By Dave Anderson:
While looking through the archives for a post I vaguely remember writing, I saw this post from June 2007 that seems to have stood the test of time very well:
2009 Polarization and a Freeper Hostage Crisis:
Political analyst Larry
Sabato has some interesting words to say about the probable impacts
of Hillary Clinton winning the White House in 2008. [h/t Andrew
Sullivan]Let's suppose Mrs. Clinton winsI disagree with a good deal of
in November 2008. Democrats would have to live with the consequences.
There is simply no question that Senator Clinton would be the third
deeply polarizing President in a row, following her husband's divisive
and partially wasted tenure and George W. Bush's deeply disappointing
turn at bat. We bet that she would have a short honeymoon and would be
unable to convince her millions of critics and detractors that she had
changed - or was different than they long ago concluded she was. At a
time when the nation could use a unifier and a healer - to the extent
that any President can perform those roles - partisan warfare would be
at fever pitch from Day One.
his argument but it is an interesting leaping point.I am not a
fan or supporter of Hillary Clinton. I do not think that she will make a
great president. I don't trust her governing
instincts or judgment. At best I think she'll be a competent
placeholder. But again I have to defend the notion that Hillary Clinton
will be uniquely polarizing figure once the general election season
come along....The Freeper right is a constant of American politics, at least in the
short and intermediate term. The only way to appease the Freeper Right
is to elect their favored candidates and implement 100% of their agenda
and conducting mass conversions of the remaining population to their
viewpoint. At the same time a small caste of unabashed liberal
caricatures are needed to be the object of their daily two minute hate.
Even reactionary authoritarians like Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) can be the target of this vitriol if there is
a break from the script on immigration.
They try to leverage
their ability to create embarrassment to the 'responsible adults' of the
discourse by throwing a crazed tantrum anytime that they do not get
what they want; the facts, reality or the Constitution be damned. It has
worked because the set of Republican politicians who are not Freepers per se have benefited from this
arrangement more than it has cost. I am assuming that the same pattern
of behavior will be in effect for any Democratic Presidential nominee no
matter who that person is. The difference will be in the internal
details of the attacks, not the meta-structure of the attacks....
I was thinking this morning of an important difference between the US and other countries, the power of an unholy alliance of special interests and elected officials in Washington. I read somewhere that Canadian Medicare is less than twenty pages long. What a contrast between that and the two and a half thousand pages that Washington just produced.
ReplyDeleteThe president's pre-commitments with special interests might have been covered in less than twenty or thirty pages, but thanks to a hundred Senators and 435 more in the House, we got a true American hybrid, an obese, inbred, congenitally malformed newborn which almost failed to survive delivery and will only stay alive with endless accommodations to special needs.
I was thinking this morning of an important difference between the US and other countries, the power of an unholy alliance of special interests and elected officials in Washington.
ReplyDeleteNo offense John, but you're not that special. Every country has its special interest groups and lobbyists. It is no accident that every Canadian government ignores any environmental impacts of the tar sands, for instance. And any and all federal programs always seem to have a cut-out for Quebec interests, to name just a couple of notable examples.
The Canada Health Act is only a dozen or so pages long, but that's mainly due to the fact that it has almost nothing to do with health care. It is solely about transferring money to the Provinces to use for their own health care plans, since health care is a provincial power. It specifies a few basic criteria about accessibility and administration, but is pretty much silent on what services have to be provided. I'm sure a look at the provincial health services acts would provide some rather stiff reading, and again, that would only be a part of what your Congress just passed. Your health care bill had to explain the services, add to other programs, explain how it would be funded, who it would cover, how the subsidies would work, what other programs it would modify, and add in the tax-related penalties and so forth. The tax stuff alone would guarantee a monstrosity of a bill.
You're right. I was off on a cloud this morning and not thinking clearly.
ReplyDeleteSome time ago I came to the conclusion that corporate/financial interests were sailing past geopolitical structures so fast they would never catch up. The term "global economy" is no longer an oxymoron. And those who tremble at the specter of a "New World Order" are still blissfully ignorant that it is already here and has been here for several years. The implosion of the former Soviet Union and China's realization that Hong Kong lays laying golden eggs historic moments. The captains of industry, as they once were called, always understood that the politics, culture and customs of another country were never as important as their value as a source of raw materials or a market for whatever we have to sell. Monarchies, dictatorships, republics, puppets of any stripe... it matters not as long as there is a potential for money to be made. And anyone who imagines the purest of systems cannot be corrupted by money hasn't seen The Magic Christian.
If you haven't seen the film and don't have time for the whole movie, skip to You Tube clip #6 and advance the slider to about 3 minutes. The parking ticket scene illustrates the theme of the film which is that everyone has his price.
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