How Bad Is This Loss, Historically?

[Placebo]

I'll admit, I am only 18. This was my first time voting, and I followed both this race and the 2000 race, back when I was only 14, like a hawk.

I am really looking for a bit of perspective from some older DU members, who have lived through democratic presidential losses of the past.

Put this one into perspective, if you can; just how bad is it? Is this worst loss we've experienced in the modern age?

I have heard people comparing this to RFK being assassinated, are there any parallels with how that felt?

Does this loss "feel" the worst of all races for the presidency that we've lost?

I just need to know if this is as bad, historically, as people seem to be saying it is.

[Union Thug]

1. With the supreme court at stake, this is huge.

I'm 40, and the repercussions of this will haunt me for the rest of my life.

[ZanZaBar]

2. Random Plato Quote:

"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."


-Plato

[Maple]

3. Well for you

and a draft, it will certainly be bad.

Historical or otherwise.

[Placebo]

5. Great,

[Protagoras]

4. It's a cumulative thing

Many of us were fearful of a chain of actions after the theft of 2000. We were further outraged when we were unable to stop the War in Iraq that was so openly planned and implimented over the objections of millions.

Now we're seeing pretty much exactly what we predicted and what PNAC wanted coming to pass.

It doesn't have to be permanent. It can be reversed. But make no mistake, it can last into the indefinite future if we do nothing.

Think about the Dark Ages...humans are capable of eating shit for literally hundreds of years if you push them down and hold them down. So we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking it will just fix itself.

We have to worry about the economy now for at least a generation.

We have to worry about the stacking of the supreme court for 20 years.

We have to worry about the deaths of thousands or even millions around the world as Bush advocates war for oil.

And we have to worry about creating a hatred for our country in the muslim community that will last for who knows how long.

And while that is all happening...we're wasting time and allowing the EQ and Asia to rise to the status of economic super powers who will be in IDEAL positions to challenge us when we are overwhelmed with debt from military fiascos and they are fully industrialized.

So it's pretty damn bad. It's worse than Reagan because Bush and his cronies are still on the upswing.

And it's worse than Nixon imho because I get the scared feeling that if BUSH were now found guilty of Watergate it WOULD NOT lead to impeachment.

It's a threat to the American Dream. But it isn't the death of it yet.

[Placebo]

7. I guess we can only hope for...

a more disastrous (ugh, the irony) second bush term.

[Horushawk]

6. Feel a draft yet?

Find a way to get to Canada NOW. I mean it. Save yourself.

[Gyre]

8. It's as bad as it gets.

Not only is there a nutjob in the WH, but Rove (in the form of the chimp) will decide the Supreme Court makeup, which is numerically already pro-chimp, for the next 20 years. Not only that, but there is no opposition party in either part of congress. So any criminal conduct by this admin will never be seriously investigated, and all military adventures are guaranteed funding no matter how self-defeating and/or morally-repugnant. Impeachment could never occur in this environment. Oh yeah. Did I mention that as a "lame duck", the chimp doesn't have to worry about his personal popularity as much as somebody who has something to lose (ie, the next election).

In short, there is no accountability. And this administration can do exactly as it wants. You be the judge of just how bad this is. I personally have never seen a situation this dire.

Gyre

[Placebo]

11. Just fab.

:(

[noamnety]

9. I'm 40

This is the only election where I really felt like I was fighting for survival of our country. I hope I can look back in 4 years and say I was being melodramatic. But that's how it feels. It's like 9.11 here for me, maybe worse.

[Norquist Nemesis]

20. 45 here

and that's my thought/feeling as well. I've never gotten involved in a National campaign the way I did with this one.

I don't know about in four years how I'll feel. I can't predict the future...but this is so much worse than when Reagan got in and then a second term. When Clinton came in there was hope. Hope and fulfillment.

It's just not the same this time. Devastating just doesn't quite hit it either.

Right now, I'm remembering Hitler and how he won. History is repeating itself. Okay, not in killing people within a country, but certainly in taking over and putting in an ideology that will cause death and destruction.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Well losing RFK resulted in Nixon , so that was huge

We've had more embarassing losses, but this election was a bad loss due to this:

America As A One Party State
Robert Kuttner

Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.
By Robert Kuttner
Issue Date: 02.01.04

Print Friendly | Email Article

America has had periods of single-party dominance before. It happened under FDR's New Deal, in the Republican 1920s and in the early 19th-century "Era of Good Feeling." But if President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself. The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged. This would be unprecedented in U.S. history.

In past single-party eras, the majority party earned its preeminence with broad popular support. Today the electorate remains closely divided, and actually prefers more Democratic policy positions than Republican ones. Yet the drift toward an engineered one-party Republican state has aroused little press scrutiny or widespread popular protest.

We are at risk of becoming an autocracy in three key respects. First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated legislative opposition in the House of Representatives (the Senate has other problems). House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has both intimidated moderate Republicans and reduced the minority party to window dressing, rather like the token opposition parties in Mexico during the six-decade dominance of the PRI.

Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters, absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy Roosevelt-style ruling party split. After two decades of bipartisan collusion in the creation of safe House seats, there are now perhaps just 25 truly contestable House seats in any given election year (and that's before the recent Republican super gerrymandering). What once was a slender and precarious majority -- 229 Republicans to 205 Democrats (including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who votes with Democrats) -- now looks like a Republican lock. In the Senate, the dynamics are different but equally daunting for Democrats. As the Florida debacle of 2000 showed, the Republicans are also able to hold down the number of opposition votes, with complicity from Republican courts. Reform legislation, the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), may actually facilitate Republican intimidation of minority voters and reduce Democratic turnout. And the latest money-and-politics regime, nominally a reform, may give the right more of a financial advantage than ever.

Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber stamp if the right wins one more presidential election.

Taken together, these several forces could well enable the Republicans to become the permanent party of autocratic government for at least a generation. Am I exaggerating? Take a close look at the particulars.

I. Legislative Dictatorship

http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=6985

[Placebo]

13. That spells it out...

in really brutal scary terms.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

14. Yes it does.

[K-W]

12. You need to put it in context.

Liberalism had become the status quo in America in the 70's. There had always been a backlash of some intensity, and all the various backlash started building into a backlash movement that we now call conservatism. Starting with Reagan, the Democrats have gone through a long time of electoral decline as the nation changed slowly making it harder and harder for them to win. They put up candidates for president who got creamed and they started losing thier grip on the local and state elections that are every parties foundation.

When Clinton was elected, they breated a sigh of relief, it was just a temporary trend, democrats can still win. The DLC was riding high with a new vision for the party that had proven it could win elections.

Fairly quickly the truth came out, the success of the DLC was fools gold. The nation kept on shifting and the party found itself completely lost. The traditional democratic methods hadn't worked, trying to shift with the country hadn't worked, what is going to happen?

Then Bush came in, there was a backlash, the democrats thought they saw the opening they needed and they went for it. They reached out to the left as best they could, and thought they had won the election.

They didnt. This will be 8 years of total republican control. The democratic party has seemingly no idea how to beat them. That is what makes this so bad. The loss, numbers wise, wasnt that bad really.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

15. Actually not 8 years but for sure 4

We had the Senate the first two years and they have both houses now. There will be 33 senate seats running for re-election in 2006 and that is what we need to focus on now. We can also take advantage of the fact that evangelicals turned out for Bush and expect some return for their investment and can use that to coax moderate Repubs from blue states our way ...after all it HAS happened and frankly Bush scares a lot of people in his own party so all hope is not lost.

[K-W]

18. certainly not, I am not trying to be pessamistic

simply explain why this is such a huge loss for the democrats, I think we could turn things around very soon.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

23. Oh I knew that. I just wanted to throw a little possibility in there

I'm past the grief and now looking for a way out. I'll forge that way out with like minded people and groups such as DFA and Moveon..we've got an infrastructure now..we need to keep it together.

[K-W]

26. Good luck to you.

I am thinking of heading towards law school myself. We can never have too many lawers on our side.

[Zorra]

16. It is the end of democracy in America, and the beginning of fascist rule.

It does not get any worse than this.

Our new improved version of Hitler and the nazis can now do whatever they want, and that includes hauling you off to jail if they don't like the way you look.

[serryjw]

17. Monumental...I'm 54 and

this will not be fixed in my lifetime. The control WH, The Senate, the Congress, the Pentagon, 9/13 Appellate Counts (lifetime appointments).....and shortly SCOTUS. A Congressional/Senator has a 98% re-election rate. It takes millions to run against an incumbent. If they don't retire/DIE or get caught in the closet with a little boy they are guaranteed re-election. WE ARE F*CKED!
On top of all this we have 50% of the country that wants a Christian Theocracy. 42% call themselves Evangelicals or 'born again'They care about no other issue other than MORAL VALUES. We have a voting system that is totally screwed. i am convinced that 10 MILLION votes were lost yesterday. I have no idea how to fix this...any ideas?

[Placebo]

19. I hate when they talk to voters...

and there are always a bunch that end up saying "I just think we need to bring religion and god back into government, we are a nation founded on religion, and thats why I am supporting Bush."

Ugh.

Bush, a Two-Term President. Clinton is now his "equal."

He has now officially gone from just being a possible blip in the history books, to probably getting his own f'n chapter. :(

[JohnKleeb]

21. a nation founded on religion?

I hate to be the history nerd but we weren't, many of our founding fathers including Jefferson werent religious at all.

[Placebo]

22. Wellll, I KNOW THAT and YOU KNOW THAT...

but we seem to be in the minority.

[K-W]

24. They were deeply religious, they just werent crazy.

Deeply religious just means that you have some set of spiritual beliefs that you believe in strongly and place prominantly in your life. This described most of the founding fathers if not all, as well as most democrats and most of the country.

They and thier beliefs were at a certain equilibrium with reality. The problem with the right wing is that thier beliefs have totally overun reality to the point that half of the nation has lost complete touch with reality in one giant mass dellusion.

Compared to them Kerry looks like an atheist.

[sandnsea]

28. Aw come on Kleeb

They said creator in a speech once, they're born agains. Get with the program! :)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

25. Where do you get that 42% figure?

[serryjw]

31. I read so much tonight I'm not sure......

but here is a blog referring to the same stat. The 42% comes from an exit poll I read from yesterday explaining this bushit vote was a vote fro moral values.
Bushit started with 42% all he had to do is add the 10 pts to have a good majorityWhat is so strange is Bushoit got them & Catholics( JK is Catholic!) and even Jews.They found their base in ANY house of worship!
http://www.enetation.co.uk/comments.php?user=vantheman&commentid=109796084027305606

[moondust]

27. That pretty well sums it up.

To younger people I'd recommend moving to a deep blue state or preferably someplace like Canada because the U.S. is going to be a really fucked up place to live for a long time to come.

[barb162]

29. It is one of the ABSOLUTE WORST disasters in the history

of the country. I think this will destroy the country as we know it.

[Ladyhawk]

30. We are so fucked.

There will never be a free election in America again...unless we kill the voting machines.