Thom Hartmann: Life-long Republicans are leaving their party

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 06:33 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmwIzE8ldKM   Posted on YouTube: March 22, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 81   Posted on DU: March 22, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 2056

 
The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[2banon]

1. interesting call to action

attend tea party rallies/events carrying signs deploring the Fed, bail outs for banksters etc..

I remain skeptical however with his assessment on a trend that "Republicans are leaving the party" .. or, maybe I've misunderstood which demographic comprises the majority of the Democratic party now. Could it be that tradional conservatives have been dissaffecting and that's why the Democratic party seems to have become so conservative these past several years?

[zalinda]

2. I'd say yes.

Back in the 90's, my ex-in-laws quit the Republican party (they were heavy donors) because of the religious crazies that were having an influence on the party. One of her famous quotes "Nixon should have burned those tapes, when he had the chance."

zalinda

[Dawning Red]

3. My take:

Okay, as a long-time lurker and former Republican, let me answer that question for you, at least from where I stand.

I quit the Republican Party several years into W's term when it became clear to me that what he thought a conservative was and what one actually was were two entirely different things. It appeared to me that what a true conservative would do would be to lower the debt, shrink the government, and stay out of peoples personal business. We got the exact opposite from him, and that's not counting all the disinformation and sleaze. Okay, I could somewhat understand invading Afghanistan after 9/11, but couldn't for the life of me see why we were going into Iraq. In fact, I'd say about the only truly thing that was conservative was the tax cut. But I have no real idea, even now, what his actual political ideology was. The one thing I DID know was that the Republican party I thought I had joined was not what I wanted to be a member of until they become sane again, so I quit. I haven't seen any sign of them regaining their sanity, outside of a few minor things here and there, which was probably just statistical probability.

As far as the Democratic party becoming more conservative, well I don't quite see it from where I am, but maybe because I'm surrounded by young people here, my views are a bit skewed. I will say that I wasn't the only Republican I know who left, but I also know of a few Democrats at work who left the party because they were fed up with what THEY thought it had become. Some of it happened after Hillary lost the nomination, but others - I couldn't explain. Perhaps their views changed as they got older, who knows.

[2banon]

11. I appreciate your weighing in on this question

When pushed to offer up a label to describe my personal political ideology, I generally say I'm a progressive with a Libertarian streak, or a Socialist Libertarian. To some, that label would appear to be a contradiction in terms at best, seeming to defy the norms of reason and logic.

I believe in sharing responsibility for the building and maintenance of the commons, schools, hospitals, roads, transportation systems, communication infrastructures and the like. But the government should keep off of my personal property and possessions, which includes my body, bank accounts, automobile, communication devices and so forth.

Traditional Conservatives disagree and we've debated these issues over the decades. It appears we will always disagree but i had mistakenly presumed elections determine the "winner" of these debates. Sometimes my position lost in elections, and sometimes it won.

But now I know everything is skewed due to all sorts of manipulations and influences not rooted among the population. Indeed, these manipulations are from Corporations, (Wall Street Banksters etc) Neo-Conservative/Neo-Liberal Elites (Foreign policy Think Tank/Institutions etc) and the ever growing Intelligence "Communities" . This list is by no means complete, but I believe these are the most significant 'entities' manipulating and controlling our socio-economic and political conditions in our own country and indeed beyond our borders.

It is most visible during election campaigns. One only need look behind the curtain to see who is financing and running the campaigns of these puppets, I mean candidates. But even that is becoming more and more difficult if not impossible vis a vis wildly corrupt machinations by corrupt officials, every branch of government, including a corrupt SCOTUS.

Turning this around is our challenge, I don't know what the answers are, but I hope we figure it out very soon, for our grandchildren's sake! I think we owe to them!

Welcome to du! :hi:

[Crowman1979]

4. Sorry Thom, but the Teabaggers are a lost cause.

It's better to gain the attention of the younger generation of voters or independents who don't know where to turn.

[Populist_Prole]

5. I have to agree. He must be referring to the theoretical tea party

The original libertarian based tea party, while I don't agree with most of their goals, would be able to find some common ground with us. Just try and find them though.

The actual feet on the ground tea party as it exists as whatever political force is just a bunch of hard right crusty angry reactionaries that will never reconcile even the slightest bit. We'll just have to wait till they expire due to natural causes. A look at many of them would suggest that is shorter in coming than would your average progressive.

[Dokkie]

6. who gives a f*** about the tea baggers

Isnt there enough relevant news topic to fill the hr? If its not Sarah Palin, its the tea party or some other knuckle head. We need to focus on building the party ahead of the 2012 election.

[2banon]

12. we need to change the paradigm

and quit playing the "work for the next election" game. Significant changes need to be made as to how elections are actually engineered/conducted/financed in order to affect cleaner, trustworthy elections. I'm completely convinced that until we do that work first, everthing that follows is simply more of the same corrupt system only more corrupt than the previous election.

[TMED]

7. Lifelong Democrats have also left the Democratic Party

for pretty much the same reasons ("shills for transnational corporations and the millionaire and billionaire CEO's").

So, how does Thom Hartmann focus on just the Republicans, and keep a straight face?

Oh, right, he conflates state level Democrats from states like WI with federal level Democrats, and even state level Democrats from other states, who would never dream of doing what the WI Senate Dems did, recently.

At least he had the decency (if that's the word) not to pretend that the former Republicans are so stupid as to flock to the corporatist Democratic Party. Unless I missed something, he said not a word about where the former Republicans were going.

From where I sit, Hartmann is functionally a shill for the Democrats, who will whine about their misdeeds but not have the courage to throw a bad Dem under the bus - unlike the ex-Republicans that he is praising, who at least have the courage of their convictions.

If anybody knows of any bad Democrat that Hartmann had the courage to throw under the bus, please inform us.

[democracy1st]

8. I've got a great site for you :) check it out ..you'll love it!

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index

[TMED]

9. Will that website answer my questions about Thom Hartmann?

You know, my question about him throwing a single Democrat under the bus, which would take a lot less courage than forsaking a long time party affiliation, completely?

Also, will this freerepublic website be able to tell me if the Democratic Party, at any level - federal, state (such as WI), other states (where they're as corrupt as the Republicans) have any program - any program at all - to educate about Citizens United vs. FEC, and how citizens should be uniting to negate that.

I know Obama whined about that decision, but did he get on TV and urge Americans, e.g., to support a constitutional amendment to remove corporate personhood? How about the WI Democratic Party - are they pushing for such a constitutional amendment, or are they just looking out for their long-time union supporters' immediate concerns?

As corporate as the Democratic Party is now, the trend is clearly downward, thanks to Citizens United vs. FEC. So, worse is yet to come, but of course if there's enough patriotic, honest Americans left in the Democratic Party leadership, they'd be working hard to reverse this.

Are there?

[democracy1st]

10. Sure they will let you know all about the democratic party!

[2banon]

13. I don't know if Thom has ever done that..

and don't really expect that he will. Mike Malloy on the hand, will and bless him for it. Unfortunately some folks don't understand the purpose of cleaning out corruption no matter where it lives It's insanity of cleaning the door of the refrigerator but not bother to throw out the rotting fruit inside.