Bloomberg's analysis of what's wrong with America is *WRONG*

[BurtWorm]

In citing extreme partisanship in DC, he's guilty of the same lazy, broadbrush, one-charge-fits-all-equally level of analysis common among pundits and TV star journos in the corporate media. Is partisanship in DC a *problem* because both sides are equally guilty of putting their respective party's interests above the nation's? That question is at the heart of the issue.

Anyone who goes beyond conventional wisdom to really think about this problem would see that partisanship is more extreme in the Republican Party than among Democrats, and the reason for this is both ideological and political: Ideological, because Republicanism is an ideology to a much greater degree than Democrat-ism (which doesn't even have a word for its vague, piecemeal ideology); political because Republicans are much more organized politically than the Democrats. The reason we're in the mess we're in is that the Republican party, which is in fact a party for a permanent minority (the wealthy, the right wing, and the Christian white), has invested enormous energy and money into artificially turning itself into the permanent-majority party.

Shakespeare viewed periods when assassination and Machiavellian politicking rather than heredity and obedience to the good king determined who held power as ones in which Nature was out of balance. In a sense, Republicans have put democratic America out of balance. They have no interest in the will of the people. They are only interested in maintaining order as their minority constituency sees fit. To return Nature to balance, the American people are going to have to have their interests put front and center in Congress, the Executive and the Judicial branches.

This will require removing *Republicans* from power at every level of government. Bloomberg did his part by removing one Republican from power in NYC, namely himself. But it might make matters worse to divide the shaky Democratic coalition before it can develop a strategy to complete the critical task of de-Republicanizing the government.

[NewJeffCT]

1. Not sure who made the comparison

but, with Republicans, their base forces the Republican politicians to adopt unpopular and non-mainstream positions (pro-Iraq, anti-choice, anti-environment, etc)

With Democrats, their base attempts to get their politicians to adopt popular mainstream positions (timeline for Iraq withdrawal, pro-choice, etc)

[BurtWorm]

2. Worse than that, the Republicans have (until recently anyway) been confident

that they could take unpopular positions because they had rigged the system so that it wouldn't matter how the majority responded. And the media has made clear that they would be no obstacle to the artificial mainstreaming of Republican extremism.

[NewJeffCT]

3. not just the elections

they also have most of the "mainstream" media supporting them as well. How often do you see Republic politicians really grilled by a reporter?

[BurtWorm]

4. I just think of Tom DeLay and Chris Matthews.

Or Dick Cheney and Wolf Blitzer or Tim Russert.

No need to say more, is there?

[BurtWorm]

5. kick