The Anger Response
Not wanting to feel tired or sad I will do the somewhat typical and use those emotions to fuel anger. Today's anger outlet: Political Theorists from both parties. Everywhere you look there is another halfwit from either side of the fence spouting nonsense. This evening I pick one thing from either side that bothers me and give it a little consideration.
On the right we have all the self righteous, self congratulatory jackasses who keep gloating. I've seen a number of articles and blogs that basically say, "You guys lost because you are stupid. Now quit crying about it already because we need to come together and get things done." Who really believes that these ideologies are going to come together right now. They have become entirely too polarized. The only way any one is going to come together is if a new party called The Moderates arises one morning. Democrats and Republicans become increasingly unable to work with each other with every passing day as each party looks to its extremes for support. If Kerry had won the Republicans would be just as upset as the Democrats and rightly so. Who wants to believe that the party in power can be defeated by not the best of the Democrats but by the one who was the least objectionable. With all the sweeping changes we see in the white house the Democrats aren't going to quit whining. They feel that every one of their core issues is at risk with another four years of George W. Bush. The results of the election were not a mandate for Republicanism so much as a display of the short sightedness of the Democratic Leadership.
On the left everyone can't seem to understand why they failed to get the youth vote out. There was Rock the Vote and no matter how much they may claim they are bi - partisan all MTV artists are vocally Democratic. Rock the Vote is one of the stupidest ideas period. Why is that? Because the MTV target audience is pre - teen girls. When your station programs primarily for pre - teen girls how do you expect to influence first time voters? Secondly we've seen rock stars and TV stars do interviews time and time again. These aren't well informed people. They do speak intelligently about the issues. No one takes their opinions seriously. Vote or Die was such an absurd premise that most people saw it as P. Diddy stroking his ego and not a serious political movement. Then they have the candidate. If you want the young people to get out and vote you either need a young candidate (and not just younger VP) or you have to go out of your way to prove that you will work towards legislation that interests and helps young people. How can they do this? Well one way would be to publicly divorce themselves from the interests of big business. Or they could go one step further and divorce themselves from the AARP by taking on Social Security. Almost every young person in this country knows that there will be no Social Security waiting when retirement comes. They have no interest in perpetuating a broken system that takes their money with out even the promise of something in return. If you want the young people your going to have to tell grandma and grandpa that their 5 dollar super saver prescriptions are now going to cost 10. You are going to have to take away part of the senior discount for public transportation. You are going to have the to the Gimmie Generation (aka the "greatest generation") that they just dont get every thing they want on the governments dime.
The right now has a very strong position to work from and I certainly hope they spend a lot of it mocking the left rather than maintaining their current support, but I am afraid they have some particularly able people in place (Rove and his gang) so they may be able to really work away at the social issues and build the theocratic consumerist state they dream of. The left on the other hand needs to stop pointing fingers and getting worked up by the name calling. They need to stop looking at maps. They need to stop blaming illiterate rednecks and they need to start restructuring and recruiting.
More Laters
On the right we have all the self righteous, self congratulatory jackasses who keep gloating. I've seen a number of articles and blogs that basically say, "You guys lost because you are stupid. Now quit crying about it already because we need to come together and get things done." Who really believes that these ideologies are going to come together right now. They have become entirely too polarized. The only way any one is going to come together is if a new party called The Moderates arises one morning. Democrats and Republicans become increasingly unable to work with each other with every passing day as each party looks to its extremes for support. If Kerry had won the Republicans would be just as upset as the Democrats and rightly so. Who wants to believe that the party in power can be defeated by not the best of the Democrats but by the one who was the least objectionable. With all the sweeping changes we see in the white house the Democrats aren't going to quit whining. They feel that every one of their core issues is at risk with another four years of George W. Bush. The results of the election were not a mandate for Republicanism so much as a display of the short sightedness of the Democratic Leadership.
On the left everyone can't seem to understand why they failed to get the youth vote out. There was Rock the Vote and no matter how much they may claim they are bi - partisan all MTV artists are vocally Democratic. Rock the Vote is one of the stupidest ideas period. Why is that? Because the MTV target audience is pre - teen girls. When your station programs primarily for pre - teen girls how do you expect to influence first time voters? Secondly we've seen rock stars and TV stars do interviews time and time again. These aren't well informed people. They do speak intelligently about the issues. No one takes their opinions seriously. Vote or Die was such an absurd premise that most people saw it as P. Diddy stroking his ego and not a serious political movement. Then they have the candidate. If you want the young people to get out and vote you either need a young candidate (and not just younger VP) or you have to go out of your way to prove that you will work towards legislation that interests and helps young people. How can they do this? Well one way would be to publicly divorce themselves from the interests of big business. Or they could go one step further and divorce themselves from the AARP by taking on Social Security. Almost every young person in this country knows that there will be no Social Security waiting when retirement comes. They have no interest in perpetuating a broken system that takes their money with out even the promise of something in return. If you want the young people your going to have to tell grandma and grandpa that their 5 dollar super saver prescriptions are now going to cost 10. You are going to have to take away part of the senior discount for public transportation. You are going to have the to the Gimmie Generation (aka the "greatest generation") that they just dont get every thing they want on the governments dime.
The right now has a very strong position to work from and I certainly hope they spend a lot of it mocking the left rather than maintaining their current support, but I am afraid they have some particularly able people in place (Rove and his gang) so they may be able to really work away at the social issues and build the theocratic consumerist state they dream of. The left on the other hand needs to stop pointing fingers and getting worked up by the name calling. They need to stop looking at maps. They need to stop blaming illiterate rednecks and they need to start restructuring and recruiting.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 3:36 AM
2 Comments:
How about anger at (or at least frustration with) people who refer to "both" parties when there are more than two, or who persist the myth that politics are a 2-party, left/right situation, when this is clearly NOT the case (despite recent decades within one small country called the United States of America). Even the US has multiple parties. Politics is not a yes/no, either/or, right/left, black/white topic -- and those who act like it is only serve to make things worse in a political system that has already gone too far down that unrealistic avenue.
Off the top of my head I can think of Libertarian, Socialist Comunist and Green and those are just the bigger ones who can get organized enough to actually get a candidate on the ballot. But the thing is. Thats all they can do. Get a man or woman on the ballot and maybe get 5 or 6 % of the populace to vote for em. Ross Perot was the last third party candidate to hit a sinificant 2 digit number in a presidential election. Maybe some day some reform oreinted smart people will come together behind an able charasmatic leader to kick start a party that can contend with the current majority parties, but right now its a two party system and smart people know that when you try to fight both these big dogs at once they will both turn on you and smack you down hard.
Post a Comment
<< Home