I have to agree with Der Trihs. The worst thing you can do is welcome these knuckle draggers with open arms, after they have supported and enabled the most despicable campaign in modern history. They don’t want to be your friend. They want to be your boss. Play nice with them at your own peril.
I don’t think McCain is going to win, (MAKE SURE TO VOTE) but I was about to open a Pit thread about this very topic. I have a few friends and relatives who have exposed themselves as much less intelligent than I previously thought during this campaign.
Example 1: “Paul” is a good friend. He’s 26 and very religious (Christian, prays before meals even when we eat at McDonald’s, gives me a funny look when I say “for god’s sake,” etc.) He’s bright, he works hard. The other day we were discussing the election and he told me he wasn’t voting based on the issues, but that he couldn’t vote for Obama because of the “religion thing.” When I asked what he meant, he said, “He’s a Muslim.” I asked where he got that information and he said in an e-mail. I pointed him to some sites where he could do some research and find out the truth. I told him to vote for whomever he prefers but don’t vote out of ignorance. A few days later he casually told me he doesn’t like Obama’s tax strategy. Uh huh.
Example 2: My cousin, “Jane.” Mid-50s, never the brightest person, but loving and a good mother and has always been great to me and my family. I spoke with her last night and she told me her and her husband were going to Hawaii in November, “unless Obama wins and we get invaded.” She was completely serious. :rolleyes: When pressed, she threw out the Biden speech as her reasoning. “Even his own side thinks he’ll let the terrorists in…”
I want Obama to win for many reasons, but I don’t have anything against people who will vote for McCain based on the issues. I used to think McCain was a decent man, but the pandering being done to the ignorant sickens me. I know Obama has used negative ads too, and that the political process is is a mess, but McCain’s campaign has seemed a lot more evil to me.
What’s wrong with playing nice but setting clear boundaries on what is and is not acceptable behavior?
Of course, that would require Democrats to grow some balls. Obama and Biden just might be able to do that, though.
You may consider that line stolen.
The Right isn’t a monolithic mass. There are lots of conservatives that are unhappy with the status quo in the GOP but can’t quite bring themselves to vote Democratic for whatever reason.
McCain voters aren’t all knuckle-dragging idiots and religious zealots. Further, there are an awful lot of complete idiots on the Democratic side as well (take a hard look at the far left and the environmentalist movements).
This type of “rah rah rah go team” bullshit is not helping anything. Dems aren’t perfect, Pubs aren’t evil. Let’s not fall into worshipful complacency just because we finally have a good candidate. We have a shit economy and a war on; we have a lot of problems that aren’t going to be solved by demonizing and marginalizing the other side.
Ultimately we need the GOP to help solve our problems. Does the GOP have a very troubling ignorant and uber-religious element? Yes. Mocking them won’t make them go away. Responding to ignorance with ignorance won’t educate anyone.
Further, we haven’t won the election yet and let’s not start calling it a victory. Obama is strong in segments that may not turn out and we need every vote.
Someone needs to clue Palin in. She still thinks Tina Fey was kidding.
I don’t want to dismiss your viewpoint just because you’re living on the opposite side of the world, but based on how things appear to be going, you are wrong about everything and don’t know shit.
I also hate this kind of defeatist whining (although since you are presumably not a Democrat it’s not quite as bad). I get tired of the constant bleat of “Americans are idiots,” too, and it’s not because I’m a patriot or have a very high regard for everybody’s intelligence. It sounds to me like you’re underinformed and are justifying an ignorant and pessimistic prediction with “Americans are stupid.” Based on the polls I think Americans know more about their election than you do, so I wouldn’t go calling them stupid right now. Your droning of “Face it, Obama’s going to lose” (as if it’s apparent to everyone) would make sense if he were way behind in the polls, but he isn’t.
I’m sure New Zealanders have never elected an idiot, by the way. Please continue uplifting the rest of us.
Excellent post.
I’ll get along with conservatives after the elections.
When they suck my cock.
I do not intend to do any crowing should my fervently desired result occur. But it will be nice to feel proud about flying my flag once more. It has been too long.
Actually, I’m setting my sights pretty low. Here in IL we’ve seen how well the Dems can screw things up once they have control of the governorship AND both houses. I hope that at least a Dem administration/Congress pusues policies that seem somewhat less directly aimed at lining the pockets of the most wealthy that what we have seen over the past 8 years.
I know you weren’t replying to me, but I just want to point out that my OP wasn’t about conservatives or the “Right”. It was about the Republican party, which has pounded this country into the ground for 8 years and slandered anyone who dared raise an objection as either unpatriotic or a terrorist sympathizer.
As noted in the linked story above, if they are indeed making a “circular firing squad”, I hope every one of them is a good shot.
The only thing for which we need the present Republican party is the biopsy of the cancer that has plagued us for the past several decades.
Seriously, this iteration of the GOP has done nothing at all that has been good for the country - nothing that they’ve had to do in opposition to the Democrats, anyway. It has also been as close to monolithic as one could ever expect a group of that size could be. Remember, about 70% of them still approve of the job Bush has done.
When the Democrats actually represent the liberal side of the political spectrum, and when Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Karl Rove and the rest are moldering in their graves, we might need the Republican party again.
When that time comes, however, we have to have made sure that we finally put the stake through trickle down, “voo doo” economics. We have to have a Democratic party that has some remote chance of doing anything close to overzealously representing the middle class, defending individual liberties or shoring up social safety nets before there needs to be any sort of counterbalance applied.
Finally, I’m not convinced there is any evidence that things have gone poorly when we’ve had Democrats in charge of all three branches of government. I remember in one thread a long time ago we were examining data on the specific issue of federal spending. At least on that metric alone, when Democrats were in charge of all three branches, IIRC they reduced federal spending at least half the time (between 1960 and the present).
Also, IIRC, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress during FDR’s New Deal, and the massive governmental effort to pull us out of the Depression was carried off without scandal or corruption.
So what’s the evidence that we need the Republican party for anything?
We have our own election in two weeks and our very own idiot to contend with. Where America has voted right for the last few elections we have gone left but our right is in with a chance this time.
I don’t think he will be able to make it (our MMP system makes elections not so cut and dry) but it is very possible we may have our very own idiot in charge soon.
Whatever she’s on, I want the recipe.
Scissorjack “You morons voted for Bush twice in a row and you think McCain’s already a footnote in history? Face it, Obama is going to lose. I wish it weren’t so, if only for the sake of the good name of what was once a country to admire, but don’t ever underestimate the power of the ignorant/bigoted/reactionary/stupid vote, who have shown over this campaign that they’ll happily eat shit and call it brown sugar. There’s a good reason the Republicans are running a stupid and vicious campaign: they’re courting the ignorant and vicious vote. What have they got to lose at this point?”
I hope this isn’t true but I know it is.
Respectful disagreement.
First, a car needs brakes. Simply because we are usually right does not mean we are always right. And we need someone to blame shit on. When someone on the Loon Fringe proposes a tax credit to fund bi-lingual education for gay whales, we need someone to blame it on when we quietly kill it.
Second, and more important, the ruling party always attracts the opportunists, people with no pinciple to speak of but an urgent desire for power and influence. A scoundrel in populist clothes is nonetheless a scoundrel. Huey Long leaps to mind.
Numero Three-o, there must be a center. As a radical, I want radical change. As a committed democrat (small “duh” democrat), I recognize that power properly resides in the center. Speak to the center, listen to the center, move the center, but sudden radical change is dangerous, it offers too many opportunities for the aforementioned scoundrels. Revolution almost never works, we are the rare exception. As Mao said “There is great confusion under Heaven, and the situation is excellent”. Mao was a monster. As was Hitler, Pol Pot, Lenin. Who knows what might have become of Thomas Paine if he had been elected dictator? Power corrupts, neverf forget that. Never!
Hey, a word – could you not demonize and marginalize environmentalist movements while you’re saying this? Don’t tell me that the fringe enviro-terrorists are your excuse for calling environmentalists “complete idiots,” because it’s the presence of the far right lunatic fringe that caused the original remark you yourself are saying shouldn’t be uttered. If it’s not right to say it about the right because of their fringe, it’s not right to say it about environmentalists because of their fringe.
Think of that while enjoying the nice clean air you’re breathing.
Sailboat
That is an argument that we need a second party, but not necessarily the Pubs. Maybe a system where the main parties are the Democrats and the Socialists. 
BeeGee:
The Social Democrats vs the Democratic Socialists? Look what happened before. During the regime of the Forces of Darkness, the Dems “triangulated”, in pursuit of keeping their butts cozily elected, they became the “Me, too, but not quite so much!” party. Tweedledum and Tweedledumber.
We need an honest conservative party, and the Pubbies already have all that letterhead printed, and stuff. Flush out the vermin so that we might have a Loyal Opposition. Olympia Snowe is not Tom DeLay (R-Undead).