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"Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating...
... the Republican Party, despite the recent failure of McCarthyism, is likely to keep moving rightward, appeasing its more extreme elements and stoking their grievances for some time to come. There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes."
Actaully it was Clinto who started the whole right of center in his advise to democrats.I actaully now see the whole demcoratic welth sharing since the mid 60's coing to a fiscal head and shftig the coutnry more to the right. Its also visible around the world from China to europe. Too many dependent on too few doesnt woirk and i the end results in more at bottom and fewer at the top by design.
I don't necessarily disagree with Gabler, but I don't think you can sketch out the post-WWII history of the Republicans without going through William F. Buckley, and perhaps even more importantly, through Whitaker Chambers. It was the stark, near-paranoid anti-Communism of Chambers that defined and propelled the Republican Party for better than forty years. The demise of the Soviet Union left them with no central mission to sell, and given that they in fact lost the 2000 popular vote, they have won one of the five Presidential elections since, and that one by substituting Muslims for Communists as the boogeyman to fear. Who will they frighten us with going forward? Immigrants, with one global generation already in the electorate and another on the way? Economics and the working class, with Enron, bankers, and Wall Street CEO's looming ominously in the background? How can the Republicans win without fear? At the end of the day, fear-mongering is all that they really know...
Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. *******s. Secular humanists. Blacks. ****. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.
Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. *******s. Secular humanists. Blacks. ****. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.
We could write a similar column about Democrats but it would go back a little further, to Cotton Mather the original East Coast elite politco. Always in search of a demonic conspiracy. Then witches and warlocks, now Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Rush, and Sarah.
And what did the mindless fear of the mere word COMMUNISM! get us but the debacle of Vietnam?
Why is it we now have NO problem with so many of our consumer goods being manufactured in a COMMUNIST! country?
You are sepaking for yourself about the things made in China, yeah? The left has no problem with it and you're on the left? Not being snotty, but seriously asking because Conservatives speak often of how dang unhappy they/we are about it! Sheesh, folks in all walks of life, on Conservative, talk radio, yada yada do so much so that it's become cliche-like.
... the Republican Party, despite the recent failure of McCarthyism, is likely to keep moving rightward, appeasing its more extreme elements and stoking their grievances for some time to come. There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes.
McCarthy turned out to be right about a few things--the infiltration of the State Department, etc. Hannity's not right about anything.
Great article, and I like the LA Times! Agreed, the GOP's in a tough place. The Southern Strategy, anti-intellectualism, the Christian Right, and the Wing Nut crowd have all boxed them into the corner of basically being what Reagan's campaign manager, Ed Rollins has called the "Southern Party". I think they recognize the problem, but don't know how to get out of it. To further complicate things, Limbaugh and Co. all profit from stoking the fires of Right Wing "outrage", so inviting the intellectuals and moderates back into the fold will be very difficult, even if the GOP were so inclined.
BTW, have been noticing lately that the Republicans seem to be lining up various black conservatives to take on the role of attacking Obama. The trick seems to be to carp & criticize, while insulating Republicans from any further accusations of being "racist", which even conservative black author Shelby Steele says has become the GOP's new identity in the wake of the election.
The GOP is not "lining up" any Black Republicans - the Black Republicans you speak of recognize that the GOP is the party of liberty and prosperity - and that many Reconstruction era politicians in the South were Black Americans - they were affiliated with the Republican Party in 1870 and there are still people who do so today. Recall that the 1964 Civil Rights Act had more Republican supporters than Democrats. Shame on you for attempting to start a race war in this forum. The Republican Party will end up as the mainstream party - because we appeal to the main concern of all people - life, liberrty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do you remember Thomas Jefferson and what he wrote about in the Declaration of Independence?
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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Originally Posted by Harrier
The GOP is not "lining up" any Black Republicans - the Black Republicans you speak of recognize that the GOP is the party of liberty and prosperity - and that many Reconstruction era politicians in the South were Black Americans - they were affiliated with the Republican Party in 1870 and there are still people who do so today. Recall that the 1964 Civil Rights Act had more Republican supporters than Democrats. Shame on you for attempting to start a race war in this forum. The Republican Party will end up as the mainstream party - because we appeal to the main concern of all people - life, liberrty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do you remember Thomas Jefferson and what he wrote about in the Declaration of Independence?
Oh, puh-leeze.... the inventors of the infamous "Southern Strategy" and race-baiting "dog whistles", are complaining about "shame" and starting "race wars"?!!
Or maybe you can explain why such a "mainstream party" is having so much trouble just coming up with a viable presidential candidate.... that even their own members can get behind (let alone the rest of the country)?
BTW, Thomas Jefferson said a lot of things... and not all of them are complimentary of the conservative types who always seem so fond of (selectively) quoting him these days!
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get us but the debacle of Vietnam?
