That might not be a bad thing after all, especially if it leaves the breakup of the federal entity. In such case, liberals and progressive stand an actual chance of carving out a few states out of the God-craving rest.
Chuck0:
> I don't buy into this nonsense that Americans are all reactionary
> Republicans.
RTFT - I did not say that all Americans are all reactionary Republicans, I sad that a lot of them are, but also that a lot of them are not. That is one of the main reasons why the country is polarized - if all US-ers were reactionary Repugs, there would be no polarization.
Travis:
> Another thesis is that in the US both rightwing and leftwing politics
are
> coloured with a heavy dose of populism and its attendant reactionary
form of
> politics. I prefer this thesis.
Very good point, indeed. Reactionary anti-intellectual populism is indeed what permeates the US politics. Lefties eloped with it during the Progressive era and later during the Great Depression hoping to get into the mainstream of the US politics. But like in a bad marriage, or rather mesalliance, the good part not only failed to uplift the bad part, but itself was corrupted by it, (as nicely showed in Shrek 2 which I had a chance to watch on a flight to Amsterdam). Populism swallowed left intellectuals and spat them out to the margins of politics. As a result, the left intellectuals actually lost more than they gained, since they squandered almost all their credibility and gravitas with the more enlightened elements of political and business elites.
The only viable left politics in the US is a quick divorce from populism and the naïve infatuation with primitivism of the populace and its gutter culture, and pursue alliances with the enlightened elements of the business elite to promulgate cautious reforms when opportunities arise. Which, btw, is what DLC seems to be doing.
James Heartfield:
> I distrust an argument whose premise is that the people are too stupid
to make the right choice.
I think this is a misrepresentation of my argument in several ways. First, I said time and again on this forum that the proper behavioral model in popular politics is that of cognitive rationality. That is to say, people try make the best choice, but due to high transaction costs necessary to obtain information needed to make an informed decision, they rely on various cognitive shortcuts to make that decision. These shortcuts are things that they already familiar with and which they associate with something they value. The bearded one expressed essentially the same idea in the opening to the _18th brummaire of Louis Bonaparte_ when talks about history repeating itself as a farce in costumes borrowed from the past.
>From that point of view, people with different backgrounds use different
cognitive shortcuts all of them being equally "rational" - looking at
Mr. Kerry's voting record on ADA is no better indicator of his future
performance if elected president than, say, looking into his "moral
character."
So I never said that people are too stupid to make the right choice, but that the way many - if not majority - of the people make political choices is very much different from that of leftist or liberal intellectuals.
Furthermore, you seem to conflate the entire population under the buzzword "the people" - I suspect to stir up populist sentiments. "The people" is almost always a brain child of a demagogue - or to paraphrase the Baroness Thatcher - there is no such thing as "the people" - only individuals, their families and communities. What I proposed was to look into multiple divisions and fissures in that cut through that supposedly indistinguishable mass to understand the dynamics of electoral politics in the US.
At the end of the day, I can probably concur that the Bush party, if elected, will screw most US-ers, especially those who voted for them, big time - just think of the stolen social security, cut down health and social services, gutted cities, working class men killed in combat - and that sense we can talk about "the people" as opposed to the small elite benefiting from these policies. But that is some time down the road. Right now, however
Die fahne hoch, die Reihen fest geschlossen U.S. marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt Kam'raden die Rotfront und Liberals erschossen Marschier'n im Geist in unsern Reihen mit
Die Strasse frei den braunen Batallionen Die Strasse frei dem Sturmabteilungsmann Es schau'n auf's Stars and Stripes voll Hoffung schon Millionen Der Tag fur Freiheit und fur Brot bricht an
Zum letzen Mal wird nun Appell geblasen Zum Kampfe steh'n wir alle schon bereit Bald flattern Dubya-fahnen Uber allen Strassen Die Knechtschaft dauert nur mehr kurze Zeit
(no apologies to Horst Wessel for slight updates of his once popular song for translation and soundtrack see: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/horstwessel.html)
Those who sang it in 1933 did not yet now they would be singing to a very different tune in 1945 - but that is a different story.
Wojtek