A spasm is not a realignment (Hardcore Rant)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

(RANT)

Republicans do this and we do it too: You win a few elections almost by default because people are pissed at the other side. The Party faithful believe there has been a "realignment" and that the public has begun a deep, dedicated love affair with every aspect of the Party.

The Republicans thought that the fact that people were disgusted by Tom Foley and suffering the usual buyer's remorse with Clinton meant that America had become Teabag Nation. So they called themselves revolutionaries and shut down the government. And the public hated it.

I do not think we have over-reached in that way. (Climate change might be a political over-reach but most things were just poorly designed and poorly sold) I think we have, perhaps, under-reached in some key ways.

But what we have not done is make people sufficiently afraid of and disgusted by the Republicans.

This is a two-party system.... a zero-sum game. When one side becomes unpopular the other side gains. And people vote primarily to express disapproval... they usually are not endorsing anything!

44% say they wish they had GW Bush back? Sarah Palin's numbers improving. Dick-fucking-Cheney's numbers improving.

The generic congressional ballot numbers for Republicans improving even though Republicans in congress have done literally NOTHING except lie and go to tanning salons.

They do not love us. They do not support us. They are not on-board. Hence they are impatient and will thrash to the other side when they get pissed off, even if the other side is the main cause of their problems!

The only way to slow that pendulum was to utterly de-legitimize the other side. As some wise Congressman said in the 1990s, "The only way to interact with the Republicans is to treat them like hammered dog-shit."

Some may remember my incessant writings about partisanship during the primaries. My thesis was that Barack Obama had formed some ideas about governance during the 1990s that did not properly account for the rise of semi-fascist state in the 2000s. I felt that his bipartisan dreams were not just campaign bullshit but actually sincere, and utterly wrong-headed and dangerous.

We had a once-in-a-generation chance to put these mother-fuckers down for the count.

This feels like a standard football scenario... if you let a team hang around when they are trying to beat themselves you will often pay for it later in the game.

(/RANT)

[countingbluecars]

1. 44% say they wish they had GW Bush back?

What poll was that? I must have missed it.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Posted in this forum this morning. Probably still on the first page.

PPP, so not the best pollster, but still a vomit-inducing sort of thing.

:puke:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. the pendulum swings back and forth

but you have to cut the string and pull it off

[MidwestRick]

4. Things will swing back even faster

if Blue Dogs get rejected by Democratic voters in the upcoming elections.