(no subject)
The Economist diagnoses what ails the Republicans, and I feel compelled to reply:
The Economist is consistently corporate-libertarian, but also consistently honest, well spoken, and ideologically coherent. Sort of a mix of the Wall Street Journal's sympathies and The Atlantic's style.
Interestingly, it's also written by young people pretending to be older than they are, which is why they sometimes slip and, for example, call Fox News talking heads "blowhards."
I think they're correct here, and that since at least the Reagan era the Republican party has been a few cosmopolitan, educated bankers and CEOs dishonestly pandering to many bigoted, uneducated anti-intellectuals, and has now gone too far and attracted a slate of candidates like Palin who are authentic Know Nothings.
However, the Economist is ignoring the fact that if Republicans were ever open and honest about being cosmopolitan, educated CEOs who want to shred the social safety net, they couldn't even win a national race for dog catcher, much less president. That particular honest political position only works in a few wealthy areas of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where people like Giuliani, Bloomberg, and Romney win races.
Meanwhile, the Dems have trouble too. Obama promised to be a thoughtful, diplomatic president who would end the corporate looting of the W era, and has instead been a thoughtful, diplomatic president who has presided over continued looting, primarily by letting bankers write the bailout bill and health insurance executives write the health bill. Glenn Greenwald also wrote a great piece Thursday about how Obama rushed to help Blanche Lincoln beat down a demonstrably more electable primary challenger from the left, after Lincoln spent her time in the Senate defeating progressive measures that Obama claimed to want.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/10/lincoln/index.html
The bottom line is that Obama panders freely to CEOs on many issues, and also panders freely to the right on a few issues like torture, because he has far too little fear of the left abandoning him to stay home or vote Green.
So those of us against corporate power in DC, populist Republicans as well as populist Democrats, generally don't have very good options from either party, although there is some hope in candidates like Doggett who are left of Obama, and primary challengers to corporatist Democrats like the one who just narrowly lost to Lincoln.
The Economist is consistently corporate-libertarian, but also consistently honest, well spoken, and ideologically coherent. Sort of a mix of the Wall Street Journal's sympathies and The Atlantic's style.
Interestingly, it's also written by young people pretending to be older than they are, which is why they sometimes slip and, for example, call Fox News talking heads "blowhards."
I think they're correct here, and that since at least the Reagan era the Republican party has been a few cosmopolitan, educated bankers and CEOs dishonestly pandering to many bigoted, uneducated anti-intellectuals, and has now gone too far and attracted a slate of candidates like Palin who are authentic Know Nothings.
However, the Economist is ignoring the fact that if Republicans were ever open and honest about being cosmopolitan, educated CEOs who want to shred the social safety net, they couldn't even win a national race for dog catcher, much less president. That particular honest political position only works in a few wealthy areas of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where people like Giuliani, Bloomberg, and Romney win races.
Meanwhile, the Dems have trouble too. Obama promised to be a thoughtful, diplomatic president who would end the corporate looting of the W era, and has instead been a thoughtful, diplomatic president who has presided over continued looting, primarily by letting bankers write the bailout bill and health insurance executives write the health bill. Glenn Greenwald also wrote a great piece Thursday about how Obama rushed to help Blanche Lincoln beat down a demonstrably more electable primary challenger from the left, after Lincoln spent her time in the Senate defeating progressive measures that Obama claimed to want.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/10/lincoln/index.html
The bottom line is that Obama panders freely to CEOs on many issues, and also panders freely to the right on a few issues like torture, because he has far too little fear of the left abandoning him to stay home or vote Green.
So those of us against corporate power in DC, populist Republicans as well as populist Democrats, generally don't have very good options from either party, although there is some hope in candidates like Doggett who are left of Obama, and primary challengers to corporatist Democrats like the one who just narrowly lost to Lincoln.