Worse Than Watergate....
Nearly everything else about his presidency seems to be modeled on Nixon's, so there's a chance that it will end the same way.....but we'd need it to be so much worse than Watergate that both he and Cheney are removed from office.
The only silver lining I see is that now Kerry won't be left holding the bag when the policies of the first term come to fruitiion.
Maybe some whistleblowers will come forward now and reveal what all the secrecy has been hiding. Maybe now that the so called "Religious Right" have struck a blow for American Theocracy they will realize that some other pretty important issues are on the table too....maybe even more important than keeping civil rights out of the hands of people like the daughters of Alan Keyes and Dick Cheney.
I can't believe that putting the gay marriage stuff out there and claiming that a vote for Kerry was a vote for the terrorists...I actually heard that on Neal Boortz...was enough to mobilize a base of people who didn't care about all the other truly important issues of the day. I also can't believe they were able to demonize people who read newspapers.
Yesterday I felt like the kid doubled up on the playground getting kicked in the gut by the bullies, and whose only defense was "But....I'm smarter than you are..."
(kick kick kick)
Like John Stewart said last night--nothing trumps two dudes kissing. There's a reason why the first taunt the bullies fling is "FAG!"
Well, I've been shouting about the rise of American Theocracy for a long time. We're a giant step closer.
The last thing I hope the Deomocratic party does is what all the pundits are saying they should, which is basically become the moderate wing of the Republican Party. I'll kill myself if the Dems decide they need to run a Zell Miller/Joe Lieberman ticket like the Republicans say we should.
51-48 is not a sufficient margin to give up on the core values of the party.
All of you people who are thinking of fleeing the country, don't. Stay here, breed like rabbits, and raise your children into voters who believe in tolerance and hope instead of intolerance and fear, because that's who won this election, the intolerant and the fearful.....and that isn't America to me.
Seriously, though, here is my advice to the Democrats.
All politics is local.
Republicans won because they give good local. They've been building their infrastructure for years and they've been building it in the conservative churches.
Dems built their base as the the party of LABOR. That was our structure. The Labor boys and girls worked on a local level and they knew who lived where and who the movers and shakers were in every neighborhood. And they mobilized accordingly.
Ever since Reagan kicked PATCO in the nuts, Labor's been in a steep nose-dive and so have the fortunes of the Democratic party.
Democrats today need to do two things in combination. Build a structure and weaken the structure of the opposition.
We can retain and revitalize our original base through a resurgence of the Labor movement but that won't do the whole job.
Look, the thing is, like it or not, we are seeing a rise of American Theocracy. I think that is in part due to a reaction against the threat of Islamic Extremism. Don't be any more willing to hand Jesus over to the Republicans than you are the rest of the country. There are a LOT of churches out there who still believe in forgiveness as a core doctrine. Who believe in love and tolerance and acceptance. We need to appeal to those churches (who need our help too) in the way conservatives have appealed to the Evangelicals. That will help build our structure, there isn't anything wrong with using their model...it works. Am I going to keep trying to build a square wheel just because I'm envious of Roundie's success? No.
The other thing that will help is to discredit claims that Democrats are anti-faith. That is hugely important, but it won't happen if we aren't sincere about it. I'm a Christian. I don't see a lot of Christianity in the Evangelicals.
That's how we weaken their structure. Just like Jesus was most angry at hypocrits, so then must we be. Take every opportunity to point out how most "Evangelicals" use the Old Testiment to support their positions, instead of the New Covenant. Point out that being Pro-Death penalty is inconsistent with a Pro-Life agenda. Point out that Christ stopped a legal execution, and simply surrendering to his own execution does not constitute approval of the death penalty. Point out that Jesus said to render unto Ceasar that which was Ceasar's, not find any way you can to avoid paying your taxes or get them reduced. Point out that Jesus sought to win converts by living a perfect example, not legislating morality.
Don't let them keep telling America what Democrats are. Show them what we are by being the best Democrats we can be. And like Christ, lead them to us by the beacon of our example, not the bitterness (and rightness) of our argument against them.
Michael Moore is a great film maker, but he's a lousy mascot for our party.
We don't need a charismatic leader, and we don't need to become the moderate wing of the Republican Party in order to win elections....we just need a structure that works.
The only silver lining I see is that now Kerry won't be left holding the bag when the policies of the first term come to fruitiion.
Maybe some whistleblowers will come forward now and reveal what all the secrecy has been hiding. Maybe now that the so called "Religious Right" have struck a blow for American Theocracy they will realize that some other pretty important issues are on the table too....maybe even more important than keeping civil rights out of the hands of people like the daughters of Alan Keyes and Dick Cheney.
I can't believe that putting the gay marriage stuff out there and claiming that a vote for Kerry was a vote for the terrorists...I actually heard that on Neal Boortz...was enough to mobilize a base of people who didn't care about all the other truly important issues of the day. I also can't believe they were able to demonize people who read newspapers.
Yesterday I felt like the kid doubled up on the playground getting kicked in the gut by the bullies, and whose only defense was "But....I'm smarter than you are..."
(kick kick kick)
Like John Stewart said last night--nothing trumps two dudes kissing. There's a reason why the first taunt the bullies fling is "FAG!"
Well, I've been shouting about the rise of American Theocracy for a long time. We're a giant step closer.
The last thing I hope the Deomocratic party does is what all the pundits are saying they should, which is basically become the moderate wing of the Republican Party. I'll kill myself if the Dems decide they need to run a Zell Miller/Joe Lieberman ticket like the Republicans say we should.
51-48 is not a sufficient margin to give up on the core values of the party.
All of you people who are thinking of fleeing the country, don't. Stay here, breed like rabbits, and raise your children into voters who believe in tolerance and hope instead of intolerance and fear, because that's who won this election, the intolerant and the fearful.....and that isn't America to me.
Seriously, though, here is my advice to the Democrats.
All politics is local.
Republicans won because they give good local. They've been building their infrastructure for years and they've been building it in the conservative churches.
Dems built their base as the the party of LABOR. That was our structure. The Labor boys and girls worked on a local level and they knew who lived where and who the movers and shakers were in every neighborhood. And they mobilized accordingly.
Ever since Reagan kicked PATCO in the nuts, Labor's been in a steep nose-dive and so have the fortunes of the Democratic party.
Democrats today need to do two things in combination. Build a structure and weaken the structure of the opposition.
We can retain and revitalize our original base through a resurgence of the Labor movement but that won't do the whole job.
Look, the thing is, like it or not, we are seeing a rise of American Theocracy. I think that is in part due to a reaction against the threat of Islamic Extremism. Don't be any more willing to hand Jesus over to the Republicans than you are the rest of the country. There are a LOT of churches out there who still believe in forgiveness as a core doctrine. Who believe in love and tolerance and acceptance. We need to appeal to those churches (who need our help too) in the way conservatives have appealed to the Evangelicals. That will help build our structure, there isn't anything wrong with using their model...it works. Am I going to keep trying to build a square wheel just because I'm envious of Roundie's success? No.
The other thing that will help is to discredit claims that Democrats are anti-faith. That is hugely important, but it won't happen if we aren't sincere about it. I'm a Christian. I don't see a lot of Christianity in the Evangelicals.
That's how we weaken their structure. Just like Jesus was most angry at hypocrits, so then must we be. Take every opportunity to point out how most "Evangelicals" use the Old Testiment to support their positions, instead of the New Covenant. Point out that being Pro-Death penalty is inconsistent with a Pro-Life agenda. Point out that Christ stopped a legal execution, and simply surrendering to his own execution does not constitute approval of the death penalty. Point out that Jesus said to render unto Ceasar that which was Ceasar's, not find any way you can to avoid paying your taxes or get them reduced. Point out that Jesus sought to win converts by living a perfect example, not legislating morality.
Don't let them keep telling America what Democrats are. Show them what we are by being the best Democrats we can be. And like Christ, lead them to us by the beacon of our example, not the bitterness (and rightness) of our argument against them.
Michael Moore is a great film maker, but he's a lousy mascot for our party.
We don't need a charismatic leader, and we don't need to become the moderate wing of the Republican Party in order to win elections....we just need a structure that works.
posted by Archie Levine at 4:43 AM
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In 1972, Richard Nixon ran against George McGovern, a progressive populist with a great message about stopping the Vietnam War. McGovern lost in a landslide, winning literally only one state even though the Watergate scandal was swirling around Nixon. But a year and a half later, Nixon resigned; two years later, reformist Democrats won back control of both legislative chambers.
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