----- Original Message ---- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 3:23:50 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] more realignment
On Jan 14, 2009, at 1:26 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Realignment on which side? Perhaps the said "luminaries" are fed up with the redneck populism that Karl Rove and his cronies brought to the Repug party and try to re-align themselves away from it, no?
Further evidence in favor of Adolph Reed's realignment thesis: Obama wants to peel off the respectable right to make a broadly centrist party, with the extremes of left and right left to fend for themselves.___________________________________
[WS:] That would not be such a bad thing in this country. First, the "American consensus" (c.f. Hofstadter) strongly favors capitalism and conservatism over anything left of the centre - so the Left will always have a minority status in this country in the foreseable future. Given this country's antiquated electoral system plus "checks and balances" (which give podunks like Idaho the same power as populous California or New York), it is impossible for any minority interest (not just the radical Left) to gain any political representation at all.
With that in mind, centrism is the best we can hope for in the US today, far better better than the current right wing hegemony (I do not mean just the Bush administration, but the preponederance of public opinion.)
Wojtek