LONG TERM politics: We may be better off with Bush in office.

[GOPBasher]

Here me out, here. The fact is, shit is really, REALLY going to hit the fan soon. Kerry would not have been able avoid any of this, either. And he would have been blamed for it. Maybe it's better that the Repugs have take the political heat for what they caused. Let me discuss some issues specifically.

Iraq

This is only going to get worse. And it would not have gotten better under Kerry. It's possible that we would've gotten some help from other countries, but does anyone really think that would've made a big difference? We would still take roughly 90% of the casulties and pay the overwhelming majority of the cost. He couldn't have pulled out at this point -- that wasn't even remotely discussed in his campaign. So, in the long run, he would take political heat for something that's not his fault. I'd rather people hate Bush and the Repug majority in congress for the rising body count and cost.

Economy

With the dollar falling and the national debt rising exponentially, the future is dark. And I'm not talking about some distant future here. We're going broke soon. Maybe this is what it will take for a major nationwide backlash. If we were in power, we'd get blamed for it, even though it wouldn't be our fault at all. Kerry could not really have prevented this.

Budget Problems

Our deficit this last fiscal year was about a half trillion dollars, and the national debt recently surpassed the $7 trillion mark. With all the money we'll be paying in interest, we won't have money for anthing else. Bush's tax cuts and the gigantic increases in military spending have bled the treasury dry, and there's not much Kerry could've done about it. All he would have done is increase taxes on the upper 2%, but that wouldn't have been enough. He couldn't cut military spending; that would've killed him politically. So, again, when the shit hits the fan from all of this, I want Bush and the Repugs to take the blame. I know how they're going to fix it: they'll chop every cent education and social spending. They will pay the political consequences for that. I'm glad we won't, and we would've, had Kerry won.

Social Security and Medicare

Bush will have to cut benefits because of the fiscal mess we're in. This will suck for some time, but only until the next election, when seniors realize that their livelihood is more important than Bob and Jim kissing next door.

Some things to clear up

First of all, I don't want to make it sound like I'm going to enjoy all the bad things that happen. It's just that they would've have happened anyway; there's not much Kerry could've done; and I want THEM to take the blame for it, not us. This can lead to a major backlash in 2006 and/or 2008. This means that, in the long-term sense, it's good that they are in power now; we'll probably be in power after 2008, and probably for a long time.

The only problem with what I'm saying is the issue of the Supreme Court justices. But if we get the legislative and executive branches back, there's not much they can do. They can only interpret law; we'll be able to enact law.

One more thing: none of this means jack shit if we don't figure out a way to have fair election. We need to either get rid of the electronic voting machines that can't be verified, or at least find a way to verify the results. If we don't have fair elections, we're dead regardless. That should be our major goal right now.

[kainah]

1. I would add

If Kerry had won, I think there would have been a good possibility that much of the budding progressive movement would have gone back into their holes, convinced that everything would now change. And, of course, it wouldn't have changed much. The right would have gone after Kerry as viciously -- or more viciously -- than they went after Clinton and we all know that the media would have gone right along with them. Now, with no one else to take up the cause for us, I think the progressive movement will continue to grow and become increasingly strong as a result of 4 more years of *.

As unhappy as your conclusion is, it is the same conclusion I reached about a month before the election.

[MissMarple]

3. I agree, and thought much the same before the election.

If Kerry had won, the Republicans would have been uglier and more obstructionist than they were with Clinton. And they need to take responsibility for this good god damned mess they have gotten us into.

[Warpy]

12. Agreed, let them try to clean up after themselves, for once

In the meantime, we need to document fully how they got there, what they're doing wrong, and what effect their policies are having on us, all the time not giving them a visible enemy to fight against. When they're deprived of a credible external enemy, they will have to turn inward and start eating their own when their policies start to turn into catastrophe.

Party purges have already started at the CIA and the State Department. They're going to run out of Democrats to throw out of work pretty soon, and they'll have to start purging their own moderates in the search for ideological purity and party harmony. When they start blaming GOP moderates for watering down their programs and causing them to fail, you know they're finished.

[spanone]

41. Can you imagine the mess they will leave in 2008?

I disagree with the original premise. Fuck bush*. They will not clean up ANYTHING in four years and the Dem. President will have a bigger shitmess to clean up or be blamed for.

[goclark]

45. And by 08 Bush will be in the loony bin

and Pickles will be doing a Nancy Reagan and sending messages out from the WH.

[GOPBasher]

6. Good point; I didn't think of that.

[tavalon]

8. I didn't reach it until after the reselection

but I'm with you guys. Of course, I still hold out for the childish dream of seeing this whole administration frog marched out of the White House, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

[CrispyQ]

2. I think I agree with you! Bushco have messed things up so badly,

no one person/administration is going to be able to fix it. Yep, if Kerry has the next 4 years, they will blame every little thing on him -- EVERYTHING! It will be so much worse than what they did to Clinton. Then again, one of the reasons I could easily support him, is, at least he won't fuck things up worse.

Of course, Bushco supporters will never see that. It's always about finding someone else to blame with this group. They have a perverted sense of responsibility, morality & integrity.

[Blue Wally]

42. Just like 1976-1980

Jimmy Carter ended up taking the fall when the wheels came off of so many things domestically and internationally. He and Herbert Hoover were two of the most decent and intelligent presidents ever to hold office and ended up being the "stuckee" for messes which they didn't create.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. Plus the bloviating blowhards of the right like Rush and O'Reilly

Are probably secretly crying in their beers over this. Who are they gonna have to blame for the next 4 years?

[cloudythescribbler]

5. BALONEY!!!

This is baloney, some of it from those very forces who were sniping at Dean during the primaries and otherwise doing little but justifying the lying as credentialled "progressives" during the campaign and the Votergate aftermath. Some people have been roped in by this nonsense.

It may be true that the jihadists are better off with W Bush in power, but not authentic progressives in this country or around the world. Gabriel Kolko argued that Bush's kind of imperialism was unsustainable. What may break though, is not imperialism but democracy, or the hollow shell of it that we have; it is MUCH more fragile than imperialism. Worse is better didn't work when the Communists in the 30s said "after Hitler, us", or when Leonard Bernstein said that Nixon (the most moderate Republican, and in many ways other than Vietnam more progressive than Clinton was) would lead to a revolution. ALL BALONEY. Nader was talking trash, promoted by copperheads posing as progressives who were helping Tory Bush in 2000 when he suggested that Bush 'like Reagan' would spur more environmental activism and presumably gains.

Bush represents a profound threat that ALL authentic progressives must recognize. The Democrats, as I have argued elsewhere, threw the presidential (and therefore inevitably weakened the Congressional) election just as they did in 88, and OO before. Nixon was concerned in 88 because, even so, Dukakis came too close for comfort to winning. In 00 and 04, the Democrats throwing the elections wasn't enough, they ALSO had to be stolen, and then SERIOUS resistance to that was suppressed -- a THREE sided equation. The necessary class action lawsuits in 00 and 04 were never filed, because they were disfavored BECAUSE obviously meritorious, and no one had the gumption to buck the system in defense of the Constitutional system.

As the Constitutional system crumbles, the possibilities for AUTHENTIC progressive organizing as well as policy crumble with it. Don't hold your breath waiting for a progressive revolution to come out of all this crap -- that's just expecting butter to come out of the west end of an east bound horse. Progressives have no choice but to mobilize, but would be much better off with a moderate less unConstitutionalist government than what we have. Sure we should make 'lemonade' from lemons, but in doing so we should systematically eschew the misleadership of all those echoing what they say on jihadist websites -- that Bush is better as an easier target. It is the position Tories INSIST that progressives have, but authentic progressives must take our cue from what is progressive, not from the machine, and those the machine convinces with its spins.

[newsguyatl]

7. i've been thinking the exact same thing

and it's given me cause to just throw my hands up in the air and say, oh fucking well!!

((that, and i think americans deserve to wallow in their own shit))


but you're absolutely right. bush fucked it up, let him lie in it.

[Devil Dog Dem]

9. I understand the logic, but I don't agree

I agree with you in the sense that we are "better off" that our guy isn't going to be blamed for these messes, but I disagree with your statements that Bush Co will pay the political consequences for the messes they've created.

Repubs generally, and these goons particularly, have been very adept at avoiding the consequences for their actions, and I see no reason why that will change, even if things do get worse.

While I have some optimism about doing well in 2008 (since a single presidential candidate can manage his own campaign), I have very little hope for much of a serious backlash in 2006. Partially because I have no confidence in Dems' (particularly our so-called Dem leaders) ability to exploit the likely bad conditions.

Backlashes don't happen on their own, they must be generated. Simply put, Dem "leadership" is too weak and fractured to be effective, and no single person (other than a presidential candidate in 2008) can generate the heat necessary to make the repugs look bad. All our voices on DU aren't enough if you have Reid, Lieberman, and others playing paddy-cake with the repugs, and a timid press unwilling to cover the stories that need covering. The only way I see anything changing is if ASAP Dems got their own version of Fox news on the air and covered these stories and had a bleed over into the mainstream press. But getting something like going will take some time, and I don't see it happening in a mere 2 years.

Nope, I don't hold much hope for the next 4 years, but I'm not as pessimistic about 2008.

[GOPBasher]

13. True, but I have hope.

I totally agree that Bush has been great at remaining blameless, but I don't know how that can hold up if the economy takes a huge tumble. Although, I agree with you, 2008 is more of the target; we probably won't gain much, if at all, in 2006.

[Devil Dog Dem]

18. . . . and I hope you are right and I am wrong.

But I wouldn't hold my breath! :)

[Stinky The Clown]

29. I disagree with your assessment of our 2006 prospects

While we may or may not make gains in the Congress, I have a lot more hope for governorships and state legislatures. If we can make serious gains there we have a much better chance to bring sanity and honesty back to the voting booths. And *that* must be the thing we tend to first.

In many ways, winning in the states is more important than winning in the Congress. From successes at the local and state levels we can move toward 2008 in much stronger shape.

[tsuki]

34. a lot more hope for governorships and state legislatures

That is where we have to start. Not in congress, imo.

[Devil Dog Dem]

39. That doesn't differ from my assessment.

We may very well do OK in governorships because more individual governors can run individual campaigns and get out their own message and do well, and bring state legislators on their coattails.

Congressional races have become far more nationalized now, and Dems can't make big gains running individual campaigns. But, because those at the top are so damn incompetent and won't challenge Bush Co like they should, we won't make major gains in the House or Senate.

[flyingfysh]

10. the chicken-killing dog

Molly Ivins wrote an essay similar to part of this, but illustrated it with one of her Texas stories, which goes something like this: If you have a dog that keeps killing chickens, then what you do is wire a dead chicken around the neck of the dog, and let it stay there until it gets very very stinky and finally falls off. The dog will be miserable, but he will be forever cured of killing chickens.

Molly Ivins suggests that something along these lines would cure voters of voting Republican.

[illflem]

14. I thought the same thing

and almost wasn't going to vote for Kerry because I truly like him and wanted to spare him from the ordeal. He'd get blamed, be out in one term then it's back to the same old repuke bullshit.
I also felt that in order to deal with the deficit that either candidate would have to raise taxes. Wouldn't do much for Kerry's image after the look in the camera and say I won't raise taxes stunt.

Big problem though is that junior might get to appoint some Supreme Court justices that we'll be stuck with for a generation

[GOPBasher]

16. I agree. The Supreme Court justices are the biggest problem.

You can't overturn them with legislation. Oh well. :shrug:

[pretzel4gore]

17. haha...bush is a dead chicken tied to the necks of his supporters!

and he will become stinking carrion which won't go away until it finally disintegrates.....
lol!
it's almost worth losing the election to watch the political mess the repukelicans must go through as the result of their efforts

[illflem]

21. Problem is dogs are smarter than Republicans

They'll never notice the rotten chicken tied around their neck stinks.

[pretzel4gore]

23. alot fewer people voted for bush then the bushmedia etc say....

i mean even among regular republicans, the fact is that many, in the privacy of the voting booth, elected kerry and the results caught vast numbers off guard; though they pretend they're still loyal, there's lots of muttering......so the stinking, putrefying bush thing will horrify them (this assumes bush's support is less then and weaker then the bushmedia claim)
of course you're right about the hardcore busheviks....they will say the evil reeking in their nostrils is scented jasmine, or something(?)

[bunny planet]

26. This would only work if we didn't have voting machines owned by

Republicans that will give the vote to them in perpetuity whether there is a stinking chicken around their neck or not.

[RafterMan]

11. Rubbish

I don't accept historical determinism, and neither do you. Otherwise, why do you vote?

As for who takes the blame, this is hugely less important to me than the fact that whatever they are taking the blame for be less horrible than it otherwise might have been.

[GOPBasher]

15. I don't mean historical determinism.

I mean a large backlash that is not predestined but created by the free will of people who decide that their lives are more important than the sexual orientation of certain people or what god people pray to. I think it will happen if things get as bad as I think they will.

[RafterMan]

20. Okay, I see your point

But reread your post with mine in mind, and you will see my point.

I believe Iraq/Debt/Economy will be worse under Bush than under Kerry -- I think we would both agree on that. We both probably agree that both will get worse before they get better, no matter who's in charge.

But my view is that it does matter if we turn it around six feet before we hit bottom or we wait until we go splat. To me this is an existential crisis -- your post indicates that you feel there is salvageable value in going splat if that means we can then win the ideological battle against Bushism.

My priority is (or was in the election) to avert the crisis first, deal with the ideological battle second. The idea of the Democrts sifting through the rubble of America to show the country conclusive proof of who was to blame is small consolation.

[GOPBasher]

35. True, I guess it is a small consolation.

I see your point. I guess I'm just looking for a silver lining. :-)

[RafterMan]

40. I can't blame you

[Individualist]

19. If a backlash was going to occur

it would already have happened. Consider 9/11, Iraq, suspension of civil liberties, etc., etc. The shit has already hit the fan, and the little dictator is not being held accountable.

[Stinky The Clown]

30. Not true. The fact is, relatively few are yet **directly** impacted by

the just-starting shit storm. Our outrage is more moral that tangible ... so far. When the mess really gets to a rolling boil, many more will be affected ... not the 5 or 6 or whatever million now (military families, unemployed, etc.)

When thsi hits everyone on a more widespread basis, then the tide will turn as it does in the Bay of Fundy (no relation to the brays of fundies).

[Julien Sorel]

22. Think, if you have the stomach for it, about the long term

implications of living in a country where a slim majority voted for someone of Bush's caliber, for someone who ran the campaign that Bush did. I don't know about you, but it makes me think long and hard about who "My fellow Americans" are.

[IndyPriest]

24. So, Basher, you don't think the election investigations

are going to have ANY impact on a Bush second term? I admit, I have rehearsed something like your argument in my head several times this month. But I also must say that as we get closer to Arnebeck's filing, I'm getting a Watergate vibe. And as that vibe increases, I think a Bush second term is likely to be VERY different that we might think.

[bunny planet]

25. two words for you

SUPREME COURT!!!!!!!!!!

[yorkiemommie1]

27. there is only one freeper where it work

and she called bush an 's. o. b.' the other day when we were talking about social security (she's that age). ten years working w/ the woman and i almost fainted when i heard that.

gotta keep working on my freeper husband though.

[prairierose]

28. In a way I agree you BUT.....

we will be so much worse off if we can not get the little dictator out. I think we all need to work to get this guy out ASAP. Yes, Kerry will have a terrible time but if we don't prove that the election was fraudulent then nothing else matters. There never will be another election, except elections where we have only one choice.

It won't matter if the repug koolaid drinkers suffer. Their leaders don't care about them except as cannon fodder or slaves. It will be too late for them to have second thoughts or buyer's remorse because the fascists will have consolidated their position. Have you noticed how fast fascist legislation is flowing through this lame duck congress?

Forget the dead chicken; it works for dogs but the stink will too late for US.

[mtnsnake]

31. No. This was the election of the century. We needed to win this one for

the benefit of the world and we came up short. Had we won this one, we could've stopped so many bad movements in their tracks and reversed the trends back to the way things were meant to be. Unfortunately, it's going to be harder than ever to win in the near future BECAUSE we lost this election. This was the one we HAD to win and we didn't. Sorry, but this was the set-back of all time, and we're in a hole so deep it's gonna take harder work than ever to get out of it.

[bunny planet]

32. we did win this one.

[Lexingtonian]

33. That's the silver lining on the dark cloud, indeed

I'm a little more optimistic. But yes, like you and Kainah, I add things up in roughly the same way. A good first two years to a Kerry Presidency weren't in the cards with a Republican-controlled Congress in any case. I don't see bankrupcy- though we'll get close to the brink- as what happens. What is so demoralizing is the radical creative deadness of the country under Republicans- ghouls digging up and eating corpses, that's the present aesthetic and grandest reach of the public imagination. People whose world and society and future is dying are running the country and spending their time surrounding themselves with images of death and wastage of riches and hatred of the future and the people who live it.

The good news, in a sense, is that it gives our side's Party two more years (at least) to clean up and move ahead internally. All the critiques are correct- the Dean folks' that there's too much clinging to the past and bad compromises for the sake of power, and the DNC/'DLC''s tacit insistence in turn that corporations are American constituencies/interests that have to be taken in any Democratic governing alliance if it wishes to endure and be representative. The liberals are right historically: social equal rights have to be won first, only then are economic equal rights going to happen- when social "wedge" issues are considered settled is when groups of politicians will have to decide economic stuff on the merits, not on constituents' prejudices. The moderates are right, too: there has to be some escape hatch or 'refugee camp' for people leaving the Right and the 'religious' and racial and economic groupthink there.

The concern about USSCJs and fair elections takes us to the basic issue of the political era: the way the USSC majority has minimized the bearing and power of the 14th Amendment, notably Section 1 (aka Equal Protection). Almost all of our present domestic problems as a country drive at or derive from this root. Our side's work is to get its bearing as large as reasonably possible and earnest enforcement in place. And- as in every such argument in U.S. history- the "conservative" side tries to sabotage any and all of the rest of the Constitution in the process of dominating on that one, to them truly unrelinquishable, indefensible point. It's true in the argument about the monarchy, about slavery, about suffrage. It's true in the present one about Equal Protection/nondiscrimination.

The 14th Amendment was passed specifically to enable slaves freed by the Civil War to vote and prevent election shenanigans and, clearly, everything subsequent that is today lumped as Jim Crow laws and 'discrimination'. The 14th is in a sense a law that shouldn't even need to be written, nor every law derived from it (e.g. the Civil Rights Act and even its sister, the semi-redundant 15th Amendment), but that it had to be reflects The People's gross unwillingness to behave fairly to each other as members of different groups.

I think Bill Clinton showed that simply running a government that is honest about how it spends money and does so as fairly as possible, The Economy provides well enough for everyone- quite easily. The effort at fairness makes things run so that social problems diminish and everyone wins by the markedly increased social efficiency. But when government is trying its best not to do so, as this Bush bunch runs the show, it seems headed for a classic bustout and the grotesque inefficiencies/waste that takes place when all actors start to behave defensively or abusively.

Other than that, Democrats simply need to come to a consensus about what constitutes the full problem and (then) the adequate solution to the aggregate of interrelated conflicts we call The Middle East. It's the last of the historical conflicts we've inherited from western Europe's argument internally and with the rest of the World. It's the social conservatives' last mooring to Europe, Modern or medieval, and the last pillar of their power- it needs to be broken comprehensively.

[mattclearing]

36. I hate this line of reasoning.

First off, what next election? You mention the voting machines, but there is more to it than just that.

The next election either will not happen, will be impossible to win via BBV, or will be a setup to hand some faux Democrat power and preserve the illusion of Democracy. We need to take this back now while it's still Constitutionally possible.

Second off, Bush blamed Clinton for everything, and still does. I don't think people will hold it against Kerry when the economy collapses due to debt he didn't pile up.

But none of that matters. The next four years of Bush will kill many, many people who don't deserve to die and will screw us out of our taxes, our freedoms, and ultimately, our country.

Even if Kerry accomplishes nothing and takes the fall for Bush's mistakes, making the Democratic Party look terrible, it is still better than a second Bush term.

[tngledwebb]

37. That's what's wonderful about this Govt.

They are either totally insane, or they've already got their tickets for the express Rapture train. Two years to go...

[robbedvoter]

38. I heard defeatism like that in 2000: we're better of not taking office

It's like wanting war and depression to unseat W. As it his propaganda machine won't blame you for it, praise W for not making things worse....How idiotic! the planet may blow up - but, hey, there's chances I won't be held responsible - yeeepeeee!
Tell ya what: the Mighty Clenis did it! And you shouldn't be in here if the fear of respinsibility paralyses you so much.

[hippiechick]

43. Very well said, Basher.

:toast: Thank you !


:hippie:

[ComerPerro]

44. I will say one thing: Kerry would have been impeached on Feb.1

for massive deficits and for a war in Iraq that is costing daily lives with no end in sight.

Either that, or had Kerry won we would be now have seen one or two horrific terror attacks, thus (quite conveniently) convincing the public that we should just ignore the election results and let Bush serve a second term.

[Jim__]

46. I voted for Kerry to avoid these disasters

It's true. The future looks bleak; but, some things can be done to make it better. I believe Kerry would have done at least some of those things.

There is no good way out of Iraq. However, there are some options that might spare us, the Iraqis, and the world from the worst possible consequences. I expect that bush will lead us through some of the worst possible scenarios.

Similarly with the economy. Bush will bring on the disaster rather than alleviate the worst of it.

Yes, Kerry would have gotten the blame. But the world would have been much better off with him. And, as Keynes said, in the long term we're all dead.