that most racists are Republican.

[olegramps]

30. I beg to differ with you

But I have found that most racists are Republicans and Republicans are racists.

[Wednesdays]

8. Ironic...

A recent Democracy Corps poll found that Republicans, by a margin of more than two to one, believe that Mr. McCain is losing “because the mainstream media is biased”...

Huh, these folks never heard of FOX News or the National Review? (Just for starters.) :crazy:

[Tutonic]

9. Krugman nails it. Definite read. Also gets points for slamming that

racist Chambliss.

[soupkitchen]

10. Republicans will be GOWPs

Advocates of Government (by for and) Of White People

[Stuckinthebush]

12. This election season has allowed us to see the true GOP colors

Their rhetoric about "big tent" and being the party of inclusion was bunk. Most of us knew it, but now everyone does. Once the GOP started to circle their wagons their intolerance began to show through. The ugly rallies where the crowds were populated by unapologetic racists and nationalists were frightening. These people showed intense HATE for Obama and anyone not like them. The McCain and Palin rallies showed us that the Republican base is not the best of America, but indeed, the absolute worse of our nation.

If we are lucky, then the moderate GOP members will be embarrassed and disgusted by what their party has become and will come into the fold. We as Dems need to pull these moderates over. This will leave the nasty, racist, sexist, GOP base screaming from the sidelines.

The only thing we now have to fear is violent fools who try to use force to get what they want.

[Doctor_J]

13. Do you feel for Gordon Smith, Jim Leach, Linc Chaffee, Oly Snowe?

Me either

[rg302200]

15. Nor do I

They are just as guilty as Bush for their lack of personal courage, convictions and for being a willing participent in the lies and crimes of the GOP!!!

[Hawkowl]

28. Good Germans

Just following orders. They are the enablers, accomplices, and just as guilty as the worst rethuglican fascists.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. By the way, I don't like to brag (ok, yes I do), but

on the NY Times website, my comment on Krugman's column (under another screen name) comes up second when the comments are sorted according to Readers' Recommendations. :7

[longship]

24. As usual, Krugman hits the nail on the head.

Recommended and :kick:ed

[hay rick]

27. G.O.P. is and will continue to be the party of wealth.

All their other values are negotiable. They can move away from their extreme supporters without losing many of their votes. The KKK voters, for example, will be stuck with a choice between a Republican party that they don't like very much and a Democratic party that they despise.