> But these aren't stupid people. And I'm not wondering why they didn't admit defeat; I'm wondering why they didn't take action to stop the defeat. They had more time to plan and execute a strategy than was taken for the Normandy Landings.
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> Every morning several dozen people would wake up, put on their work clothes, and walk out the door to do less than what would be required to keep their jobs.
>
> This wasn't "positioning" ... this was a massive drumming out. And everyone could see it from miles away.
This was *precisely* "positioning" - in the face of an obvious, impending drumming out: every day before the election was still a working day under the current configuration of power, and any admission of a "need for change" undermines the ability to *get shit done* on that day: the shit that's on my list, the shit that my boss is going to scream at me if it isn't done. The shit that my political patrons are PAYING me to get done. That's the whole f*cking point.
You're assuming there was a realistic scenario of "adjustment" available. Given the overwhelming influence of corporate interests and the equally overwhelming economic (just for starters) ignorance of the electorate, what could they have done? (And BTW, that is absolutely not a dig at the electorate: what else could be expected from a few decades of gutting public ed and many more decades of systematically undermining the conditions for the possibility of any meaningful public consciousness?) Given the current configuration of financial interests and the prevailing "meme-scape" of U.S. political discourse, do you seriously see any meaningful space for the officially "left" party to operate, discursively / tactically? There was a ass-whoopin' comin', and weren't nobody gonna stop it. So suck it up, smile for the camera, and MOVE THAT F*CKING PAPER before we lose control of this thing....
I've worked in DC: these are indeed very smart people - trapped within a system of patronage, sound bites, news cycles, mortgages, orthodontists and tuition (De Capo al Coda and fade...) that enforces party- and patron-loyalty over civic responsiveness or public relevance. The party will brook no mutinies... and to talk about a "need for change" before there is actual paper to PROVE IT (with very rare exceptions; see my previous message for conditions-of-possibility) is tantamount to mutiny.