a snip from an interview with Tom Delay talking about the same thing, but moving in the other direction...Put out a meme that is so far Right that it 'pulls' the Center (or the perceived Center) in that direction.

Agree totally though that it's time Progressives pull the 'center' back toward the Left.

-5.75,-4.05
"God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." -- Robin Williams

In the long term, look where forty years of cunning manipulation of discourse got them - nowhere.

Worst thing progressives could do is mirror those failed tactics.

The New Deal Dems got cocky and got knocked off by the Gingrich Republicans, but it took fifty years. The Gingrich Republicans managed to self-destruct in a much shorter time. However, the Overton window is so far to the right now that the Dems have a lot of room before they come across as overreaching. It's way premature to talk about overreach. There is an opportunity in a crisis to drive an agenda. Dems should not miss this opportunity or the public will sour on them.

Us or the electorate? The Republicans were talking to the electorate about Democratic overreach before Obama took office. Granted there's a lot of room to slide things left, but be careful. It's a different world today than it was as little as eight years ago.

eom

by so doing, they're moving like lemmings towards the Politics Of Self-Annihilation.

They seem to have a sufficiently strong addiction to previously successful tactics to be blind to the plainly changed circumstances that make these tactics suicidal today.

That's probably a redundant observation - resistance to change is pretty much a defining characteristic of conservatism.

The media is very powerful in getting and maintaining control. The GOP can pretty easily reinvent itself and it still has a lot of the necessary tools in place to influence public opinion.

The chief problem they face now is that the economy is doing poorly and people are uncertain and fearful. This helps the Dems to a point, but could end up hurting them, too, tif they get the blame after being in power for awhile and not fixing things. If and when the economy turns around, the GOP will definitely be a strong competitor, because when people are doing well, they want "lower taxes/smaller government" and are no longer willing to spend on "welfare" for the "poor."

NYT - Here’S a bottom line to keep you up at night: The economy is falling faster than Washington can get moving. President Obama says his stimulus plan will save or create four million jobs in two years. In the last four months of 2008 alone, employment fell by 1.9 million. Do the math...

The problem is not that House Republicans gave the stimulus bill zero votes last week... The more disturbing problem is that the party has zero leaders and zero ideas. It is as AWOL in this disaster as the Bush administration was during Katrina.

If the country wasn’t suffering, the Republicans’ behavior would be a laugh riot. The House minority leader, John Boehner, from the economic wasteland of Ohio, declared on “Meet the Press” last Sunday that the G.O.P. didn’t want to be “the party of ‘No’ ” but “the party of better ideas, better solutions.” And what are those ideas, exactly? He said he’ll get back to us “over the coming months...

The Republicans do have one idea, of course, but it’s hardly fresh: more and bigger tax cuts, particularly for business and the well-off. That’s the sum of their “alternative” stimulus plan. Obama has tried to accommodate this panacea, perhaps to a fault. Mainstream economists in both parties believe that tax cuts in the stimulus package will deliver far less bang for the buck than, say, infrastructure spending....

The Republicans’ other preoccupation remains Rush Limbaugh, who is by default becoming their de facto leader. While most Americans are fearing fear itself, G.O.P. politicians are tripping over themselves in morbid terror of Rush.

“It’s up to me to hijack the Obama honeymoon,” Limbaugh soon gloated, “and I’ve done it.” In his dreams. He has hijacked what’s left of the Republican Party... The nightmare is that we have so irrelevant, clownish and childish an opposition party at a moment when America is in an all-hands-on-deck emergency that’s as trying as war. To paraphrase a dictum that has been variously attributed to two of our most storied leaders in times of great challenge, Thomas Paine and George Patton, the Republicans should either lead, follow or get out of the grown-ups’ way...
more at the link

_{I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader}

every one of them. They deserve nothing less and nothing more.

It's my understanding that the majority of credible polls show a majority of Americans favor the ideas of the populist wing of the Democratic party: universal healthcare, higher taxes for the wealthier, and even higher taxes for themselves if they get good value for it. Like something that really matters instead of death, destruction, murder, and mayhem.

Bush was on the way to becoming the next Hoover, he still might make it, and Obama is on the way to becoming the next Lyndon Baines Johnson - e.g. bombing Pakistan.

1700: "Abolish slavery!"
1800: Woman's Suffrage!"
2000:"World Peace!"

is not that they went too far too fast, but that their claimed beliefs were false, and the objective condition of the country deteriorated. If it were true that deregulation and tax cuts would create enormous prosperity for all, that Iraq had WMDs, that Iraq's people could seamlessly shift to democracy inspiring the whole Muslim world to follow them, that government emergency response were not important; the Repubs would be in great shape. Substance matters

The GOP House got thrown out in 2006 because they were perceived as corrupt. The GOP retained the Presidency and Senate filibuster. Thus, the Dem Congress was hamstrung by veto and filibuster threats. They were surprising close to winning in 2008 until the financial meltdown.

While the condition of the country has deteriorated, I don't think that their fundamentals principles have been shown to be false in the minds of a lot of people. I think it was regarded as a failure of leadership rather than principles.

The GOP is betting on this now. They think that low taxes (regressive taxation), small government (economic neoliberalism), strong military (neo-imperialism), and traditional values (social conservatism) is still a winner for them.

The financial meltdown was part of their policy failure. And if Iraq had gone well, they would have been untouchable in 2006, though Foley and perhaps a couple of his protectors would have gone down. I agree that the electorate is confused and not sure what to believe, but the assertion I was responding to was that the Repubs failed because their policies were seen as too extreme. To the extent that their failures have not invalidated in the public mind their fundamental thinking, that reinforces my point: if they were rejected for being extreme, the rejection would be clearly and strongly ideological. They were rejected for being failures and liars.

They were rejected for being failures and liars.

My point is that "they" (the leaders, implementers) were rejected, not the principles. The problem with ideological thinking is that the ideology is never to blame, it is the way it is implemented.

A whole lot of people still think that the GOP principles are representative of American values. They were brainwashed into thinking this for over thirty years, and the media shows little signs of changing course on this. The criticism is not of conservatism, but of conservatives.

The Dems need to establish that it was the principles that were at fault, not just the implementers, and they also need to establish liberal principles as the defining norms of the political universe of discourse. Or else.

Substance matters; there's only so much that discourse manipulation can achieve for so long.

As Media Matters has documented, during the Bush administration, the media consistently allowed conservatives to dominate their shows, booking them as guests far more often than progressives. The rationale was that Republicans were “in power.”

It appears that old habits die hard. Even though President Obama and his team are in control of the executive branch and Democrats are in the majority in Congress, the cable networks are still turning more often to Republicans and allowing them to set the agenda on major issues, most recently on the debate over the economic recovery package.
Think Progress

eom

and so is Obama. I'm sure this idea has occurred to them. But they are not naturally progressives. They need to be pushed.

to those on the progressive left, suggesting that he indeed would embrace policies well apart from mainstream, Beltway-approved, "bipartisan" solutions to the myriad of problems awaiting resolution. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that the "netroots" movement which coalesced around Barack Obama's candidacy is now locked out of policy determination or deliberations; at this early juncture of his first term, the well-publicised overtures to Congressional Republicans certainly doesn't portend more of the same, warmed-over, "centrist" choices of action. Obama is setting up the Repubs for a mighty fall, in the manner that Clinton stuck it to the Gingrich lot in the 90's. Put it this way: if Obama fails to break away from traditionalist policy-making, both domestically, and particulary in his foreign policy, he's done in 2012, full stop.

SO OK THEN! go to www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

and send an email. or call:

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

1700: "Abolish slavery!"
1800: Woman's Suffrage!"
2000:"World Peace!"

Well, they say that the www.change.org website has morphed into www.whitehouse.gov, and that "feedback" from the proles is actively encouraged and indeed read by Himself. So, what are we waiting for?

I think it should be assumed that, for whatever reason, people voted their pocketbook, and felt that what was good for their employer, was good for them.

Strong argument.

Just after the election I was talking to the guy behind the desk at the USPS. His answer was exactly that. "When I was in the military I voted Republican, because Republicans support the military more than the Dems. Now that I'm in the post office and am union, I vote Dem because the Dems support the unions more than the Republicans."

is dominated by Conservatives. The Fort Bragg base is hugely supported by the population. The owner of the campground, a former NC State trooper, confided that he didn't vote for Obama but secretly hopes that he succeeds because change is needed. They just aren't confident about which direction it should move. We elected to never discuss politics when in the United States because their outlook is very different from ours. Canadians tend to be left of almost all American parties where being a Liberal isn't a dirty word.

There are no radio Limbaugh's in Canada spewing nonsense 24/7/365.

I find it humourous to visualize grossly, overweight="fat" Limbaugh grasping his ankles to bend over accommodating Obama's policies. Can Limbaugh even see his ankles let alone get his hands in a position where he could grip them?

This economic crisis didn't happen on Bush's term in office

Started with Reaganism: "Greed is good."

coming up with stimulus plans is the useless hope they'll prevent runs on banks averting financial disaster. Populations soooo willing to lie down and believe what their ears want to hear.

Reality, banks are insolvent...they don't have enough money to cover their debts. And it doesn't matter what central banks promise depositors...they're as corrupt with greed as the populations.

Do you have six months of cash, not in banks, for that rainy day in case countries' banks declare a forced holiday? Cash is King during severe Recessions/Depressions! Betcha they're aren't many populations that are eager to hear that reality regardless of their political persuasion!

those little green pieces of paper that say federal reserve note? legal tender, but is it backed by the full faith and credit of the US taxpayer? or is that only T-bills? anybody know? it doesn't say on them. Roosevelt confiscated the gold, ya know? a couple signatures and, voila!, new currency. happens all the time.
my only faith in greenbacks is that they're used by gunner runners and drug smugglers, and you don't want to piss them off. but I hear they like the 500 Euro note, much less bulky.

maybe I'll go to the currency exchange and get some Loonies, I got more faith in you Canadians.

value feel nice in your hand. Gold content .9999%/24 karat. They come in denominations from one to fifty dollars and can be purchased at ScotiaBank branches. My hubby has an account at Scotia--nice to buy precious metal coins where you know the people in the branch so you don't get ripped off. At any time the coins can be taken back, provided accompanied with the original purchase certificate, for the full value. Fiat currencies rise and fall...precious metal coins don't--they're stable. They're a good hedge against deflation/inflation.