Somehow, within the lulling smallness, there's a scary bigness.
Obama’s frantic efforts to gin up the women’s vote and the youth vote aren’t only desperate attempts to secure his base. They flow from a deliberate decision not to fight for the center, but to build an independent majority on what is supposedly the “demographically ascendent” left.That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer. The 2 parties have corresponding strategies, including trying to scare people about how extreme the other party really intends to be. I don't trust any of them.
Over at The Nation, Richard Kim gets it. Writing about the Lena Dunham “first time” ad controversy, he speaks of it as part of an effort “to realign the electorate towards the Democratic Party for a generation.” But the best place to read about Obama’s larger strategy is “Hope: The Sequel,” the New York magazine piece by John Heilemann that got attention last May.... describ[ing] an Obama campaign willing to risk turning off socially conservative Democrats and independent voters by hyping leftist social issues....
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101 comments:
Godwin alert.
It's what the lefties pray for. judging by the posts of our resident progressives, all Obama has to say is, "We have to do something about the Jewish vote." And the ovens make their appearance.
Nice twist at the end, after demonstrating the Democrats fecklessness, to gratuitously add the slur on Republicans.
Moral equivalence for breakfast is not what you normally serve, is it?
And how's all that working out for them?
Nice twist at the end, after demonstrating the Democrats fecklessness, to gratuitously add the slur on Republicans.
It's the Akins and Mourdock types that make me a small-L libertarian.
Who wants the votes of white, working class "bitter-clinger-ers to guns and religion"?
Certainly no self-respecting metrosexual crony-capitalist/socialist!
It would be tidy if both sides were equally misleading and equally extreme.
But while tidy, it might not be true.
Well, it started with FDR, get people dependent of government and the party of big government can keep getting reelected until they run out of other people's money. Actually, I think it started with Wilson who some people compare with Obama. And Stanley Kurtz is a smart guy.
I don't trust any of them.
Boomers weren't supposed to.
As a net taxpayer the democrats have yet to make the case to me of why I should work to pay ever higher taxes and have my kids crushed by the ever expanding debt for things that have no benefit for me and my family.
In my case by the time I reach the maximum benefit age for social security I would have been contributing for 52 years only to get back less than what I paid in and only to have it means tested.
Obama is campaigning on small things because that is all he has to run on. His pitch is to the moocher class.
I think President Obama just wants to win. Pretty sure he'd take anybody's vote. He's working overtime on the base because those are the only people willing to vote for him.
That is why Benghazi is such a sharp scenery change. It was all about real men doing real life and death things. That contrasts with cartoonish children's level of unreality offered us by the nanny state Dems and their narrationists in the Media.
Watching the Dem senators on Fox with Britt Hume yesterday was painful.
They seemed to be on anti depressants and valium trying to continue to look adult while the assisted this rape of reality by their Party.
No, don't trust any of them.
The one true thing is this: we cannot afford the government we have. Vote for the person willing to do something about that, and who has demonstrated the competence to execute a plan.
The other stuff is no-man's land, really. I don't want the society that either the social cons or the social libs talk about. I don't want either of their rules.
That is why Benghazi is such a sharp scenery change. It was all about real men doing real life and death things. That contrasts with cartoonish children's level of unreality offered us by the nanny state Dems and their narrationists in the Media.
Watching the Dem senators on Fox with Britt Hume yesterday was painful.
They seemed to be on anti depressants and valium trying to continue to look adult while the assisted this rape of reality by their Party.
"to gratuitously add the slur on Republicans."
Liberals need to feel superior and he is hitting to close to home.
Kurtz has an interesting theory, but IMO Mr Obama is not smart enough to even conceive such a theory. From the fever swamps of Kurtz's mind come such theories. Obama isnt smart enough to comprehend--but Obama did go to church yesterday! Is there an election coming?
I don't trust any of them.
Well, yeah! Why would anybody want to trust a politician?
I don't understand the politics as religion thing at all.
I don't think Big Bird and Binders actually gets Obama any extra votes, though. My FB friends who constantly yak about Obama's greatness and Romney's wretchedness are the only ones who picked up on those things.
Normal people and normal Democrats just ignored that stuff.
Inside the scary smallness of pure leftism is the scary smallness of shared misery.
This gives Obama credit for looking past Obama--doubt it.
Besides, these "realignments" happen a lot more often than once a gneration. They happen every time a party overplays its hand enough to send most voters the other way looking for relief. About once every 8 years, i'd say. Hardly worth spending years engineering one.
Rationalization! they need that when things are not going their way.
As for the "social liberal" stuff...
I can never figure out what you're blubbering about here, Althouse. It's mostly a litany of fantasized martyrdom... most of it left over baloney from the 60s.
That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer.
What "socially conservative" R policies turn you off?
I have no doubt that the President is a leftist. This theory unnecessarily complicates matters. He is campaigning on small things because he has failed at all of the things that matter. He thinks he can win on it, and that is what matters to him.
If smart, fiscally conservative GOP pols would stick to the economy and rational defense and 100% ignore social issues, they'd never lose an election again. Ever. And, as a very socially conservative person, I don't buy at all that, ummm...socially conservative people won't vote for them then. THAT IS THE CARICATURE. Reasonable socially conservative folks wantt eh government 100% out f the business of being your mom and pastor.
"I don't trust any of them."
That's fine, after voting for Obama, we don't trust you either.
As for the small things...
Bill Maher has had an enormous impact on how liberals argue. He's legitimized being a complete asshole on the grounds that his opponents are subhuman.
It's a common approach now among lefties I encounter on FB. They think it's very clever.
Obama is appealing to this.
Unfortunately no one speaks for the self reliant. So which scary future is the less fearsome?
FWIW - For Senator from Missouri I must choose between voting for Claire McCaskill, Todd Akin (he was also my Congressional Representative) and Jonathon Dine, the Libertarian Party candidate.
Akin really is a scary innocent and unqualified as he appears. McCaskill real;ly is as much a crony and crook as she appears. Dine really is as much a kook as he appears.
For the first time in my life I may undervote a ballot.
I tend to think Dinesh D'Souza's explanation makes more sense. He is driven by idealogy not politics. Jarrett, Axelrod, etc are more than capable of that however.
Via Lucianne, an article about papers changing their endorsements from previous elections. Poor Oregon:
...Some newspapers that endorsed candidates in 2008 decided not to pick anyone this year. The Oregonian, in Portland, supported Obama four years ago, during a campaign in which he held one of his largest rallies in that city. The paper sounded a bit miffed this year when it said it wasn't endorsing anyone this time around because the candidates hadn't campaigned in Oregon. "The access and close observation that inform our endorsements for state and local offices and Congress do not apply in a national race; our CNN-level view of the presidential race is similar to everyone else's," the paper said.....
I like the idea, as it would help explain why people can't change fast enough for Obama, so Obama's got to co-opt the youth vote and look for any opening and attach progressive ideology to it.
We'll need another generation softened up by NPR and meditation circles before we reach the kind of pliability we need for progressive dominance I hope, and the disappearing freedoms, planned economy and infantilization of the people that would come. Bob Wright would hopefully have a place in the new progressive paradise to help perfect the people and stay on message as long as his conscience didn't get to him.
Obama's abandoned the bitter clingers and not even trying for the white male vote while trying pathetically for the women's vote, the La Raza Hispanic pandering vote and shoring up the unions (and Benghazi is partly about this strategy coming back at Obama).
I know a lot of mainstream people don't agree, but this would indicate this is who Obama is...really far Left. This to me is a greater danger than any moral equivalence, racial gain or Republican failings and dangers.
In my experience, appealing to an extreme viewpoint usually doesn't win over fence sitters. Eve if you have a valid argument, being a forceful ass might make you feel good about yourself and those who share your viewpoint, but moderates tend to only see a jerk.
I think it's far more likely that the Ds screwed up and gave the keys to the Ferrari to the choomed-out teenager and now are trying to gin up sophisticated reasons why he wrapped it around a tree.
I might be more inclined to entertain this notion of a grand strategy when there's some evidence that hyping leftist social issues is even remotely successful. A religious dedication to "social justice" is a fringe lefty paradigm confined to blue coastal cities and it's gonna stay that way. I know it's easy to forget when you're stuck in someplace like Madison or New York, but the rest of the country simply is not on that bandwagon.
"It's the Akins and Mourdock types that make me a small-L libertarian."
Mourdock is a good guy who is a principled pro life candidate. He answered the question honestly. No, we don't want people like that in politics, an honest politician.
When you are as old as I am you have read every book about the emerging republican majority (kevin phillips) or the emerging democratic majority (Ruy Texiera). The are interesting speculations, of course, for political junkies like me--but the staying power--like Mr Kurtz' latest effort, will fail as all those theories that have gone before.
The chattering class, like the Bourbons before them learned nothing and forgot nothing.
I'm still lost at Obama's reference to social policies of the 50s?
I saw a cartoon from a progressive friend, it was Romney's at home with Mitt in a suit and Ann with an apron.
FYI the reason why I'm a stay at home mom, is the economy. I would love to work, instead I volunteer.
Mitt is offer jobs to women, Obama is offering a free IUD.
"That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer. The 2 parties have corresponding strategies, including trying to scare people about how extreme the other party really intends to be. I don't trust any of them."
Fine, but the "socially conservative" wing of the Republican Party is actually part of, and seeking to defend, traditional mores and values, some of which are as old as known human civilization.
That may offend or scare you, but the prospect of the unknown "socially liberal" does not?
What tethers, or guides, "social liberals" away from disaster?
Does the brief history of "social liberalism" suggest success or failure?
Or is it, what you really want is the results of social conservatism without the cultural weight that some find oppressive?
"Kurtz has an interesting theory, but IMO Mr Obama is not smart enough to even conceive such a theory. From the fever swamps of Kurtz's mind come such theories. Obama isnt smart enough to comprehend--but Obama did go to church yesterday! Is there an election coming?"
Stanley Kurtz wrote a book about Obama so I think he knows a lot about Obama. Radical in Chief.
I don't trust any of them.
Their goals in terms of priorities:
self-preservation, power,
riches.
Where did Harry Reid's hundreds of millions come from? How did John Kerry's brother corner the Vietnamese hotels construction? Which one of the Clinton's cronies made hundreds of millions running Freddie and Fannie to the ground? Diane Feinstein's husband's money, Pelosi's? Where do they come from?
Republicans? Don't know much about them, but they are not the sanctimonious party that raises my taxes to re-distribute to their "poor" billionaire cronies. Sarah Palin makes her millions all by herself, without help from sugar daddies or political parties. The Mormon guy? Who knows?
Politicians use the poor and the uninformed to vote them to office, then hide behind the poor to enrich themselves. They are quite tiresome.
As far as the "realignment" of the electorate goes, I think that Steve Sailer is right on.
It's the married folks vs. the non-married folks.
Your politics have changed significantly since you got married, Althouse, and marriage was the cause of the change.
It's all those years of not being married that got you caught up in the martyrdom soap opera of "social liberalism."
Their hope is Obama is in a green suit in front of a green screen over which, no matter what he says or does, the partisan media can project whatever image they want over him and his background, and just reveal his smiling face bouncing around.
That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer.
Do you have any fucking idea how far in debt we are? Do you expect us to forget that and vote only for socially liberal ideas that you like?
....That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer. The 2 parties have corresponding strategies, including trying to scare people about how extreme the other party really intends to be.
This is a strange comment - it doesn't seem responsive at all to the linked text. Democrats are trying to scare voters by saying (for example) that Republicans are going to outlaw contraception and kill seniors, policy choices. No doubt Republicans are doing the same, but not in this article. This is a discussion of their political tactics, not policy, so it's hard to understand how it's "scary". But the assertion is even more strained since the tactics described are routinely recommended by "mainstream" leftists.
I don't trust any of them.
Nor should you. But one of the parties is totally in the grip of its extremists and it's not the Republicans, is it? I think it's better to work inside the Republicans and keep the Akin types at bay, but perhaps you're not up for the job, Professor.
As to the Democrats' desire to "finally govern decisively from the left," there was a Vietnam-era song that summarizes my sentiments precisely: "he can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine."
If smart, fiscally conservative GOP pols would stick to the economy and national defense and 100% ignore social issues, they'd never lose an election again. Ever.
Leaving aside the question of whether the smart, fiscally conservative GOP pols might know their business better than either one of us, how would you suggest they ignore social issues? Bear in mind that proposing increasing federal funding to Planned Parenthood at less than the combined rate of inflation and (ironically) population growth will be trumpeted as proof of the Christianist War on Women.
Freeman Hunt said...
It would be tidy if both sides were equally misleading and equally extreme.
Not possible.
One side's shenanigans are covered by the press,
the other side's are covered-up by the press.
"I don't trust any of them."
For me this is especially true of those who always pick the middle road regardless of where the other roads go.
The maps are available, just look at them, and your heart is not a GPS.
Kurtz also thinks Obama, if reelected will tax the suburbs to subsidize the intercity.
[H]e speaks of it as part of an effort “to realign the electorate towards the Democratic Party for a generation.”
But not investing in the future, apparently.
I saw a cartoon from a progressive friend, it was Romney's at home with Mitt in a suit and Ann with an apron.
The horror!
Better to have Romnesia than Obamalaria. Obamalaria is fatal to too many people.
Kurtz does present some interesting theories that any conservative should be aware of, if only to indentify a trend.
However, he ignores the time-honored premise of if your opponent is engaged in self-destructive behavior, let him.
Kurtz does present some interesting theories that any conservative should be aware of, if only to indentify a trend.
However, he ignores the time-honored premise of if your opponent is engaged in self-destructive behavior, let him.
"The 2 parties have corresponding strategies, including trying to scare people about how extreme the other party really intends to be. I don't trust any of them."
Good, you shouldn't. Parties and politicians are means to an end, not our pals.
The Democrats, sadly, seem to have attracted their extreme fringe by sacrificing competent moderates and valuing blind loyalty over basic governance skills. So whatever they do, whether you agree with it or not, is virtually guaranteed to be done badly. And the more they screw up, the more power they'll demand to "fix" things.
Better to have Romnesia than Obamalaria. Obamalaria is fatal to too many people.
Men and women just want to have fun.
The trend is that we enter puberty earlier and adulthood later. Whether this is due to biological changes or induced by nurture (or indoctrination) is unclear. However, with respect to both social and fiscal issues, modern liberals elect to exchange their liberty and dignity for submission with benefits (i.e. hedonistic). The generational progressives are opportunists who exploit vulnerability and people's base nature in order to advance their own political, material, and social standing.
"That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer."
Democrats are NOT socially liberal. Sure, on some issues they are, but to me, socially liberal means being pro-choice on things other than abortion. On marriage, Democrats are definitely more liberal.
On guns? Nope.
Schools? No again.
On energy use? No. They want cap and trade to reduce choices and they want to shut down oil and coal use and switch to inefficient green tech.
On unions? Nope. For certain fields, they want mandatory union membership.
Union dues? Hell no. Take it out of the paycheck.
Union creation? No private vote for you!
And where they don’t directly limit choices, they instead influence choices to make some less desirable by adding taxes on things they deem unseemly. Of course, this doesn’t impact the rich as they can absorb the increased costs more readily. Instead, all the behavior taxes target the poor. It is the goal of the Democrat Party to control the behaviors of the poor.
So, the liberals are only somewhat socially liberal. Of course, since the areas they are not liberal are the areas where conservatives are, it means that conservatives are ALSO somewhat socially liberal. The end result is that, for me, a small “L” libertarian, the conservatives end up much closer to me philosophically than the so-called liberals.
EMD, I know the horror. But for them, that is a nightmare. It's this obsession with free birth control, without it they're nothing but domestic slaves.
My husband jokes he's an economic slave, because his whole paycheck goes to our needs.
The 2 parties have corresponding strategies, including trying to scare people about how extreme the other party really intends to be.
That is a false moral equivalence.
Take abortion, for instance.
Obama has accused Romney of waging a war on women. Where is the honesty in that? War involves killing people, bombs, shooting people, lots of dead people. There is no honesty in that charge at all. It's just rank and stupid name-calling.
A right-winger could, on the other hand, charge Obama with a "war on babies," since abortion involves poison and knives and piles of dead bodies.
But Romney doesn't make that charge. Does he? Has his campaign ever accused Obama of a war on babies?
And there's a factual basis for that charge. And it's particularly fair to make it, when Obama has already been extremely negative, implicitly saying Romney wants women to die.
Yet Romney has been utterly high road. Indeed, he's fighting with both hands tied behind his back on abortion. Always on defense, never on attack.
Or take Benghazi. Four people dead. Two people died because of Clinton's lousy security, and two people died because the White House said let them die.
Does Romney make that charge? He does not.
He's been utterly nice. And tried to focus on the economy, which is his strength anyway.
What's a Republican negative campaign? "He'll raise your taxes." That's a Republican being mean. "Our debts are really high."
What's an Obama campaign? "War on women! And black people are back in chains."
paid in and only to have it means tested.
means testing of Medicare and SS is a Republican, not a Democratic, idea.
A fellow "older student" told me the other day that Gary Johnson wanted to put people in concentration camps. WTF?
I was trying to google the education policies of our governor for a class paper and found a site accusing her of wanting to take away parent's rights to make educational decisions. At no point did it explain what that meant. It did have a nice statement that the organization existed to combat evil conservatives.
The Obama campaign has been working full time to make this election ALL about social issues and a Republican agenda to impose conservative morality on your lady parts.
Sure, there are conservative statists, but they exist in relative peace with small government and libertarian leaning conservatives. Is there a liberal who's not a statist? Is there a liberal who doesn't long to coerce and mandate social issues and attitudes?
Having a different set of social preferences to impose is not believing in freedom.
But whatever. Vote your lady parts and defeat the monsterous Straw-Romney. Don't worry your pretty little head about the economy. Social issues are about feeling and icky money will take care of itself.
I trust the conservatives and the Tea Partiers.
Since they're mostly in the Republican Party, I'll take my chances with them.
As for the yoots and Barry, that's over like a one night stand. even a 19 year old can figure out who's responsible for the lousy economy.
Ann Althouse said...
..That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer.
Oh, you're just grumpy because the weather's so miserable and you haven't been outside all weekend.
But one of the parties is totally in the grip of its extremists and it's not the Republicans, is it?
Actually it is the Republicans who are in the grip of extremists.
edutcher said...
I trust the conservatives and the Tea Partiers.
Since they're mostly in the Republican Party, I'll take my chances with them.
Trust seems like too strong a word. But they are the only group addressing the problem, and that earns my support for now.
The 2 parties have corresponding strategies, including trying to scare people about how extreme the other party really intends to be.
Republicans scare people by talking about increasing debt, while Democrats scare people by talking about the return of slavery, which means Republicans are warning people about how Democrats behave now, while Democrats are warning people about how Democrats behaved 150 years ago.
Kurtz is a smart guy, but I think he is wrong about why the Obama campain is focusing on social liberals.
It is not about wanting a governing mandate, it is about winning. They think this is the best chance at getting a second term.
The way they pushed through the healthcare law indicates a total lack of interest in having a mandate. They could have created a bill that pulled in some moderate Republicans, but they didn't bother.
These people have never cared about governing coalitions, they want things their way and to hell with consequences.
Actually it is the Republicans who are in the grip of extremists.
Yes, cutting the rate of growth of spending is extreme. This is why I don't take liberals seriously. Any spending cut, any time, anywhere is met with howls of protest about starving people, kicking them out of their homes, killing children and the elderly.
It's absurd.
We have no fucking money. We have cities and municipalities claiming bankruptcy. Current GDP growth of 2% is not enough to sustain our economy.
Are there any adults I can talk to? Please?
Kurtz is a smart guy, but I think he is wrong about why the Obama campain is focusing on social liberals.
Obama cannot tout 8% unemployment and 2% growth, that's why. It's as simple as that. He has no economic record to run on. All he has is 'social policy.' which is to talk about shit that matters little when you have no growth and no recognizable plan to spur growth.
--But one of the parties is totally in the grip of its extremists and it's not the Republicans, is it?
Actually it is the Republicans who are in the grip of extremists.---
Freder, let it go, you lost 229 years ago.
You're a Brit, of course the republicans are extreme to you.
Can't take your feudalism out of your genes.
They could have created a bill that pulled in some moderate Republicans, but they didn't bother.
Considering that the health care bill we ended up with was primarily based on Republican ideas, can you elaborate on what a health care bill that would have got some moderate Republican votes would have looked like?
Kurtz's article links to a New York magazine article by John Heileman (here) that is well worth reading for a peek into the mind of the Obama campaign.
After reading the article, for one to say that the Obama campaign runs on hubris is like saying water is wet.
The O. campaign will not admit that there are historical forces in this country that are aligned against their guy, and whoever turned out to be the standard-bearer for those forces really matters little now. There are lots of people who dislike them intensely (and not just Repubs.), and they really clueless as to why that is.
I believe also that he and Michelle are playing the long game. That's why he sometimes acts like he doesn't care if he gets re-elected.
What they have put into place, the programs they will build on, deep in the bowels of the bureaucracies will vex us and control us for years to come.
I don't know if Romney or the GOP can or will cut the ties between government and our economy and lives. That's why a small government is the only safe government.
Old republican ideas. It was stupid then.
Freder Frederson said...
Considering that the health care bill we ended up with was primarily based on Republican ideas
It's funny watching people say this, they might as well carry around a sign "I'm the evidence for leftist Epistemic Closure".
Also funny, and revealing: that the left accuses the right both of having no ideas on healthcare and that Obamacare is their idea. Well, when all you care about is attacking rather than making sense I guess anything goes.
Althouse,
St. Augustine is calling, seems you are "amongst the ones
that put him out to death".
I dreamed I saw St. Althouse
Alive as you or me
Tearing through these quarters
In the utmost misery
With a lawbook underneath her arm
And a coat of solid government gold
Searching for the very aborted souls
Whom already have been sold
“Arise, arise,” she cried so loud
In a voice without restraint
“Come out, ye gifted Hippies and Sixties
And hear my sad complaint
No martyr is among ye now
Whom you can call your own
So go on your way accordingly
But know you’re not just stoned”
Althouse dreamed she saw St. Dylan
Alive with fiery breath
And she dreamed she was amongst the ones
That put him out to death
Oh, she awoke in anger
So alone and terrified
She put her fingers against the keyboard
And bowed her head and began to snore
Copyright © 1968
Read with nose pinched and/or mumble words while channeling Keith Richards.
the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks
On abortion, the Republicans want to turn back the clocks to the 1960's.
You know, the dark ages before Roe v. Wade
Horror!
The Republicans are so mean, they want people to use birth control if they want to avoid pregnancy.
Nightmare! Apocalypse!
Dante said...
That reminds me of the way Republicans turn off the socially liberal folks (like me) who would be receptive to the rest of what they have to offer.
What "socially conservative" R policies turn you off
============
Both the liberal/progressive jewish intellectual left and media - and the right wing "family values" people - have social values and claims most people in the middle find repellant.
They have traditions going back to nasty mass-murdering Bolsheviks or ignorant rural Goobers that never saw a book in their entire lives besides "The Good Book".
The difference is that you can discuss off-putting conservative values like love of wars, creationism, desire to destroy forever the ability of a gay or recreational drug user to be a tolerated member of society, fetishizing zygotes fetuses as the same in rights and ideally, legal status (personhood) as your 26 year old married couple next door.
But with the odious liberal/progressive jewish values, concepts - the Left has tried making all criticism of that stuff unacceptable as racist, homophobic, bigoted, misogynistic, INTOLERANT.
Am I the only one who has stopped reading Cedarford's posts and just skims them to see how many times he mentions "The Joooos!"?
I think that they are overthinking this by a bit. I think that it is obvious that Obama is making the election about small things, because he can't make it about his record, and he really can't make it about his vision after having had four years, with a Dem Senate the whole time, and a Dem House the first two, and if he really had a vision, and it was one that more than a small number of Americans would agree with, he had plenty of time and opportunity to implement it.
Actually, that vision of his is probably one of the scariest things about him. Peace through respect of others (i.e. fawning on our enemies)? Hasn't gone so well. We have embassies attacked around the Middle East, and four Americans killed in Benghazi apparently as a result of the abject failure of this vision. Similarly, with the economy - after trillion dollar debts every year, financed by the ChiComs, we have the worst recovery since FDR - likely for somewhat similar reasons. It turns out that you can't buy your way out of a recession with borrowed money spent on ObamaPhones and "green" investments siphoned off to political cronies. It just makes things worse. Bipartisanship? He "won", and the Republicans lost, four years ago, and so he specifically didn't invite them to the bargaining table. He would much rather spend his time clubbing with Hollywood than entertaining Republican politicians.
So, all he has left is divide and conquer, hoping that if he can alienate eno0ugh people from voting for Romney, he can renew the lease on the big house, jumbo jets, helicopters, etc. for another four years.
Ann - didn't know you were back at Instapundit until I saw you linking back here.
Keep up the good work.
Too conspiratorial. The reason Obama campaigned on small things is that he's a small person. His first election was about him, and now that people are less interested in him he's got nothing to run on.
Matt said...
Am I the only one who has stopped reading Cedarford's posts and just skims them to see how many times he mentions "The Joooos!"?
I think your admission means you read more of him than most. That's a good tactic for dealing with it.
Matt said...
Am I the only one who has stopped reading Cedarford's posts and just skims them to see how many times he mentions "The Joooos!"?
================
You have the mark of arrogance that is frequently expressed as utter bewilderment that Israel now has lost almost all it's allies - or that the Russians do not have more gratitude for "all the contributions Jews made to the Soviet Union".
The mark of arrogance of one that deeply believes that those with prominant roles in the Wall Street meltdown or the socialist transformation of America will never face any accountability.
That some past suffering in war, slavery, somehow immunizes whole groups from criticism,
That saying there are exceptions..for example as "Hey, not ALL Chinese wanted to colonize Tibet, so you can't criticise Chinese in general for that" ...makes for a case shut defense.
Ms Althouse (and other moderates),
If you place social liberalism above economic sanity, you get economic fools like Obama.
It is hard to have socially liberal policy when people are rioting for food after the world's economy collapses.
But if you make a pledge (and follow through) to vote only for conservative and libertarian candidates, you starve the economic illiterate movement of oxygen. The sane economic policies of the conservatives and libertarians become prevalent. Then the conservatives and libertarians start to compete with each other and since the economic views are similar, they will differentiate on social policy. Then you can pick the libertarian so that restrictive/conservative social policy isn't forced on anyone.
See how that works?
By occasionally pushing back against conservatives and libertarians, you are delaying the day when you will be able to vote for social policy w/o sacrificing economic sanity.
And at the very worst, social issues are a big enough deal that even if socially progressive politicians aren't elected, the US will never go back to a socially restrictive society.
Gays will never be forced back into the closet, porn is growing ever more mainstream, sex is no longer edgy at all.
If the pendulum ever swings back toward social restriction, if ever, it won't be in the lifetimes of anyone alive today.
No one will ever see abortion illegal again in our lifetime, no matter who is elected or who is nominated to the Supreme Court.
Marshal said...
Matt said...
Am I the only one who has stopped reading Cedarford's posts and just skims them to see how many times he mentions "The Joooos!"?
I think your admission means you read more of him than most. That's a good tactic for dealing with it
=============
Ah, yes, the Jewish practice of shunning people they cannot manipulate or use somehow to gain wealth. Rather than admit to practices that hurt the host population - resort to mockery of the majority instead...
Part of the long Jewish tradition of winning friends and influencing people that has gotten them , eventually, booted or cleansed from any land they created a substantial presence in since the days of the Ptolemies.
Marshal said...
"I think your admission means you read more of him than most. That's a good tactic for dealing with it."
:)
Think of Cedarford with a tight, yet wet, Strangelovian smile saying “fetishizing zygotes fetuses.” Helps to put everything he writes in the proper perspective.
Think of Cedarford with a tight, yet wet, Strangelovian smile
that or selling his play to Max Bialystock.
"The 2 parties have corresponding strategies, including trying to scare people about how extreme the other party really intends to be. I don't trust any of them."
It is utterly astounding that Ann does not notice which political party has successfully implemented its extreme strategy of anti-constitutional statism ever since Wilson and FDR.
What extreme conservative social policies have resulted in the entire American population being taxed and regulated and taxed and regulated to the point where we are increasingly in danger of becoming mere serfs bound to the power and whim of a leftist regime that seeks to "eat out their substance"--to use a phrase in the Declaration so-called law professor Althouse seemingly has forgotten?
C4, you're right, it is counterproductive to pretend you don't exist.
Much better to engage and refute your arguments and watch you squirt off in a cloud of ink, as always happens-it's like on Star Trek, evil will retreat if confronted by good. It just gets so tiresome because it's always the same damned thing with you.
And, in fairness, attempt to encourage your saner postings. Which these are not.
For any onlookers who think I am being unjust to poor Feldmarschall Zelig err Cedarford, this ain't our first rodeo, but if anyone requires more info feel free to speak up.
Speaking of goobers and other ignoramuses, Ceef, I will remind you for the nth time that "Jew" in all its forms is a proper noun and is initial-cap'd; and your spellchecker, no doubt invented by Jews, would have to tell you this every time you do it. You appear as foolish with your "jewish this" and "jew that" as you would with "christian this" or "muslim that," mistakes which somehow you never seem to make. It gives the lie to the notion that you only hate "bad Jews."
As for arrogance it is not arrogant to note your monomania, even to mock it. As for Russian ingratitude, it is legendary.
Oh, and Cedarford, it's "case closed" or "open-and-shut case," not "case shut." Malapropisms like this, that issue from you from time to time, honestly make me wonder whether you are even really an American or one whose native language is English.
Oh, and if you don't think I could make money off of you, just as you are, you are sorely mistaken. It's not my bag of poo, but I sure could do it.
While I'm here...
Freder Frederson said... They could have created a bill that pulled in some moderate Republicans, but they didn't bother.
Considering that the health care bill we ended up with was primarily based on Republican ideas, can you elaborate on what a health care bill that would have got some moderate Republican votes would have looked like?
10/29/12 11:02 AM
Fred, why bother? I could easily do this but guess what, we've figured out that you would not attend, because you are not arguing in good faith. It has already been done and you seem, or act, entirely unaware of it. I have to say that you are a bigger woft than C4; he is at least capable of talking sense if he chooses to.
And Crack Emcee, if you're still out there (warning: Instapundit)
THE RETURN OF COLD FUSION? “A new theory may explain the notorious cold fusion experiment from two decades ago, reigniting hopes of a clean-energy breakthrough.”
http://discovermagazine.com/2012/nov/27-big-idea-bring-back-the-cold-fusion-dream
We'll need another generation softened up by NPR and meditation circles before we reach the kind of pliability we need for progressive dominance I hope, and the disappearing freedoms, planned economy and infantilization of the people that would come. Bob Wright would hopefully have a place in the new progressive paradise to help perfect the people and stay on message as long as his conscience didn't get to him.
I worry about this, too, but the "New Soviet Man" never appeared in spite of all the efforts to create him. There is a human nature that began 100,000 years ago that requires self reliance and loyalty to family plus self interest and a basic sense of bargaining coming from the times when the people living near flint deposits learned to exchange excess flint for colored beads or pots or animal skin robes.
Some people are better at this than others. The Chinese, for some reason, have always had the business gene. That's why the Malays and the Javanese hate them. It's why the Indians were driven from east Africa by Idi Amin and other black nationalists.
Obama and the socialists are swimming upstream to try to change human nature. Adam Smith understood humans better than Marx.
Cedarford is Israeli intelligence doing the whole false flag to keep the international Jewry quaking in their boots and loyal to Israel thing.
Tennvols, that would explain a lot. I think he and victor on belmont club should get together and try to make a baby. Come back in a few weeks and explain what they're doing wrong...unless of course they succeed.
"Some people are better at this than others. The Chinese, for some reason, have always had the business gene. That's why the Malays and the Javanese hate them"
The real reason that Javanese hate the Chinese is because the Dutch set up an economic apartheid system in Indonesia, where certain roles could be done by certain races.
They allowed the Chinese to be tax farmers or toll collectors. They would tax the locals to the hilt to make sure of their profits. They would charge tolls on bridges for babies being carried by mothers as "cargo."
They operated businesses where locals were not allowed to do so.
Sometimes they had a cultural advantage, for example, they had seen stores in China, so they would find opening a store easier to do.
But it was really the apartheid style economic system and the tax farming that did that
Aaron, this also sounds reflective of the Jewish experience in Europe, ie being used as catspaws of the landlords or the rulers. Actually I'd dimly understood there was a similar role for Scots in Ireland. Doubtless the pattern can be found elsewhere. Given the persistence of the related stereotypes, you can see what a successful strategy it was.
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