Indulge for a moment in this hypothetical scenario: Come November 2nd the Democrats lose control of one or both houses of Congress.
As an intellectually honest left-leaning citizen, and setting aside all personal preferences, could you agree to the following explanation: the current administration and congress leaned too far left for the electorate?
No. A major recession just ended, with residual effects that are still being felt. Because of a serious divide between the goals of Democrats and Republicans, as well as differences in the approaches that they felt were necessary to deal with the economic situation, the Democrats were not able to accomplish as much as they would have liked to. Americans are notoriously uncomfortable with incumbents, and even more so when both houses of Congress and the presidency are held by a single party. These factors would all be much more significant causes of a loss by the Democrats in Congress than any particular policies of the Congress or the administration.
There were far left policies enacted? I must not have seen the news that day.
The health care bill, for one. No sensible Republican would ever think of proposing anything like it.
No, as an intellectual honest left-leaning citizen i know damn well there was nothing “left” to the current administration, if we did i would be a lot happier. We have a center right government that would make republicans of the past decade or so thrilled.
Is Newt Gingrich “sensible”?
Marietta is by a rather large airport, no?
Who put the wrong color cap on this Sharpie?
Honestly, I believe a spectacularly effective propaganda campaign by the right has convinced a large portion of the population that our slightly left of center president is a far left socialist, bent on the destruction of capitalism and America.
They actually got elected to institute change. A year and a half later, they pissed off 2 groups, those who really wanted change and those who make money off status quo. Changes were made ,but they were too weak for most of us.
Fox and the big networks love the way things were during Bush. They got richer and more powerful. Some Americans are dumb enough to think the interests of the wealthy are theirs too. They too think we’re moving the wrong way. Those people are hurting the country and their own interests.
What Gonzomax said…and furthermore…
I think that what’s going to happen is the scapegoating of the Left, when what we have is a centrist administration, and a Right-Wing trend to our ccountry’s policies both foreign and domestic.
So the tea party/hard right types will scream for more of the same that’s hurting them, them wonder why they’re getting more impoverished and miserable, blame Leftwingers, and repeat, until it could escalate to violence, insurrection, and/or rounding up “enemies” and putting us into camps.
Which is why I’m getting a 12-gauge pump action shotgun, and I advise all lefties to invest in firearms. It might come to that.
I try to ignore the TP’ers as much as possible. I saw the ‘great rant’ by Santelli on CNBC (when i still watched that shit channel) which is supposedly one of the seminal events leading to the formation of an organized TP. His rant was all about the moral responsibility of people who had bought at the top of the market in housing and were now looking for help from the government - which basically meant giving money to people who made bad choices. You can see it here - Rick Santelli: Tea Party Rant 'Best 5 Minutes Of My Life' | HuffPost Latest News
I see the tea party as being all about government actions that amount to transfers of wealth to people who don’t deserve it - whether banks, borrowers, whomever.
Since the rant, it has however been co-opted in many ways by other groups who this as potential power base. But the initial motivation was the idea that people should accept the consequences of their actions and not get a govt handout every time they do something stupid.
The problem with that attitude, and you see it even in people like Santelli who really should know better, is that had the govt not bailed out Goldman, AIG and the rest, the credit crisis started by Lehman folding would have been much worse. It would have been the 1920’s all over again with rampant deflation, bank runs, etc, etc. If you know anything at all about monetary theory you can see that.
But the TP anger is misdirected. The govt, and in particular the Federal reserve under Bernanke, literally pulled our fat out of the fire. They are the heros. The people who are to blame are all of the banks, rating agencies, hedge funds, etc who were leveraged out the ying-yang. It was literally a house of cards. And, take note, it was all made possible by a decision by the Bush admin to reduce capital requirements for things like derivatives. So you could sell a credit default swap on Portugese govt paper that would obligate you to pay say $10M on default but only have a few hundred thousand in capital to back that obligation.
That’s what led to an explosion of the money supply and further fueled the frenzy in the housing market. The lower rates went, the higher house prices went since they canceled each other out resulting in the same monthly payment. So Greenspan has to take a big chunk of the blame too.
The point is that the current admin walked into the mother of all financial cluster fucks. And while they have made their own mistakes along the way, they have at least done some important things right. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be looking at projected growth of GDP in the 2% range. We’d still be bouncing along the bottom of the great recession.
If the GOP does not take over the Senate, will you concede that the Obama Administration has not moved far enough to the left?
Is Richard Nixon “sensible”?
Sure, but what are they against?
Nope, like I was trying to say, there was never ever any republican that ever increased the deficit, or instituted wage and price controls like the socialist Obama wants to do, or proposed health care reform remotely like the bill that was just passed.
It’s hard to believe that the second most infamous Congressional Red-baiter of all time would have lost his primary to a tea partier these days. But still, there it is.
I think originally they were against the moral and financial irresponsibility that got us into the mess in the first place and against giving borrowers, lenders or anyone else an easy way out by letting them suck from the govt teat.
I don’t think the results of the upcoming elections (which I am quite confident will be a loss for dems) will have anything to do with the actions of the Obama admin…
Obama won the presidency, handily, because he wasn’t what was usually offered up as a choice for president (old white male)… he didn’t merely offer change, he was change… so many people became interested and mobilized to vote who other wise would not have cast a ballot…
Well, those previously untapped voters probably don’t care as much about the mid-term elections, if they are even aware of them at all… combine this with the fact that the right will be heavily mobilized by this perceived “threat of growing socialism” you are looking at a healthy republican win in November…
but don’t get too excited if you are a conservative… I also think Obama will be re-elected in 2012, probably with another large margin of victory and the largest voter turn out in the history of presidential elections…
FWIW… ya Obama is left of what most Americans are used to, but from a Global perspective he is not very far from centre, and hardly deserves the label of Socialist…
What!?! Can you really believe this? Republican presidents almost invariably increase spending and reduce taxes; what do you think that does to the deficit?
http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html
Can anybody here give this man a straight answer? He asked if the Dems lose one or both of the houses does that mean the administration and congress are too far left for the electorate!
He didn’t ask if they were “far left” in fact, or if they were left compared with the handful of countries in Europe that people here love to point to as being the political norm. He didn’t ask about details of the bailout, he didn’t ask about the machinations of the media, and he didn’t ask about the activities of and/or the makeup of the Tea Party, and he didn’t ask who would win the White House in 2014. He simply wants to know whether, if the elections don’t go their way, does that mean congress and the current administration are too far left for most of the people in this country who vote.
So, can we get a "Hell, yeah! "
Didn’t think so. 