Wow, what a day. What a week.
By now you’ve heard about Mitt’s creative tax returns and Paul Ryan being booed by the AARP. Meanwhile, at least part of the Right seems to be in circular firing squad mode. They are accusing each other of being disloyal and phony. Bill Kristol is not a real conservative. Peggy Noonan is not a real conservative. David Brooks is not a real conservative. This is all for being critical of Mitt Romney, a man of no discernible political convictions.
The only people who qualify as real conservatives right now are the demonstrably stupid (i.e., Erick Erickson), the demonstrably sociopathic (Rush Limbaugh), or the demonstrably demented (Dinesh D’Souza). At some point movement conservatism ceased being a political ideology and turned into a mass delusion/fantasy game. If you don’t play right, James O’Keefe appears to take away your magic sword, and you’re out of the game.
We’ve got 46 days to go. A lot could happen. Romney’s campaign is crumbling, and it appears the GOP’s chances of taking back the Senate are eroding by the hour. Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium says the GOP is in danger of losing the House, although I’m not going to hope for that until we’re a lot closer to the election.
Just as the Right seems to be breaking apart, the Dems are more unified than I have seen them since, well, decades. No Republican Lite; no triangulation; only a few of the Blue Dogs are still hanging around Washington. Praise be.
I am ever hopeful… a heavy loss could, just maybe, break the back of the crazies. They might try to pull out the New And Improved Tea Party for 2014, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t think it’ll work. The misery index will be too low… I think they’ll lose in 2014, too. Then… well, it would be nice to have actual “conservatives” back when the name didn’t mean “supporting whatever the hell the current Republican Power Brokers want.” People who agreed we should have taxes high enough to eventually balance the budget *BUT NOT ONE PENNY HIGHER GODDAMMIT!*, who agreed that food, housing, and even cash assistance for the needy were worthy goals (but rode the brakes on the bleeding hearts), who thought that education was *wonderful* and thought maximum loans should be capped to prevent the hideous abuse we’re seeing of the student loan bankruptcy exceptions. Hell – real conservatives who wouldn’t push for such ridiculous “reform” of bankruptcy, and would say “if you’re lending to people who go bankrupt too often, you need to tighten your lending standards! Lending is a business, and the government isn’t here to bail out your business because *you* can’t run it prudently!”
Cue Man of la Mancha… “to dream… the impossible dream….”
Conservatives have always been fond of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy, which explains why none of them talk about W. anymore. But it is funny to seem them now, when just a few months ago they were ALL talking about Romney as the least conservative of the Seven Dwarfs (except Huntsman, of course). Now, suggesting that Romney might not be the One True Candidate is heresy! What a laugh.
As much as I would love to think that we’re finally, finally! beginning to see the decline of the faux conservatives, I remember 2008 and 2010.
In 2008, the Republican brand was in tatters, discredited by a failed president, and a failed ideology. Surely, surely if there ever was a mandate for change towards a rational and progressive approach to governance, 2008 should have been the beginning of a progressive ascendancy.
Instead, in 2010, the citizens of our great experiment in self-governance chose to reinstate the very individuals and ideas that had taken our country to the brink of ruin, who then chose brinkmanship as a governing philosophy, elevating party over patriotism.
The lesson, I suppose, is that our goal can not be to simply win an election, because there’s always another, and another after that.
Instead, conservatism needs to join the other ism’s in history — communism and fascism — as ideologies that were tried and discredited. An ideology that is history, and no longer able to shape history.
I’m fairly confident about the Presidency now; and there may be down-ticket gains too. (Warren, McCaskill, and others.) If this works out, then in January the Senate can do filibuster reform and the return of majority rule.
Paradoctor, I’m not too interested in straight majority rule, but I do want to see filibuster reform… something that gives a determined minority the ability to block legislation, but something that has a *cost*.
Right now, a filibuster is set up so it takes 60 votes to break. You don’t need 40 votes to maintain it – if there’s not at least 60 senators in attendance, it *can’t* be broken. That’s wrong. It should require work to keep the filibuster up… maybe not “holding the floor” but at least making sure that there needs to be some minimum vote for maintaining the filibuster, rather than an excessive cost to end it.
LongHairedWeirdo, that makes sense. Keep filibuster, but make it difficult to sustain.
Maha, what is the Buddhist perspective on the collapse of organized delusion? When illusion is a closed system, but its falsehood is apparent, then when and how does the mind break loose?
The ratf*ckers are fleeing the rapidly sinking SS Mitt.
The Senate looks more and more secure.
The House is a possibility. Yet the DNCC, in it’s usual “wisdom,” is sitting on its money in a lot of districts that are possibilities. OY!
Despite what happens in November, Movement Conservatism isn’t dead – only badly wounded.
And I fully expect trouble on Election Day and the day after.
Conservatives gleefully anticipate winning the Presidency and the Senate, and holding the House. They then expected to start working on permanent one-party rule, establishing their Thousand Year Right-wing Reich.
2012: This, THIS, was their time!
They had undermined recovery on a badly wounded economy. They had done everything possible to put the President and his party in one bad situation after another, painting them in as bad a light as possible.
Oh, sweet victory!
They put the champagne on ice.
So what, if they had a squishly, flip-flopping Plutocrat as their candidate? Hey, he was the best of a rabid litter of brain damaged, feral swine.
He was rich! Conservatives worship wealth. Americans worship wealth – everyone wants to be rich!
And all Willard Mitt Romney had to do, was point to the economy, show his resume, and people would swoon, and pull the “R” lever as they fell to the floor.
How’d that work out?
And now, their dream of that Right-wing Reich is rapidly receding, and with the demographics in future elections working against them, they will lash out.
Think Brooks Brothers Riots meets Klan rally.
Like rats, ratf*ckers are most dangerous when they cornered.
Oh, forgot – Conservatism cannot fail.
Romney failed Conservatism.
They will double down in 2014, and, if they make any gains, do it again in 2016.
And if they lose in 2016, that’s when the fever may break.
But don’t worry, even after that, they’ll still believe the same stupid evil sh*t they’ve always believed in.
They’ll just go back to trying to be clever and covert about it.
If I was into conspiracy theories, I’d be thinking Romney / Ryan are intentionally throwing the Race. One stupid thing after another.
I can’t wait for the debates to start.
I guess the Republicans are hoping that their middle class membership won’t remember that it is Bush’s policies that got us into the hole.
Bush passed these hugh tax cuts, now Romney is bashing people who don’t pay taxes but suck off the system? He just called his middle class base a bunch of leaches!
Especially the retired and Military Retirees in particular.
The REALLY sad thing is that most of Romney’s middle class base are political centrists, but they have been fed so much crap by FOX and hate radio that they can’t separate fact from fantasy; and that scary black muslim communist guy that hates America and is boffing his bi@$h in the Whitehouse has got to go back to Kenya.”We” don’t know anything about him!
We need someone like that sweet “meatloaf and mashed taters” Huckabee, or maybe Fred Thompson as OUR President.
Yeah, we need another hick to lead “This Great Country” back to God and the gospel of prosperity.Gonna get on my power chair and slap on my oxygen mask now and head over to Republican HQ for some mental masturbation …..
“They might try to pull out the New And Improved Tea Party for 2014, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t think it’ll work.” They should have just called it the Fox News party. It was hard right knuckle-draggers from day one, 100% orchestrated by the fox/Koch/rove axis, with no discernable appeal to independents or others outside the mind control zone.
Wife is going to see Obama today, Dad gets soccer tournament duty. I think the Dems finally grew a backbone, took the fight to the repubs, and watched the bullies crumble. A lot of the conservatives are right, as long as the campaign is not about the economy, Obama is going to win. How long have we been talking about Rmoney and his problems? Seems like months. And he just now decided to release some tax returns, bringing this whole thing up again. Allowing the Dems to call for the rest of them and complain how his tax rate is lower than what normal people pay, and how it would be even lower if he had taken some obvious deductions. Which he will after the election.
Not that I’m complaining, but who is running his campaign. He should have left the tax returns alone. Just said, ‘I’m not releasing anymore’. But now it’s back on the table. I do think also the Dems have done a great job of turning the tax cuts issue, which has been a loser for them, into tax-cuts-for-millionaires, which is a winner.
So now Rmoney has to get himself back in the game by out debating a Constitutional law professor. Good luck with that one, Mitt.
Wife is going to see Obama today, Dad gets soccer tournament duty.
Father of the Year, I’d say!