[lbo-talk] RE: Where do republican presidents come from

[Robert D. Day]

I think what Carrol may be getting at (and I'm sure he'll tell us if I'm
mistaken) is that Democrats, in their failure to win any mass support and
seriously pursue basic social democracy, provide no real reason for them to
keep existing. The voting public has had no great Democratic achievements to
point to in the past 30ish years - unlike FDR and the New Deal, which
ensured Democratic hegemony for most of a generation. I remember reading
somewhere that one of the reasons Newt Gingrich was so terrified of the
Clintonian health care scheme was not for its alleged creeping socialism,
but that it would potentially keep Democrats in the lead in Washington for
much of the foreseeable future. The Democrats' health care failure paved the
way for the 1994 GOP onslaught, just as the Clinton-Gore business-as-usual
record made a GW Bush presidency seem like a distinct possibility.

As Democrats move further and further to the right, the Republicans feel
less inhibited about their own even further right-wing ambitions, and the
whole idea of social democracy - which should be the Democrats' life blood -
gets forgotten. The absence of a compelling Democratic vision provides for
the presence of brutish but seductive right-wing ascendancy.

--- Robert D. Day

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "joanna bujes" <jbujes at covad.net>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 4:13 PM
Subject: [lbo-talk] RE: Where do republican presidents come from

Carrol:
"If this list is still around when a _really_ obnoxious Republican is
elected in 2012 to follow a diastrous second term by Kerry, someone
might forward this to the list at that time. (I don't anticipate 8 more
active years for myself.)"

Carrol, this is the silliest argument you've ever made on LBO

Joanna

___________________________________
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk