It’s not entirely unexpected, I suppose. My suggestion that Democrats should moderate their views generated a bit of heat from the readership (including this thoughtful response by our own Hilzoy) — most of it from Democrats, and most of it against me. However perilous, though, I’m gonna continue the fight because I think I’m right: Democrats need to turn to the right in order to have a chance in the next election. Here’s why:
1. "Turn to the right" is often taken to mean a turn to the right on social issues — a problem compounded by the visibility of the gay marriage issue this time around. But social issues are only a part of it (and not the largest part).
(cont.)
2. Indeed, foreign policy won this election for Bush. That’s not a shocking insight, and it shouldn’t be: obvious things are generally obvious for a reason. Equally obvious is that foreign policy is going to continue to play a role — albeit, due to our successes, I hope a diminishing one — for at least the next few election cycles.
3. A foreign policy debate is nearly always won by the rightmost option (AuH2O being the notable exception). Bush held the ground on Kerry’s right, and Kerry could not make inroads and still satisfy his core supporters. For most of the campaign, then, he was trapped in doubletalk — messages and positions that tried to satisfy the base and the electorate. Tough may not always beat nuance in the real world, but it sure as hell talks a better game.
4. After Kerry brought in the Clintonistas, he got it — and his tone shifted dramatically. But it was too little, too late. And, having been astutely pegged by Bush as a flip-flopper, one more apparent flip-flop wasn’t going to save him. You can’t be perceived as faking "tough."
5. So, don’t mistake it: Turning to the right isn’t a call to Bucchananize — "anti-war, pro-life, anti-gay." But it means that Democrats need to start talking and acting tough on foreign policy issues. They need to start moving to the right in greater numbers. Don’t know how that’s done? See Biden, Joe; Bayh, Evan;* Lieberman, Joe; and I was about to write "etc.," except that I’m not sure who else fits in this category. (That’s part of the problem, you see.)
6. Now, all this said, social issues did play a role. I share Sebastian’s view on the effect of the gay marriage ballot initiatives — the initiatives probably played a small, but possibly deciding role. Which means that I’m not sanguine about the push back that we’re getting on the issue from thoughtful lefties and gay-friendly (and gay) conservatives (no role, less than before, you have no mandate). There’s a impulse not merely to see what one wants to see in the data, but also to advocate that the data supports a particular political position that you hold dear. (And don’t fall into Sullivan’s trap of mistaking national data as support for a swing state hypothesis. "Social issues" may not have played a role in California or Florida, but they could very well have been decisive in Ohio.)
7. Which brings me to the following: If you’re serious about winning next time, you can’t circle the wagons and listen only to yourselves. The people you need to listen to are the folks you didn’t convince the last time around.** You need to figure out why — and Marshall and Drum, as smart as they are, can’t tell you.
*Who just won election in deep-red Indiana, by a considerable margin and despite Bush’s considerable coattails. Keep an eye on him.
**This would not include me, since I voted for Kerry. Which means that I wrote a post and negated all of it in the penultimate sentence. Ha!
I think that the Dems could get more people on their side by adopting a more pragmatic and sensible approach to Gun Control.
How’s this for a thirty second soundbite
“We don’t need any new gun-control laws to protect people, we just need to enforce the ones we have. I think that we need to make sure the honest, law-abiding citizens of the USA can own their guns, and that criminals and those who would seek to harm us cannot.”
I don’t know whether it’s as consciously a deciding factor in as many people’s mindsets as I think, it’s more of a feeling from talking to many people that they automatically associate Democrats with “want to take my gun away.” It’s a simple gut feeling unsupported by statistical data, but those are good for me right now… Get past that, with two years of this kind of “don’t make new laws, enforce the laws that are there, guns for you, no guns for criminals.” It also pushes the “law and order” thing, and can well play into the “national security” thing. “George Bush lets terrorists buy guns on the street. Vote for us and we’ll get those guns off the street and out of the hands of terrorists, making America safer.”
And, coincidentally, this is probably the only kind of “gun control” platform that can work.
It’s not a question of changing our positions, it’s a question of framing our positions in language that speaks directly to the simple folks of Podunk, ID.
Personally, I don’t want to win if it means moving to the right on social issues. If I’m moving to the right on social issues, what am I fighting for? Those are part of my core beliefs. So I win by appealing to the base sentiments of the mob, go me, now what do I do?
Really? Isn’t that exactly how Bush was perceived by nearly half the electorate?
Absolutely. The Democrats need to find a way to appeal to those people who rationally should already be voting Democrat, but for one reason or another (usually FUD from the right) are scared away from doing so.
McDuff – “It’s not a question of changing our positions, it’s a question of framing our positions in language that speaks directly to the simple folks of Podunk, ID.”
It’s the arrogance, McDuff. Moore’s arrogance, Steisand’s arrogance, Newsome’s arrogance, NAACP’s arrogance, Kerry’s arrogance. Oh yeah, and maybe McAuliffe’s stupidity. Podunk may be ‘simple’, but they’re not blind, deaf and dumb.
I’d say Blogbudsman gets it exactly right. You’re making a mistake if you think that all you need to do is explain your policies better. The policies have to be adjusted as well. (And you’re making a mistake if you think that the folks in Podunk don’t know enough to know the difference — just as Republicans make a mistake when they think that African Americans will start voting for them in droves if they have black friends. People really do know more than they get credit for, and they vote on that knowledge.)
Von, anyone who thinks this election was a referendum on policy is deluding themselves.
Bush won this election on message and style. His camapign glossed over every bit of his foreign policy, reducing it to vague buzzwords and broad brushstroakes. “Going on the offensive”? Bush’s policy, as far as I can tell, is to take the most indirect means possible of fighting terror – that is, to keep knocking over states he suspects – or hopes – are supporting terror, and to hope that hurts al Qaeda, while outsourcing the fight against al Qaeda itself to our trusted friends in Pakistan. Are you telling me that the bulk of Bush supporters – who by a three-to-one margin believed that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and by a substantial majority believed we had FOUND weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – actually understood the foreign policy they were approving?
For Christ’s sake, when they sold him at the convention, they sold him as the man who managed to throw out the baseball from the mound with the kevlar vest. They sold him on his bullhorn-speaking skills. They did not sell him on the notion of Mideast transformation.
Note that most Americans disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, while APPROVING of Bush’s handling of the war on terror – DESPITE Bush’s constant assertion that Iraq is CENTRAL to the war on terror. There is an essential disconnect occuring here, and it is a disconnect occurring in the realm not of policy, but of marketing.
When the Democrats understand that, they’ll win elections.
It’s the arrogance, McDuff. Moore’s arrogance, Steisand’s arrogance, Newsome’s arrogance, NAACP’s arrogance, Kerry’s arrogance. Oh yeah, and maybe McAuliffe’s stupidity. Podunk may be ‘simple’, but they’re not blind, deaf and dumb.
Podunk is pretty damn arrogant itself. Where does James Dobson get off telling me who I can have sex with and how to have sex with them, and how the kind of sex I have makes me more or less American than he is? How does it make me more or less Christian or more or less “pro-family” than he is? How the hell is it that a vast swath of people who denounce the families of 12% of the country as base, immoral, and inferior get off calling ANYBODY arrogant? How the hell is it that anybody who tells a woman she has to have her rapist’s child on the basis that a zygote has the same moral agency as an adult human being gets to call anyone else arrogant? Remove the giant fricking plank from your eye before you take the speck out of somebody else’s.
Lungfish —
Podunk is pretty damn arrogant itself. Where does James Dobson get off telling me who I can have sex with and how to have sex with them, and how the kind of sex I have makes me more or less American than he is?
I almost put this in the last post, and it seems too relevant to leave out now. The most arrogant folks on the face of the Earth are those who are certain that their view is the correct, and only, one. This category surely include certain Christian Fundamentalists, who, believing themselves angels, commit the sin thereof; it also surely includes, however, certain insufferrable types from liberal enclaves.
Von and the other illustrati here, as much as I respect y’all, I am deeply suspicious of anyone who claims they know what happened. We can toss around polls till the cows come home, but the polls themselves can’t avoid serving up ill defined terms that allow people to read into them what they want (not only moral values, but defining what to do about Iraq) While it’s well and good to point to commentators being arrogant, (and being from Mississippi long ago, I think find invocation of podunk a bit hard to swallow myself) but when you suggest (or second bbman’s suggestion) that the Dems ran an arrogant campaign, you lose me. What exactly distinguishes (other than the vote count) the arrogance of the dem side from what we saw done by the Republicans?
The Left is overflowing with elitism aplenty, Von, but at least it’s elitism that’s recognized as such. Moral elitism has been so successful because it’s packaged itself as exactly the opposite – as a kind of salt-of-the-earth, humble piety. This is what allows people to basically take what are fringe groups – like Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition – and gloss over their fringe status, treat them as if they really did represent mainstream Christianity, or “heartland values.” Looking at the numbers on gay marriage, for instance, around 60% of Americans support some form of marriage rights for gay couples – either civil unions of full mariage rights. The push to ban gay marriage isn’t coming from some mythical “real America,” it’s coming from social radicals.
LJ — The Democrats didn’t (by and large) run an arrogant campaign (excepting exhortions for Guardian readers, which couldn’t be controlled); but the attitude expressed by Iron Lungfish was.
Von, I don’t see any coherent, historical sense in which Bush was on Kerry’s “right” on foreign policy. Could you explain that one to me? Do you mean to say whoever seems more likely to start a war wins elections?
It seems to me that over the last 30-40 years the notion that the U.S. should go out into the world and do everything it can to spread freedom and democracy was a Democratic idea, ridiculed by Republicans (including candidate Bush).
I have to agree with Iron Lungfish (and liberal japonicus for that matter) on this one.
Von, I don’t see any coherent, historical sense in which Bush was on Kerry’s “right” on foreign policy.
I suspect you see a “coherent” sense in which Bush was on Kerry’s right, though you may not see a “coherent, historical” sense because right/left begins to break down when one looks at foreign policy over time. But, to answer your question:
The “coherent” sense is that Bush is either pursuing (take your pick) a “National Greatness” or “neo-Conservative” foreign policy agenda, policies that are generally associated with the right-wing in the U.S.
I suspect that my disagreement with von is largely (though probably not entirely) verbal by now. He thinks we should move to the right on defense; I think that these issues are by now not really right/left ones, but that the more interventionist wing of the Democratic party is now ascendant in any case. (This is harder to see than it ought to be since our interventionist wing tends to be against intervention in the specific case of Iraq, though it voted to authorize Bush to use force, since (at the time) this was seen as necessary in order for him to get tough inspections through the UN.) But if the idea is that we should try to be (seen as) credible on national defense, I completely agree.
On social issues: I have always thought that abortions should be safe, legal, and RARE, and I don’t know of anyone who thinks otherwise. We need to make this clearer. I would be willing to get the state out of the marriage business entirely, so that everyone could enter into a state ‘civil union’ and then be married by any church that would consent to marry them; but otherwise I don’t want to give ground on this one, since I really think it’s a matter of basic rights.
But I also think we have a desperate need to reframe and recapture issues, as I suggested in my last post. And I agree withe von that this will involve listening very carefully to those who disagree with us. We should do this because it’s the right thing to do (contempt for a particular view is sometimes appropriate, e.g. to white supremacism, but contempt for a person in his or her entirety is almost always wrong, at least until you’ve met a pretty high burden of proof); and it’s tactically stupid, not only because it does not tend to endear us to those we seek to convince, but also because we badly need to figure out what’s up with people who disagree with us. Why, for instance, are so many of them so ready to believe that their marriages are under siege? The fact that I don’t think they’re right to identify gay marriages in particular as what threatens them does not mean that I can’t try to understand this, and to do so sympathetically and non-condescendingly.
What does Drum call this, yeah, ‘stream of consciousness’. Iron, I don’t know who James Dobson is, but I might suggest YOU NOT LISTEN TO HIM. And Von, I doubt if Christian Fundamentalists (kind of an ominous handle) outvoted anybody. Look at the national county results and Jesusland rightfully dissipates. I see a wrap around bell curve, where the loud but small percentage fringe at either extreme causes little more than head shaking amongst most voting Americans. And japonicus, I understand in a campaign environment, there’s historically a fine line to walk when discussing displays of arrogance on either side. It’s ironic that the supposedly populist party comes across as condescending and elitist. It’s a real deal when the media stars of the liberal show have no connection with Americans. People know the difference between a celebrity and a leader. Or at least they think they do. Perception is reality. And japonicus, I further agree that most of what I just wrote, though I truly feel that way, may mean absolutely nothing.
With all due respect von:
But it means that Democrats need to start talking and acting tough on foreign policy issues.
I’d much prefer smart talk to tough talk. Tough talk might strike some Americans as helpful, but it strikes others of us as moronic. “Bring ’em on” “Mission Accomplished” “Dead or Alive” “We’ll Bring Justice to Them”…these make fine one-liners for action adventure films, but I don’t live in an action adventure film, and none of these one-liners is going to do squat to prevent another attack on my city. Our enemies are bringing it on, making a laughing stock of the idiot who hung the Mission Accomplished sign, clearly still alive and well, and quite successfully evading justice.
Tough talk is for rallying idiots. I’m not about to join the ranks of those who issue it or those who are rallied by it. I respect myself too much for that.
One thing that has bothered me about liberals is the widespread contempt for the Walmart crowd. I suppose it would be better if everybody shopped at Nordstrom or Niemann Marcus, but then that might ruin the experience for the Nordstrom shoppers. An alternative of seizing the Walmart and converting it into a welfare distribution center isn’t so attractive either, and likely would lose some efficiency. But somehow, a lot of folks don’t get this. They preach sermons from the mainstream and liberal churches that Walmart embodies everything that is wrong with America, on one hand, and seriously believe that they are the only ones that care about the poor and the lower middle class on the other hand.
Now, I don’t like Walmart so much either.I was always a Kmart kind of guy and go to Target for the upscale vibe it gives me. And I think Sam W might have disapproved Walmart’s turn away from Made in USA products. But I don’t like having wealthier folks with fancy foreign cars and new homes built with illegal immigrant labor lecture me about my shopping habits.
(On a personal note: Consider this a BIG hint, Mr Unitarian Preacher, when you send me a letter asking where my pledge money is at.)
Von, I asked for a “coherent, historical” sense in which Bush was on the “right” because your OP states “A foreign policy debate is nearly always won by the rightmost option.” To me that sentence implies you are making a historical comparison, and it’s arguably cheating a little to come back with “right/left begins to break down when one looks at foreign policy over time”.
I didn’t do this as a “gotcha” but because personally, I think the neo-conservative foreign policy bears as much relationship to historical notions of “Right” foreign policy as Bush bears to historical notions of conservatism (I think Bush is a radical, not a lefty of course, but a radical).
Blogbudsman, if there are really people out there who base their vote on Barbra Streisand’s opinion (either way), then this country is just as bad off as I feared. I think this post (via Legal Fiction) offers a more interesting (albeit scary) analysis, which involves Southern Conservatives (particularly Southern Baptists) deliberately dividing the world into Us and Them, and cultivating a feeling of being persecuted by Them. http://www.livejournal.com/users/wayfairer/456769.html
IIRC Digby had a similar post recently, that traced the whole attitude back to 19th century.
My thoughts? The democrats need not move anywhere. A bit left of center is, I think, where the country actually is in terms of belief. The Democratic policy platform could use some minor tweaking, but what really needs to be adjusted is the way that the platform is presented to most of America.
There is an idea, propagated by all sorts of folks, that liberal values are a bad thing. Bush was very successful in getting the vote out in quarters that hadn’t been as responsive before, and he played on that for turnout and voters with what I think of as corollary issues. I don’t buy into the theory that gay marriage won Bush this election, but I do think it played a role. It seems as though there were a preponderance of issues that, when taken as a whole, made people vote for bush.
Now, I could be wrong about that. Might well be, really. But I think it made a difference.
On the issues, though, on the Guns, God, and Gays issues, the left is more representative of most of the population than the right. Gun Control is something that what, 65-70% of the population feels is a good idea. The hard-line born again evangelicals represent something on the order of 25% of the country. And most of the country is against an amendment banning gay marriage. Which doesn’t necessarily mean they want gay marriage to be legal, but they don’t want discrimination in the constitution.
These are areas where the Democrats need to straighten out their message. Talk about gun control in a sane way. Talk about getting the government out of the business of marriage. (Civil partnerships? Something like that. Don’t say marriage. Push it back to the churches, the communities.) Talk about religious freedom, and make it clear, that there are good reasons for it. You don’t want Uncle Sam telling you where and when to go to church, right? These are, framing issues.
And foreign policy? The stance needs to be a tough one, right? Introduce some pragmatism into your rhetoric. Avoid using phrases like ‘global test’. Make it clear to the country that what we’re interested in, is a person who leads with their head, not their heart. Make it clear what is at stake. Bush has made mistakes because he’s allowing the wrong part of his anatomy to steer the country. That is not a difficult thing to illustrate. We need to talk about our Democracy, and the sorts of responsibilities that are incumbent upon us. With great power, etc etc.
Von, you seem to be suggesting a move to the right only in this latter area. That the left needs to be more hawkish. I think, personally, that the only way that remains true is if the discussion remains one where people who wish to use force after considering the alternatives, and after having plans in place are mocked and derided. That can change, I think, but I don’t believe it will change if the left continues on with the same sort of tactics that we’ve been using so far.
crutan
you really want Democrats to take rightist positions on foreign policy even if they honestly believe them to be wrong? No.
Bush doesn’t occupy the whole right. He has been shamefully negligent in some areas. Kerry should have focused on that, not the alliance shredding.
it is hard for me to accept that what needs to change is our policy positions, when polls consistently show that significant pluralities if not outright majorities of voters were factually wrong about our policy positions and about many factual issues.
Democrats need to take this seriously, like Biden. But Biden’s views are very similar to Kerry’s, across the board. The difference is how he expresses them. Biden has much more in common with Kerry than Lieberman, who seems knee-jerkily but sincerely hawkish, and Bayh, who is either a knee-jerk hawk or an empty suit saying what he thinks he needs to say to get elected.
I opposed the war, and I was right, though not for the exact reasons I expected.
I think, as pragmatic Dem, that we do need to “move to the right,” but not necessarily in the context of the current batch of issues that define left and right.
Obviously, defense is not going to go away as an issue. I’m pretty dovish, so all you get from these quarters will be attempts to speak differently about defense issues: not strong vs. weak but maybe smart vs. hot. I don’t know, maybe our hawks will have to prevail within the party to make defense work for us, and I’ll just have to resign myself to it.
But I think that one way to “move to the right” without betraying our core principles would be to pick an entirely new issue. The two parties in our system must internalize coalitions that are represented more explicitly in parliamentary countries. The current alignment seems to favor Republicans, rosy future demographic models or no. New issues need to be raised that will be sources of agreement with elements of the Republican coalition. These issues must be made to seem imperative with every trick in Madison Avenue’s playbook. And, alas, liberals like me will have to see some of our pet issues de-emphasized (or at least snuck upon an unsuspecting country in a Friday night executive order :).
Darn, have I just reinvented triangulation?
(And if it’s as simple as “the rightmost side of the debate wins, regardless of the merits or the way the arguments are made”, we are screwed, because nothing stops the GOP from moving right too. A cynical race to the right for electoral gain is the absolute last thing this country needs.
Fortunately it’s not that simple. Here’s a hawkish foreign policy position that’s a loser: the draft.)
von, do you honestly still believe the Iraq war was a good idea?
and finally: anyone who seriously thinks that Lieberman was the most electable Democratic candidate needs to surrender their Democratic-advice-giving license.
what most people argue is that the Democrats need to move closer to their position. I see why a moderate would want that, but it’s actually dumb advice even from that standpoint–a more moderate Democratic party leads to a less moderate country.
Iron, I don’t know who James Dobson is, but I might suggest YOU NOT LISTEN TO HIM.
BBman, I’ll stop listening to Dobson when George Bush does. By most accounts, he wields more influence than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell while keeping a much lower profile. He’s agitated for everything from Presidential endorsement of the FMA to the abandoning of the Mideast peace process, he’s got a huge listener and direct-mail base. His latest pinata has been Arlen Specter; he was the first big name to call for blocking Specter’s charmanship. And while you may not believe he and his buddies matter much more than Chomskyites, the political team at the White House certainly does, and they’re going to keep feeding his base – with all its fringe elements and all its lunatics – for the next four years.
Which leads to my next point: the Democrats have done pretty much everything they can to distance themselves from the Left, even when this has clearly lead to their detriment – Dems could have embraced Michael Moore the way Republicans embraced Limbaugh, Coulter, Drudge, Fox News, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, et al, and in doing so given the Left the mainstream credibility that the GOP has given the Right. But they haven’t, and people like Moore remain overt fringe figures, defined by their degree of controversy or outlandishness. No Democrat to the right of Dennis Kucinich is proposing the destruction of the WTO or socialized medicine; Dems have bent over backwards to paint their fringe supporters as just that – radicals who don’t reflect the issues and stances of the party.
But someone like Bill Bennett or James Dobson can be brought on a Sunday morning show as a credible representative not of a fringe group, but of “religious America,” of those who have “moral values.” Ann Coulter can go on Hardball across from a standard Democratic operative as if Coulter were an actual representative of conservatism or the Republican Party, and not a member of the lunatic right. It’s not just that the parties have treated their bases differently; they have different bases. The Dems, for the most part, have written off the Chomskyites. They’ve decided to play a lot closer to the center than the GOP has. I don’t believe the Republicans are being rewarded for it – but I believe that THEY believe that. That’s why you’ll hear Bush mouth the Right’s words about “sanctity of marriage” and “pro-family judges.”
Iron – “Dems have bent over backwards to paint their fringe supporters as just that – radicals who don’t reflect the issues and stances of the party.”
Boy, you need to let that cat out of the bag. Is Rather and Cronkite in that group? That relevation will bode well for the future of our two party system.
Maybe there’s a disconnect between the DNC and America’s Democrats.
Von, Iron Lungfish is exactly right. You are outlining a losing strategy here for the Dems. You are watching a soccer match, noticing that the Red Team is having better luck scoring off the Blue Team’s goal than the Blues are the Red goal, and then suggesting the Blues should start kicking the ball into their own goal if they want to win.
Hilzoy, how would getting government out of the marriage business not play right into the hands of those who say the “gay agenda” is to destroy marriage? The horse is out of the barn on marriage being a secular (and optionally religious) institution. I think any proposals to undo this history would be counterproductive, futile, and very expensive. They would also make me very, very angry, since they would result in my wife and me ceasing to be “married” in the eyes of the law. I can’t emphasize this enough.
blogbudsman, if you don’t know who James Dobson is, I suggest you find out now, because he is riding your candidate’s coattails to a more prominent place in the national dialogue. His influence on political discourse was very real even before the Bush victory, and he is a big player in the forked-tongued anti-family/anti-marriage movement to whom Bush panders so energetically.
Dems DO need to talk better about defense. For thirty years we’ve allowed knee-jerk hawkism to stand in for strength. This election was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how rushing to invade makes us WEAK – how we’re less able to hunt down al Qaeda, how we’re less able to put pressure on Iran and North Korea and Pakistan, how we’re less able to handle a REAL military emergency should it arise. Remember Clinton’s line at the convention, “Strength and wisdom are not opposing virtues”? That should have been our theme for the entire campaign.
The point isn’t just bigger alliances, or the merits of hawkism versus dovism, or troop levels, or even the competence of the commander in chief. It’s how ALL of these things add up to make a nation stronger or weaker. A lot of Americans are still living under the impression that charging off to war – even if it’s the wrong war in the wrong place – still proves something, is still flexing some muscle, is still some sign of strength. This is the mentality we needed to deflate – the mentality we as a country need to defeat if we’re going to maintain our status as the world’s superpower. Because every blown attempt, every charge off to do a fool’s quest, spends our political, diplomatic, and military capital, and makes us weaker. For all Bush’s bravado, we are weaker, more strained, and less secure now than we were four years ago, and this comes as the direct result of his actions and his leadership.
Until the Democrats can deliver that message, they’ll continue to lose on national security.
I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but: Tom DeLay. Dennis Hastert. James Inhofe. Tom Coburn. Get the first two out of power in the house, and the second two out of the Senate, or shut the heck up about Michael Moore. There are right wing media personalities as bad as Moore and much worse. There are no comparable Democratic Senators to Inhofe. McKinney, Moran, and McDermott are our worst embarrassements in the House, and they have almost no power or influence in our own caucus, let alone running the entire House of Representatives and every conference committee in the U.S. Congress. Get them out of power, or stop trying to pretend that “extremism” is the Democrats’ problem.
Me, too. But that could just be redneckish ignorance speaking.
I still disagree that the Left needs to move Right. I believe WillyStyle made some outstanding arguments in this thread’s precursor to the effect that in some areas, the Right has moved Left. And I still can’t believe that my views, which I’d long held to be chock full of right-wing-nutty goodness, are starting to look downright libertarian in comparison.
Finally, von: my suspicion is that not only does human nature defy analysis, it actively avoids it. If you try and do what you know the people want you to do, they’re going to become highly annoyed at the way your hair looks.
I’m confused. Is Michael Moore a reliable source of fact only as long as Delay’s got any power?
sorry–about how Michael Moore is the cause of the Democrats’ problems. Anyone who can make a movie that makes me feel like George W. Bush isn’t getting a fair shake has his own problems.
I agree with Hilzoy that foreign policy and national defence is not really a right/left issue. But whatever you call it, Democrats need to gain more credibility with the American public on those two issues. The fact that Bush can be perceived as stronger on both is not an artifact of some nefarious and unusually trickey disinformation campaign. It is an artifact of 30+ years of Democratic weakness on foreign policy and defence. It is an artifact of the Democratic party’s embrace of true doves in some of its leading national positions. It is an artifact of electing people like Carter, and nominating people like Dukakis. Kerry’s record in the Cold War and Gulf War I did nothing to counteract that, and everything to confirm it.
Gromit, thanks for the link to Dobson. I didn’t save it, but I’m always interested in other’s opionions. A prominent place in the nation’s dialogue? Just as long as there is a nations dialogue, I can handle it.
Slarti,
You miss the point. Moore is on the fringe. He holds no political office. He is not an official of the Democratic Party. He can agitate and make movies and do whatever, but he can’t pass legislation.
Comparing him to DeLay is a joke.
DeLay is mainstream Republican. He has a great deal of actual control over what happens in this country – what laws get passed. When Michael Moore is the leader of the Democratic Party in the House you can complain. When he is a spokesman for Democratic views with the kind of widespread acceptance and influence in the party that Limbaugh and Dobson and the like have in the Republican Party you can talk. Meanwhile, he’s a left-wing movie maker expressing his views.
I utterly fail to see why criticism of right-wing nutcases who exercise actual power in this country is invalid unless acompanied by criticism of Michael Moore.
” The fact that Bush can be perceived as stronger on both is not an artifact of some nefarious and unusually trickey disinformation campaign. ”
Then why does it seem to coincide with so very many factual errors, in survey after survey after survey?
Actually, I think the causality more complicated than that. I think people are led into the factual errors partly by a pre-existing belief that Kerry was trustworthy and Bush was not, and Bush is a strong leader and Kerry is a flip flopper. But that shows a media problem and a rhetorical problem more than a policy problem.
“Kerry was trustworthy and Bush was not,”
this is a typo obviously, meant the opposite.
Well, it would help to nominate someone who wasn’t perceived, due to his war protests, as anti-American. That’s a start.
As for Michael Moore, screw him. Why do my fellow Dems always feel the need to offer up pseudo-defenses or misdirections? He’s a liar, and he roots for our enemies.
Full stop.
Additionally, Tom DeLay and the corrupt GOP elite in Washington are lining their pockets and those of their lobbyist friends while selling our children down the river.
I find something in Von’s post and all of the comments I can agree with. So I should probably take the day off and recharge.
The difference in Michael Moore and say, Dobson, is that the Republican Party had enough discipline to shunt Dobson and ilk to the background with the assignment of keeping his flock in line. Some time back in the 1990’s Bush met with the Christian Coalition, who apparently doubted his bonafides, and said “Trust me”. By which he meant, I’m a true believer but I’m better looking than all of you. I can win. You guys look too mean to get a majority.
Why do you think Delay lets Hastert run things? Because Hastert looks like your grumpy harmless uncle who coaches the local football team and Delay looks like the new Commandant in a movie about Roman Polanski’s childhood.
So Moore will have his limited assignment in future elections. Then he gets some champagne at the Inauguration.
So yes, rework policy positions and explain them better, whatever that entails. And be very sincere. Then find an attractive candidate, as Blogbudsman and Von suggest, who can insincerely deliver your sincerity into power.
Well put me down as against any changes in the Democratic party that would treat protests against the Vietnam War (or any war for that matter) as “anti-American.”
I find that characterization offensive (even if you have distanced it by the clever use of “perceived as” — which is just another way of saying “painted by the slime machine as”).
If we learned nothing else from the election this year, we should have learned that anything in someone’s past can be twisted around into slime, so the last thing I am going to do is start voting for nominees based on who I think is least likely to get slimed.
Finally, what evidence do you have that Michael Moore “roots for our enemies”?
And, having been astutely pegged by Bush as a flip-flopper…
The problem with that contention, von, is that Bush is in many respects even more of a flip-flopper than Kerry, but that charge never stuck. “Astuteness” has nothing to do with it; it’s all about whether labels can be marketed and made to stick.
what evidence do you have that Michael Moore “roots for our enemies”?
Er, comparing them to the Minutemen, which is pretty offensive. Among other things. Americans are dumb, etc.
I’m confused. Is Michael Moore a reliable source of fact only as long as Delay’s got any power?
No — but he’s negligible compared to DeLay et al. as long as DeLay et al. have real political power, which is exactly the point. The best analogy have is, alas, Godwin-prone, so I’ll leave it off; suffice to say that even if you think Moore’s an America-hating liar, he’s a more or less irrelevant one in terms of pursuing his political agenda, whereas DeLay et al. (hencefore DLEA?) are basically running the country.
Which reminds me: speaking of things needing change, the Republicans (the RNC by and large, the rank and file more commonly than I’d like) need to start talking, and governing, this country like they’re no longer in the minority and therefore like they’re no longer the victims of those nasty evil Democrats. The Michael Moore/Tom DeLay comparison is, to my eye, the sign of a deeper pathology than we commonly acknowledge, though what it signifies I’ve no idea.
Americans are dumb, etc.
That might be offensive, but I don’t see how that’s rooting for our enemies…
John – “Then find an attractive candidate, as Blogbudsman and Von suggest, who can insincerely deliver your sincerity into power.”
Allow me Von. I guess there’s no sense arguing too much about sincerity in politics and the pursuit of causes, probably a zero sum game. I suppose if you believe something was pulled over on 59 million voters then you won’t listen anyhow.
I think one of the key issues several of us touched upon is that first and foremost you must nominate a good candidate. You owe that to 300 million of us.
No where in any argument did I detect anyone suggesting some Stepford Candidate. John Kerry appeared insincere and his “Anything you can do, I can do better” soft shoe simply didn’t play given his lack of relevant history to call upon.
When Cheney calls in sick this year and steps down, I wonder who they will pick to take his place?
I wouldn’t say joke. More like a one of these things is not like the other thing. But yes, I agree, they’re not the same at all.
That said, my question still stands.
Which is exactly the flipside of my question. So obviously you get my point, even though you don’t seem to think you do.
When’s the last time DeLay said anything that anyone could remember for more than a few minutes? Besides at his Oscar acceptance speech, that is?
See, the thing about Moore is, there’s absolutely nothing at all that prevents everyone in the country from running screaming from his point of view. Nothing at all. DeLay I can disagree with, and as long as he keeps being reelected by his constituency, there’s nothing whatever I can do about getting him out of office.
Which is exactly the flipside of my question. So obviously you get my point, even though you don’t seem to think you do.
You have more confidence in my grasp of your point than I do. Could you clarify?
DeLay I can disagree with, and as long as he keeps being reelected by his constituency, there’s nothing whatever I can do about getting him out of office.
Well, you (and others) could object to his election as Majority Leader.
And as long as Michael Moore owns a movie camera and keeps being financed by his constituency there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him from making movies.
Just stop apologizing for him. It really isn’t that hard.
Done. Now what?
Sure. Your contention is that Moore in no way detracts from DeLay’s wrongness. My contention is that DeLay in no way detracts from Moore’s wrongness. In other words, they each exist independently of the other, and criticism of one in no way constitutes approval (or even tolerance) of the other.
Well, geez, Blogbudsman, when I agree with you, run with it. My bad, I couch things in sarcasm sometimes so you don’t get the idea that agreement might become habitual.
I didn’t say something was pulled over on 59 million people. Though I probably will say it if the discussion goes on long enough.
What I am saying is that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, for some people, were more attractive candidates than George Bush Sr. and Bob Dole. Same message, pretty much. Prettier package. Same smelly dog, if you will. Cute ribbons. Sure, lots of folks smelled the dog and liked the sincerity of its aroma, but a few bought the ribbons.
My dog smells too. I should have bought prettier ribbons for it. Or had it put to sleep and bought a new one. Whatever works.
When Tom Delay tells me Medicare is a Stalinist system, I wanna puke. When George W. Bush winks and smirks and tells me we need to fix Medicare cause it’s the right thing to do, by golly, he might have something there. Then I puke when its too late because George does think it’s a Stalinist system; it just sounds so harsh to say it out loud in mixed company, at least when the company isn’t quite the right mix.
George W. Bush agrees with me on the sincerity thing. Ask former Treasury Secretary O’Neill. Ask Lawrence ($200 billion) Lindsay. Ask John (faith-based) Delulio (who sincerely needs a more spellable last name). Too much sincerity can kill a smelly dog.
Do you really think Dobson (for example) would have stuck with the Republican Party if he thought George W. Bush was insincere?. Do you really think Dobson would be sitting on such a prime coattail if just 2% of those who voted for him knew that George W. Bush was, in fact, completely and utterly sincere to Dobson’s agenda?
Well, maybe. And I mean that sincerely.
I agree with Slart!
No, that’s not objecting. Objecting requires talking this way on conservative sites, and writing to your representatives and saying “I am not sure I can continue to vote for you if you continue to vote for DeLay”. At least.
The point is, I simply cannot take very seriously anyone more concerned about Moore than DeLay, any more than you could take seriously anyone more concerned about Ann Coulter than…I’m having trouble coming up with the analogue, because there is no one in the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA right now who has as much power as Tom DeLay, and the few people I can think of who are almost as offensive have so much less power that the comparison becomes ridiculous.
I sort of agree with Slart, too, but don’t let it get out.
But just for fun, can we have some numbers behind the statement that “everyone in the country (runs) screaming from his (moore’s) point of view”.
I mean, at least I had two friends. 😉
Was I the one who mentioned Michael Moore? Because if so I deeply apologize for the sanity of this thread.
I find it absurd – absurd to the point of being laughably offensive – that Moore’s always trotted out as if there’s some sort of parity between him and wingnuts on the right. He makes movies – movies which, while powerful, have had little impact on the voting electorate – and has ZERO influence over the policy and message of the Democratic party.
The loons on the right are currently RUNNING the Democratic Party. They are dictating policy. They control the House; Santorum is the third most powerful Republican in the Senate; the most significant social policy George Bush advanced over the course of his first term was the notion of amending the US Constitution to make gays second class citizens. This isn’t some lone filmmaker making a sloppy historical analogy on his stupid website. This is the national leadership of the mainstream Republican Party taking a machete to the Constitution, and its actions have been met with shrugs and “ho-hums” and a rousing chorus of “ehhhh” by the conservatives on this blog.
So please, please, please don’t tell me that Democrats have a problem with extremism or elitism. The inmates are running the asylum under your Big Tent.
I just sent this to my Congressman:
I’m admittedly piss-poor at this political letter-writing thing. If any of you can suggest a bit more detailed piece (sans diatribe; diatribe will NOT achieve the desired result) please put it up. We’ll make a post out of it, I think.
a different question is why Moore is a problem for the Democrats–if indeed he is–when Pat Robertson, the Family Research Council, James Dobson, Paul Weyrich, Alan Keyes, Concerned Women for America, the guy on the FDA who thinks the birth control pill is an abortofacient and who has helped spike the legalization of the morning after pill, James Inhofe, Tom Coburn, James DeMint, Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, Rick Santorum, Wayne Allard, Marilyn Musgrave, John Cornyn, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer, Jim Bunning….and I could go on, I’ve barely scratched the surface in the House or Senate–none of them are problems for the Republicans.
My conclusion is, they’re much, much, much better than us at going negative and demonizing their opponents. And people are too ignorant of Congress. And so I’m doing my little part to pitch in. ; )
Also, Rick Santorum is going DOWN in 2006 if I have my way. That’s right–you heard me Senator man-on-dog. (I figure the recent porn comment spam might have drawn his attention. That was not a campaign announcement, just an intent to volunteer in the Philadelphia area)
He makes movies – movies which, while powerful, have had little impact on the voting electorate – and has ZERO influence over the policy and message of the Democratic party.
I find the notion that F911 had ‘zero impact on the voting electorate” to be highly dubious. Moreover, Michael Moore is clearly seeking to influence the Democratic Party. Just look at his website; no ordinary filmmaker has a political mailing list and a “To Do” agenda. He campaigned with Wesley Clark. His ugly mug dominated coverage of the Democratic Convention. Why was he there? Why the eff was he sitting next to Jimmy Carter? If you think these things don’t matter …
thanks slart.
in return, I hereby renounce Michael Moore and all his wages, and I won’t be suckered into seeing his next movie no matter how many Cannes film festival awards it wins or how many reviewers say it is “sensitive”.
I didn’t really sign it “Slartibartfast”, JFTR. My true identity is so terrifying that if I revealed it you’d all run screaming from your computers with your eyes melting out of your heads.
Or, not.
He campaigned with Wesley Clark.
Campaigning with an Army General? Now that’s unAmerican, not to mention vaguely insincere!
Followed by a sincere but ornamental smiley face:) on my part.
Good letter, Slart. Now, I’ve got some letters to, oh 235 Reps and 49 Senators for you to write.
No, really, good letter. With opposition (to liberals) like yours, who needs friends? 🙂
I just wrote to my representative because…well, because he’s supposed to represent me. If I were to write to Republican leadership, there are all sorts of secret handshakes, code phrases and statements of purpose (such as: who is this guy and why the hell is he writing to ME?) that make crafting a slightly different version of the above a must.
Which brings me to my next point: I was hoping y’all would basically write that letter for me. Have I mentioned I’m lazy? Now, you bastards and bastardesses are making me do it for myself.
Hey, did I break a posting rule, there?
All the Moore bashing is disingenuous. The guy makes documentaries that happen to do very well in the free market. The very same free market conservatives profess to have such reverence for.
Of course, conservatives don’t like him; Moore’s good at what he does and, more importantly, he has crossover appeal. That is, you don’t have to be a diehard lefty to appreciate his work.
Moreover, Moore isn’t running around telling people how God hates them or that they’re treasonous for holding a certain opinion.
Want to know if a liberal is effective? It’s easy to ascertain; his/her effectiveness is directly proportional to GOP vitriol.
Congresspeople disregard messages that are not from their own constitutents. Some of them won’t even let them use their contact page without a zip code in their district.
(if you were a donor, even a small one, that might be different–just make a note of that as high in the message as possible.)
If Ohio had gone to Kerry (it almost did) and he won the election no one would be talking about what the left or right should do. Kerry was dull…that’s all.
“If any of you can suggest a bit more detailed piece (sans diatribe; diatribe will NOT achieve the desired result) please put it up. We’ll make a post out of it, I think.”
Good thought Slarti, but it really doesn’t carry the same rhetorical weight unless you identify which pharamaceutical, energy, or defense company you’re affiliated with.
But then I’d have to caveat it with something like:
Leaving Messrs. DeLay and Moore for the moment, may I express some confusion about this discussion with respect to the Democrats’ need to be stronger on national defense/security. I’m all for it, but what does this imply should be done? What positions taken? What should Kerry have said differently in his campaign?
More important, does maximal belligerence really equate to strong national defense? For example, does it really show weakness to argue that the Iraq war was an expensive an unnecessary diversion from the WoT? You may disagree with that point of view, but why is someone who believes it weak on defense?
Why is opposition to missile defense on grounds of expense and likely ineffectiveness “weak?” It seems perfectly reasonable to me to ask that the defense budget be spent wisely. Wasting it makes us weaker, not stronger. And of course that applies more broadly. It’s tempting to accuse Republicans of just wanting to throw money at the Pentagon.
It often seems to me that what passes for “strong defense” policy is really just a lot of chest-pounding that makes neither the US nor the world safer.
I agree with Bernard. Opposition to national missile defense is just plain sanity, it seems to me, especially since there are so many other ways to deliver bombs to this country. And chest-pounding is just dumb. What we need to do is be credible on national defense. Part of the problem, though, is that people seem to assume that any Democrat is likely to be weaker on defense than any Republican, for reasons I am not entirely clear on. And I have no idea how to get around that.
For the record, I thought Michael Moore was just silly on the Afghan pipeline, and that what made his movie effective was not his spin, but the actual footage of Bush, which he might as well have shown without comment, and the part about the mother of the soldier. This was also the view of everyone I know who saw the movie: they all thought the various conspiracy theories were dumb, but that the movie was effective despite them.
“The first thing you have to do is admit that you have a problem,…”
I don’t think you’re ready for the twelve steps yet.
Oh, and Slart: thanks. Seriously.
“What should Kerry have said differently in his campaign?
More important, does maximal belligerence really equate to strong national defense? For example, does it really show weakness to argue that the Iraq war was an expensive an unnecessary diversion from the WoT? You may disagree with that point of view, but why is someone who believes it weak on defense?”
I believe the problem is that Kerry was already weak on defense as evidenced by his Cold War and 1991 Gulf War records that all further comment about what he wanted to do was poisoned by that. His support of the enormously ill advised nuclear freeze program, his support of the Sandinistas, and his opposition to the 1991 Gulf War all led to the conclusion that Kerry couldn’t find anything important enough to fight for.
It may be unfair, but modern Democrats aren’t typically good at projecting the idea that they care about anything enough to fight for it. The party posture toward the end of the Cold War was resigned acceptance of Communism at best, and from some Senators (including Kerry) far worse–more of a willingness to protect Communism as it spread. See especially the Sandinistas. Carter typified this. And the country responded to Reagan’s willingness to pay attention to fighting the evil of Communism rather than accepting it. Reagan was the first President in quite some time to suggest that we could fight against Communism and win–and that we ought to fight. Democrats fought him tooth and nail. They accused him of being too provocative. He wasn’t nuanced enough. He didn’t understand the world well enough. Yet his strategy worked much better than the post-Vietnam hand-wringing. Democrats haven’t recovered from their general unwillingness to fight to win the Cold War. They aimed for a draw. You can’t win when you are aiming for a draw. That is true now, and unless Democrats embrace that spirit in a way that convinces America that they have abandoned their old ways, I doubt people will trust them with foreign policy. Which is too bad, because the question has turned into diplomacy vs. force. But Democratic diplomacy would be a lot more effective if people believed that they would regularly be willing to employ force.
But Democratic diplomacy would be a lot more effective if people believed that they would regularly be willing to employ force
As much as I am tempted to, I won’t load up on the snark, but simply ask what you mean by ‘regularly’?
japonicus, a good question doesn’t have to be snarky. But a good snark can be entertaining. What does regularly mean? Maybe not the best word for the argument, but you can’t ‘bluff’ or grow some teeth into diplomacy unless you’ve demonstrated that you will back the ‘or else’ up. Although Iraq is greatly celebrated as pre-emptive, it was a long time coming – not exactly knee jerk. We surprised the world when we carried out our threats to Saddam. I’m still amazed that the UN is blowing this opportunity to establish some ligitimacy. It seems to me that with the UN, the EU and growing global Muslim influence, that more people aren’t more concerned that we’re only a few generations from becoming just another French Canadian Province. When the world gets comfortable that the US is no longer willing to fight for itself, we’ll enter that brave new world.
Bbman, I’m glad that you agree that ‘regularly’ is a bit, well, problematic. It seems that Sebastian is suggesting that we pick on some country every so often to show the rest of the world that we mean business, but I can’t believe that is what he meant.
I’d also add that Bush originally campaigned on a no nation building pledge, so holding the Dems responsible when they never were actually in office when 9-11 changed everything (especially remembering how Republicancs complained about Clinton in Bosnia) is a little much.
Perhaps we did surprise the world when we went after Sadaam, but the upshot of this is that being unpredictable may surprise a lot of people, but it does not engender trust and goodwill.
Bernard and hilzoy: I think that there are a few things the Democrats must do in order to be taken seriously on national security.
The first axiom: stop viewing national security exclusively through the lens of domestic politics. Part of that includes knowing the right party to blame when things go wrong (as in, not everything is Bush’s fault), and part of it is knowing when not to cast blame at all (some things are to be expected, such as casualties). When Democrats blame the WH for largely apolitical things that have been going on inside the Pentagon for years, they tend to sound like idiots.
The second: get in touch with the issues, technology, and culture of the military.
More here.
DeLay’s been a problem for a while, now. The worst thing you can do with things like that is sweep them under the rug, because he’s our boy. Housecleaning might weaken the party (or the other way; I can’t really predict the ultimate effect), but it’d serve the purpose of making it less unpleasant for me to be registered R. Plus, I don’t really pay all that much attention to individual politicians until they stick their neck out. DeLay did, and possibly he’s going to pay the price. This is unlikely, I have to admit.
Which is not to say that I don’t think the other parties don’t have their little problems.
And, hilzoy: you’re welcome. I’d say no, thank you but that has been overdone of late.
“The first axiom: stop viewing national security exclusively through the lens of domestic politics.”
Pardon me while I choke. Among the reasons I really, really wanted to see this Administration removed from office was their abuse of the national security policy process to benefit their domestic political interests.
On the trivial side that would include Rice’s swing state visits, in the mildly annoying range it would include the terror alerts, and the really scary stuff includes such things as using the war as a tool of the midterm elections, timing the Fallujah assault by the US election calendar rather than by military strategy, and trying remake Iraq’s economy according to the vision of rightwing ideologues.
Democrats are only guilty of trying to catch up to Republicans here.
By the way, Sebastian, the contras were terrorists, and the Sandinistas were (at least as of 1984) the elected government of Nicaragua, so I can’t see why it is so shameful for Kerry to have opposed US aid to the contras.
If I were someone attempting to take the moral high ground, I’d amend that to read:
Your mileage may vary, though.
Thanks Slart, for the correction, and for the letter.
It seems that Sebastian is suggesting that we pick on some country every so often to show the rest of the world that we mean business, but I can’t believe that is what he meant.
Wasn’t it Michael Ledeen who said exactly that? Only I believe the phrase he used was “throw them up against a wall”…
Added in proof: Ah, blessed Google. The actual quote is “every now and again the United States has to pick up a crappy little country and throw it against a wall just to prove we are serious.” Ledeen acknowledges the veracity of the quote but claims it was taken out of context; no-one (including Ledeen?) seems to understand what the appropriate context should be.
And thank you, too, for the letter, Slarti. 🙂
Switching back to the theadjack, there’s a nice diatribe about Michael Moore and “Sister Souljah moments” here.
“Sandinistas were (at least as of 1984) the elected government of Nicaragua.”
You have a curious definition of elected if you believe that.
As for “It seems that Sebastian is suggesting that we pick on some country every so often to show the rest of the world that we mean business, but I can’t believe that is what he meant.”
What makes you think that we have to manufacture a problem so we can pick on a country to show we mean business? No bad countries out there that threaten our interests? None in the whole wide world? Not even one?
“You have a curious definition of elected if you believe that.”
I’m not sure what my definition of “elected” is, but I think winning an election considered by most international observers to be free and fair, and in which there was 75% turnout would fall within the definition.
Perhaps you’d like to share your definition of “elected”?
Generally I think winning an election where you killed your opposition leaders and banned their party doesn’t count as fair. I suppose you believed the Saddam 100% elections too? How about the 1980s elections in the USSR? They were fair too, right? Oh wait, how about Cuba? I bet Republicans could win by 70% in fair elections if we got to kill and cow Democrats. I hope you wouldn’t count that as ‘fair’. But I might be wrong.
Ahhh, the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Things were soooo much better under the benevolence of Somoza.
What is your evidence of opposition parties being banned? IIRC some right wing parties boycotted the election — but a boycott is much different, particularly in light of the 75%+ turnout.
Ortega got something like 60%+ of the vote, which right there demonstrates that this was not Iraq, Cuba, or the former Soviet Union.
Do you really think there’s no difference between an election with multiple parties on the ballot (and elected to the legislature), which was found to be generally free and fair by international monitors, and elections in dictatorships where only one party is even on the ballot? If so, I’m not sure if there’s any point to having a discussion with you.
I think there is a difference between the pro-forma lack of election irregularities on election day and a fair election when the regime involved kills, harrasses and imprisons its opposition. After listening to complaints about how asking for identification or one’s address can be voter intimidation, it is difficult to have an argument with someone who apparently doesn’t believe that wide-spread violence could be voter intimidation. But once again, you prove my point quite well about why Democrats get a bad rep on foreign policy.
But once again, you prove my point quite well about why Democrats get a bad rep on foreign policy.
Congratulations, Doh, on your elevation to Democratic spokesman. I didn’t even know you were in the running ;^)
As I understand it, lj, the system went to hell after Slartibartfast somehow become the spokesperson for the Republican Party. Don’t know why they let us kooky lefties have the final say, but it *was* awfully nice of them 😉
After listening to complaints about how asking for identification or one’s address can be voter intimidation, it is difficult to have an argument with someone who apparently doesn’t believe that wide-spread violence could be voter intimidation. But once again, you prove my point quite well about why Democrats get a bad rep on foreign policy.
Given that Republicans were bang alongside Marcos, Saddam, Suharto, Somoza and their ilk, I’d say this is definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle black…
It is a matter of tactics, even if poor ones. Those who were fighting Communism had some nasty allies. Those who weren’t fighting Communism were able to avoid that. But at the price of being seen by American voters as not particularly fighting Communism.
It is a matter of tactics, even if poor ones.
No excuse left behind.
When we backed Saddam and we ran interference for him after he gassed Halabja and put a couple Silkworms into the STARK were we looking for votes?
Sebastian: Generally I think winning an election where you killed your opposition leaders and banned their party doesn’t count as fair.
Sebastian which history of modern Nicaraguan are you using as a reference? I ask because there’s some pretty ugly “straining at gnats and swallowing camels” going on here, especially considering your position on Iraq’s IGC. I want to take you seriously, honestly I do. I want to believe that this is a carefully considered position based on facts.
But talking about the Sandinistas as though they were some kind of movie bad guys using targeted violence to intimidate a principled opposition party sounds, well… substantially misinformed is the only polite way to put it. Where do you get this stuff?
Those who were fighting Communism had some nasty allies. Those who weren’t fighting Communism were able to avoid that.
This assumes, a priori, that the Communists involved were worse than the non-Communists involved. In the cases of Saddam and Suharto, to pick a pair at semi-random,* I don’t think that had been established. One of the consequences of such alliances was the adoption of the automatic, axiomatic assumption that Communism was not only an ipso facto evil ideology — a borderline contention — but that all Communists were sufficiently evil that any opposition to them was inherently justified and, indeed, pro-democratic — an outright falsehood. [Though one which has been made on these boards, I should note.] Whatever price paid to the American voters is a result of not countering this kind of Manichean false dichotomy, not IMO due to any failure to stand up to Communism as such.
* Saddam didn’t really have a well-defined ideological stance beyond personal power but I’ll throw him in here due to his anti-Communist purge in 1967, I believe it was.
You lost me at “successes”.
And at free of charge, I’m highly overpaid.
Sebastian,
I think your history of the Cold War is seriously distorted. The notion that Reagan somehow rallied a cowering US and led it to victory makes a fine rousing speech at Republican rallies, but is not exactly accurate. The Soviet Union collapsed for many reasons, but I doubt our support of the Contras was a major factor.