R.S. presents us with the previous Tattlesnake the bright side of the coin: what might happen in the Republican Party. It’s my sworn duty as the half empty glass proponent here; the doom and gloom go to guy at LT, to show you the other side. Only I won’t. Paul Krugman will…
“You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that theyll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this wont happen any time soon.”
“Instead, the Republican rump, the party thats left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palins rallies, where crowds chant ‘Vote McCain, not Hussein!’ It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that ‘the other folks are voting.’ It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obamas Marxist or was that Islamic? roots.”
I have found I don’t always agree with Mr. Krugman’s analysis. Some of his prose can, occasionally, seem to lack a focus. And while I disagree with his final point: final sentence… I won’t spoil it for you… I think it would make sense, just to be prepared, to read his essay.
Ken, I don’t disagree with Krugman necessarily, but if the GOP puts its future in the hands of candidates like Palin and Chambliss (who might lose in the Georgia run-off, BTW), they are fated to never get over 25 percent in any presidential election and will be confined to regional minority status in the rural Deep South and Midwest.
Also, big corporate contributors use their money to buy access — why would they waste their cash on a party that is controlled by the fringe right and out of the mainstream? (The honeymoon between secular conservatives and the religo-crazies is definitely over.)
I think all of the dumping on Palin right now is both part of a venting process by McCain’s handlers, and insurance against Moose Mama ever returning to haunt the RNC again.
Once those red parts of America realize that Obama is no Muslim-domestic-terrorist-Black-Christian-Theologist who hates his country, and if he does the job I think he will, he’ll win some of those states he barely lost this time around in 2012. The country is headed in a new direction, whether Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity and the other babbling wingnuts understand that or not. Fox News and the rest of the Right-Wing Media are sinking in the ratings, and Rupert Murdoch is cutting staff as his stock price falls. You can bet that the elite that runs the Republican Party know all of this and will bend with the prevailing wind, as will their candidates, rater than turn into the Party of Palin.
Having trouble with the software? Usually it says, “you’ve already said that,” if you slip and click twice.
Hopefully you’re right and they haven’t caught a case of hard headed Bush-itis. Nothing is more doggledly determined than glazed eyed fanatics. This T-give I may find out: my wife’s brother-in-law is one of these twits. Wonder how high his goosesteps are now. I’d rather not know: I’ve been keeping the peace for 20 years. If only my mother-in-law wasn’t also a true believer… just a little less goose and more automatic.
Some kind of glitch there on the double post, but I deleted it.
I saw a couple of Republicans on Tuesday and they seemed awfully downhearted. If Obama does the kind of job I think he’ll do in the next four years, some of them may come around. As Sam Harris points out:
“You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don’t like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.”
— Sam Harris
It’s true; one of my friends who was a fierce defender of Bush and the neoconservatives doesn’t want to talk about politics anymore — he’s since married a black woman and has a new job teaching public school.
Either one of those would be enough to make him think twice, but now he’s got the double whammy. I’d be willing to bet he voted for Obama this time around.
Maybe your relatives will have had second thoughts by Thanksgiving, but don’t expect them to admit it in public.
Yes, I’ve noticed that. The most slimy of the under the rock creatures seem to have temporarily crawled back under. Of course over at The Chimp some of the more starry-eyed posters are ripping their hearts out over Obama aides joining discussions about hitting Iran… now a story over at the NYT. (Um, didn’t Barack suggest such a while back? Were they just smoking too much political crack at the time to notice?) How serious they are; not sure… but to paraphrase my response to the post, it was about what I expected.
It’s a pretty damn safe bet that there’s going to be a lot of anger after falling from the heights of exuberance, and snot-filled crawls out from the pits of Hell, in the next few months or by 09. We’ll see.