Surely you realize there is a pretty significant qualitative difference between “We don’t like the direction the country is heading so we’re moving to a country more in line with our ideals” and “We don’t like the direction the country is heading so we’re mentioning/advocating/dreaming about seceding from the Union”? And that there is a significant and qualitative difference between Alec Baldwin saying something and Gov. Rick Perry saying it?
Republicans lost an election. The person and party that won significantly more votes are enacting exactly the platform that they ran on. The appropriate response is to either explain to the American people why your approach is better or modify your proposals to better match the mood of the electorate in the hopes of winning more votes next time. The sooner the GOP figures this out the better off we’ll all be.
Leaving aside what folks like Kucinich were doing during the previous administration I haven’t seen any evidence presented that serious Republican’s or ‘right wing leaders’ are actually toying with the idea of civil war. I’ve seen some rhetoric that, to my viewpoint, is fairly similar to the over the top rhetoric we saw from the left during the previous administration. To me, both sides are full of shit and are simply babbling whatever they think their base wants to hear…and to me, neither side is ACTUALLY serious about their rhetoric (leaving aside the nut ball or fringe ‘leaders’).
YMMV…to me it’s just the other side of the same ole same ole coin.
Based on the lack of massive numbers of people going to either Canada or Leavenworth it’s hard for me to take either very seriously. To me this kind of thing and this kind of thread has more to do with RO than reality.
Seriously, you can’t discern some sort of difference between private citizens proposing to lawfully migrate on an individual basis, and US elected officials broaching the subject of entire state(s) seceding from the United States?
I grant that it’s virtually inconceivable that any of these paper-tiger firebrands will actually do anything that might jeopardize young Megan’s chance at getting accepted to Smith, just as few actually moved to Canada in 2004. But really, are you saying you can’t see any difference in intensity between inciting action that, the last time it was attempted, resulted in an armed conflict that killed over a half million Americans, as opposed to one that results in an additional stamp in one’s passport?
Seriously, with a straight face now, you consider these equivalent?
The governor said it. That raises it to a new level. It was not a radical out of mainstream hippie but a highly ranked official and several other political insiders espousing it.That makes it different.
I’ll remind everyone again that Montana has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, plus one of the two houses of our legislature is Democrat-controlled. We are not an inherently red state; we’re a particularly confusing shade of purple.
Nobody is really taking them seriously, but there is a vast difference between some idiot actor threatening to move legally to another country, and the governor of a state threatening secession.
Read the OP. It is assumed there (and I take it throughout the whole thread) that the people mentioning these possibilities are not serious about their rhetoric. The question wasn’t “Why do Republican leaders and spokespeople want there to be a civil war,” but rather, “Why are Republican leaders and spokespeople hinting at it as though it were a real possibility”? Hinting at it as though it were a real possibility is what is meant in the OP by “toying with the idea.”
I see no difference in the intensity, no. While the two response are different in type the differences are more along the lines of the philosophic difference between left and right wing nutballs and what they feel is important. Since I don’t take talk of a civil war seriously, pointing out how much more dangerous it would be compared to similar (ludicrous) left wing civil disobedience is really not meaningful to me. All it shows is that you take this kind of thing at least marginally serious…while I do not.
My example of the supposed left wingers flight to Canada was, of course, not the sum total of the nutball fringe on the left wings responses during the past administration either…there were hints of more violent actions as well, if one were of a bent to take such rhetoric seriously.
And I continue to insist that there is a stark, qualitative difference in idiot actors (Norris, included, frankly) making off the cuff remarks from their featherhead space and national-level thought leaders from one of the two major parties to be doing this. One is dismissive…the other is irresponsible.
Really, what are they trying to do? Shore up their base? Maybe they will but they’ll be alienating the 40-60% of the electorate that occupies the middle and is content to muddle through regardless of which party is in power. These statements should, if anyone has any sense at all in the democratic party, come back to haunt these politicians.
Besides, if Texas seceded it would end up a third world country. Good luck to it paying for its own defense and unemployment and such. Texas remains a net consumer of federal dollars I seem to recall and making that up would be a backbreaker.
So, to reiterate, this SHOULD be a net loser for the Republicans. It may look good now but it’s not going to prevent them from losing 4-6 more Senate seats in two years. The way to do that would be to moderate their positions. But I don’t see them doing that.
Just wait until some Republican goof ball in Congress starts impeachment proceedings against Biden and then Obama…THAT’S when things are REALLY going to get fun…
The Republican’s got all of the wrong signals from the previous administration and their losses in the House and Senate. I don’t think that what they are doing will help either, no.
On the other side though, I’m unsure if the Dems really got the right signals either…they are like kids turned loose in the candy store. To me they are reacting exactly like the Republicans did when THEY took control of the House and Senate and then (narrowly) won the presidency in 2000…they think that they have ‘won’, that their ideology has obviously prevailed against the Evil Other Side™, and that now the American people are firmly in their corner. I think that like the Republicans, the Dems are going to find out that they ‘won’ more because the other side lost than that their programs or philosophy is superior to their opponents…
It should be a grand ole time in the next few years…I can’t wait to see how this all turns out!
Why not? They did the impeachment thing before and it brought down Livingstone, Gingrich, and sort of Hyde. Way to pursue a winning course, boys!
Touchy subject. I was covering The Hill during all of that. Ugh.
As for anything else I figure the Senate comes down to a standard set of wins and losses but Republican defenses are working HUGELY against them this time. It seems similar to the retirement patterns of democrats during the mid-90s. They figured they might as well get out of the way. So I figure the gains at 4-6 in the Senate and 5-10 in the House.
Then the craziness really begins. We both know that. And there’s no way to deal with it that has senior Republican leadership talking about the dissolution of the damn union.
It’s because everyone’s getting a tax cut except the very top brackets or something of that nature. And somehow, they think THEIR taxes are being raised. I don’t even think THEY know themselves. (If you’ve seen the pictures, a good percentage of the signs are mispelled, a lot comparing Obama to Hitler, etc)
Yes. Rick Perry is trying to make sure he gets enough support in the Republican primary to beat a potential challenge from Kay Bailey Hutchison. He was able to beat the anti-gay marriage drum loud enough in 2005 and lock up the far right when he invited gays to leave the state. He can’t re-ban gay marriage for the 5th time this election so he needs to find another tactic. The Texas vs Washington shtick might be enough for him to with the Republican primary and another term as governor.
No, but the spin machine has convinced the Joe Plumbers of the world that they are going to be taxed more. Never mind the facts. Facts just inconveniently get in the way.
No, but again, many people have been convinced by rhetoric from the media and actual elected officials that this is just around the corner.
No again, but many people are upset that Obama does not want the USA to torture people. Most Americans are certainly against torture, but a significant number either want to downplay it (waterboarding is just a splash of water), or actually think that the world operates like “24” A smaller minority things that torturing forieghners is just good policy.
Some are woefully misinformed about that, or willfully ignorant. Others have great plans to be making 250K/year one day, because they’re gonna “make it big”