I was wondering do you think now the Republicans will learn anything now that they have lost power.
I await imp’s answer. [size=75](hee hee, you’re in for it.)[/size]
The more immediate question is whether the Democrats have learned anything.
yeah, don’t fuck with the blue team…bitches.
Well I don’t think that the Democrats have learned anything, but at the same time the Republicans needed to be slapped in the face. I mean the size of government has really grown under thier power and they are “conservative”. So maybe they can learn a lesson.
I doubt either side has learned anything. The Democrats claim they don’t “revenge,” but I suspect that’s an out and out lie. The Witch Hunt will begin in earnest, and every possible chance to abuse their new majority will be exploited. Bush could advocate world peace and free cheese and the Dems would use all their power to block it.
Nor will the Republicans likely learn anything. I was amused to see Bush “reaching out” to make peace with the Dems- now that his side has lost. He’s invited a bunch of prominent Dems to a breakfast meeting to discuss things. If he’d have ‘reached out’ to the opposition 6 years ago his party wouldn’t be in the shit it’s in now.
The Republicans learned that 80 million isn’t quite enough to win an election, they also learned that they failed to properly scare the American people. In addition, they learned that no matter how many scandals there party has, no matter how many little boys get solicited or illegal money is accepted, or mistress’s are beatin, or hypocrisy’s are exposed, they will still get 48% of the vote.
The problem is, the Republicans have completely isolated themselves from anyone that isn’t already hardcore. They have a giant base, but they do not have any room to expand. It will no longer suffice for the Republicans to just rally their base into voting like '04, they must also take votes from the Democrats, and receive a fair deal of the undecided vote.
You take any one of the scandals the Republican party had leading up to the elections and you transpose it onto the Democrats, and we would have been obliterated. They learned how absurd there base is! The party of ethics and family values surely realized that they are not bound by what they preach to their core constituents.
There’s definately a kernel of truth to that. There was a time when the Dems were so far to the left that no moderate ever voted for them, hence their fall. Right now the ruling cabal of the Repubs are so extreme right than no moderate will vote for them. As a Libertarian I often found areas of commonality with moderate Repubs, but as a moderate and an athiest I’m pretty freaked out by the Religious Right.
I voted Libertarian for the most part because I am disgusted with both parties. I’m probally being optomistic here but maybe people will look beyond the two main political parties and later on there could be a rise in other parties.
Both parties were sent a message: Knock it the fuck off and pay attention to OUR business. Will they? They haven’t any choice. If they go back to partisan sniping, there will be viable 3rd party and independent candidates in 2 years. They’re all walking on egg shells right now.
The more relevant question is as follows:
After thirty straight generations of MO-rons in America, has this society learned anything?
Mas,
Of course they have! They now understand a whole bunch of survival strategies from the reality TV shows. Invaluable information!
Thanks for putting it like that, now I know we are screwed. So much for being optimistic, I’m buying an island.
What I meant earlier about the Democrats is this. They lost power in 1994 because they weren’t perceived as standing for much of anything, or willing to do what needs to be done to represent their constituencies. They lost the last two presidential elections for the same reason. They’re perceived as being in the pocket of big business just like the Republicans, and as joining with the Republicans to narrow the subjects open to political discussion to a few relatively “safe” ones that don’t threaten the corporatist agenda.
And so we have been faced with two corporatist parties, that disagree with one another only about social issues. The Republicans pander to the religious right, while the Democrats pander to the cultural left, but both of them pander to our corporate masters. And that means the issues that really make a difference aren’t on the table.
Since World War II, the U.S. has been an imperialist nation on a grand scale. To maintain this empire, we have created the world’s greatest standing military (something the Founders abhorred), and sacrificed public accountability, democratic oversight, and the rights of our citizens on the altar of national security. What should be done about this?
When we have free trade with a country that doesn’t respect workers’ rights, we run up big trade deficits, export jobs to that country, and bring down standards of living here significantly while raising them there only trivially. What should be done about this?
We are on a collision course with natural resource limits: oil, fresh water, and the tolerance of the biosphere for our unbalanced numbers and footprint. Many government policies reinforce this foolishness, while to the extent environmentalism is recognized in policy at all, it is treated like a sort of window-dressing or aesthetic add-on, something to be done if we can afford it economically, rather than what it is, something our prosperity depends on completely in the long view. What should be done about this?
Are the Democrats, in short, willing to become the “party of the people” they like to pretend they are and, perhaps, in some measure used to be? Or will they remain a corporatist party with the cultural left as a secondary constituency, and squander their victory as the Republicans did?
The more relevant question is as follows:
Are you one of them?
Matt B,
Not a bad idea. You can rent it to the studios for the alligator wrestling shows. A REAL survivor series…
I’m too old for that. I’m down to arm wrestling old ladies for their bingo winnings… 
You know what zeus, I’m feeling all loving and generous tonight.
Am I one of them? Validate me zeus, that’s why we are here at ILP, personal validation.
Do your magic.
Is it me or is everyone’s disgust with Republicans being cross-applied to Democrats for no reason. Someone explain to me why Democrats are heinous or “big business” or any other descriptive used in this thread.
Because Democrats are absolutely no different than Republicans.
Only exception being, they dress like jackasses.
Ya know Mastriani, you talked about the fall of Rome and the socialization of the male in a few other threads, and I tend to agree with you. Rome also fell because of the unrestrained fight for political power…and for revenge and honor to be gained. What resulted was personal hatred, not just a political rivalry.
I think the revenge thing will happen in America, like it did in Rome. I doubt anyone has learned anything.
The same fights between the America and Iraq correlate almost exactly with the Romans and the Jews…only, back then the fight was a lot more brutal and upscale.
In short, I don’t think that history is given enough credit.