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Given the other fascists on the SCOTUS, the ultra-right will the absolute final say over the interpretation of the Constitution for the next generation at least. And you are talking about four extreme partisan wingers (Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito) vs. five responsible jurists. Please don't tell me that these will somehow balance out, or that there will be any recourse if they vote en bloc for every loony suit that James Dobson's group brings them.
Like I said, I don't believe Roberts is an ideologue. I don't believe he's minion of the Right either, strictly speaking. What he is, and I took two months of the summer to establish it to my satisfaction, is a clever man who is part of the Washington establishment. For the time being he votes the Scalia/Thomas/Rehnquist line to pay off his debt to Right for putting him in, which is to say that I believe he's fine with being the fourth vote on the losing side in cases where he personally thinks the liberal foursome and Tony Kennedy have it right and five votes. When the national winds shift liberal/Democratic and his debt feels paid, I think we'll see him be the essentially pragmatic/practical moderate.
Let's also remember that we (Dems) had more votes in the last three election cycles,
None of these elections achieved a proper national majority. And let's not ignore that 1-2 million Gore voters, and maybe as many as 5 million, withdrew their support from him right the day after Election Day- and essentially none of Bush's voters left him during late 2000.
and yet every Admin crime goes unpunished, every wacky proposal gets passed, every question goes unanswered.
You might want to consider that, as a historical pattern, The People ignores fairly major ethical and law violations until the officials have fulfilled the agenda The People has put them in power for. That agenda is generally not identical to what the officials and their Parties selfimportantly imagine and pledge themselves to, but there's enough overlap that The People tolerates their continuing in power. When the limits are reached, when the officials or Party refuse or are unable to do what The People demands next, that's when incumbents are toppled on the slightest of ethics violations.
Politicians exploit The People greatly. The People is an insensitive beast that is ruthless about using up politicians to do what it considers important and necessary.
Activists are only a subset of The People. I'm as offended by the present state of affairs as you are, but I accept the sovereignty of The People at large and that the elected leaders are accountable to it rather than me personally or any particular subgroup.
Your hypothesis that * has somehow used up his political capital seems logical, but I see no evidence that it's true. At 36% approval,
You don't see a contradiction here?
'Political capital' you could think of as a kind of respectability or toleration for misdeeds earned by previous achievement or inherent worth.
'Approval' you could think of as agreement level at the moment.
Sensible people keep the two things distinct in their minds about their friends and enemies. I don't know why you convolute them as you do.
we should be clubbing his every stupid idea into the ground with a sneer - ignoring him at times, openly laughing at him other times, and calling him an out-of-touch elitist at others.
What do you think Republicans view Democrats and 'the liberal media' as doing every day? Have a look at Democrats and the media from their point of view for a change (absurd as that may be).
Instead, our Dem reps just roll over and go along with every step toward our march toward a monarchy. In fairness, with every media outlet campaigning for *, there isn't too much they can do, but it would be nice to at least get on the same page and start fighting back with some harsh words.
You might consider that only Republican leaders can destroy the credibility of Republican policies with their voters, and that Democrats offering themselves up as foils for attack in essence simply prolong the time it takes for Republican decline.
As for your comparison to Nixon, the principals are similar (though * is far more evil and dangerous than Nixon was), the situation has changed drastically. With the current SCOTUS and media, Nixon would've gotten away with his crimes, just as it seems * will.
Like I said, I can't treat paranoia from afar. Yes, Bush is a second coming of the Nixon crowd and all Right wing detritus of that era. But the reality is that the Bush people are killing far fewer people than the Nixon people did, are afraid of violating laws like FISA, their Big War is with 200 middle class Arab men hiding out all over the Middle East and a few thousand militants who use homemade bombs rather than dictator-run empires with hundreds of millions of people and thousands of nuclear weapons and millions of soldiers. The Nixon crowd essentially wanted to achieve material domination of the world. The Bush crowd essentially wants to steal massive amounts of wealth and achieve total psychological control of their own country. I'd say the Bush people are far less dangerous to life and limb than Nixon people. But the Bush people are the more historically out of step of the two, champions of an ideal of society and the world in a time in which that vision is definitely obsolete, and for that reason they far more vehemently rejected, unbearable, on a psychological level.
In six months the results of this November's elections will be pretty much locked in. I don't think we want to wait that long.
I'm evidently betting on things tipping in the utterly opposite direction you are. I see the ice getting very thin under Republican majorities and upper tier Republicans viewing their situation likewise.
I read this forum and think of the demoralization and sense of failure of a lot of the common soldiers of the Union Army besieging Petersburg in the late winter and early spring of 1865. After four years of frustration they came up with a belief system that Bobby Lee was undefeatable, etc. The Union generals thought otherwise but couldn't talk the pessimism and fatalism out of the lot. Even the great, decisive, victories took a long time to sink in for them. There's a famous letter from early April 1865 from an infantry soldier right after the Union crashed through the Petersburg defenses and was pursuing Lee's fleeing and collapsing army, two or three days before Lee surrendered at Appomattox. The soldier writes something like "Even the croakers now admit that Lee was beaten at Petersburg and the war might end in Union victory after all." This on April 6 or April 7 of 1865.
That's how I feel about all these Gloom & Doom, Inevitable Disaster posts. The weaknesses of the losing side mattered, the weaknesses of the winning side didn't matter in retrospect at Petersburg and Appomattox. Indeed, too many Confederate soldiers clung to trust in victory in the long run there, far beyond what reality warranted, and too many Union soldiers were emotionally attached to prospects of defeat at the time. Reality was the arbiter, ultimately, and Morale was not. The croakers made for problems, not for solutions.
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