> Perhaps I'm being dense but what do you mean specifically by "the
> better the worse" position?
Well, "the better the worse" would be an interesting position to take, for sure. I'm having a little trouble fleshing it out, but I'll think about it some more.
In any case, "the worse the better" is the idea that it is preferable for the worst possible regime to get into power, because that will "radicalize" a lot of folks who were middle-of-the-road or on the right side of the road before.
Generally, it is an argument made by people who have become desperate about their own lack of power and their own ability to persuade and organize any significant part of the public, so they are reduced to hoping for a miracle. Some radical left Germans took that position as the Nazi Party rose, but seriously underestimated how bad the "worse" would be, of course. I don't seriously believe that a re-elected Bush/Republican Party would emulate Hitler/the Nazis, but I don't think they would become any less of a disaster for U.S. workers and the rest of the world than they are now. On the contrary, they would feel that they had a mandate to do whatever they pleased.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt