For all our hand wringing, I think we are witnessing the destruction of the Republican Party.

[denbot]

Not by our hand, our ideals, our passion, but by their own machinations. They needed the crazies, they cultivated the crazies, and now they are being consumed by their own children.
:popcorn:

[Romulox]

1. If this what "winning" feels like, I think I'd like to try "losing" again...

"They needed the crazies, they cultivated the crazies"

Right, but many of the authoritarians and money men just came over to "our" side.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Isn't it sad

that one day last year glen beck woke up and decided he'd stir up the unwashed in our country, giving them a name, teabaggers and turning them loose, armed with hate and racism, not facts. And they feign surprise when one calls them insane.

[NJmaverick]

3. We may just be witnessing the future of the Democratic party

that seems to be heading down the same road as the GOP

[StarfarerBill]

5. Good point; they're both moving further to the right.

[NJmaverick]

7. No more like their more extreme members of both parties are tearing them apart

the extremists want purity and are willing to sacrifice electability in the process.

[StarfarerBill]

11. When both serve corporate interests as their prime constituency, electability is moot.

Whomever is elected, the corporate Mob will be the ultimate winner.

[Fumesucker]

12. +1

[NJmaverick]

14. Why is following the wishes from the vast majority of moderates called

"serving corporate interests"?

[Fumesucker]

16. Because that's what it does..

I judge things by their results and the results of "moderate" polices today are almost universally favorable to corporations over the average citizen.

Richard M Nixon would in many ways be a flaming leftist by today's standards, the Overton Window has been dragged a hell of a long way to the right since 1980 and today's "moderates" look very little like moderates in 1970.

[NJmaverick]

18. Sounds like you don't like moderates so you call the corporatist to sort of make them out as bad or

evil

[rhett o rick]

24. Corporatists are right wing fascists (ask Mussolini).

I dont like corporatists that pretend to be Democrats and hid behind the "moderate" label.

[Fumesucker]

31. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, evil is as evil does sir..

As I said, I judge by the results and the results of "moderates" over the last thirty years are not good, our nation is in serious trouble and slightly adjusting course isn't going to keep us from running into the reefs that are getting closer by the hour.

[Autonomy]

23. I agree that there has been a rightward drag

since 1970, but any worldview that requires an all-powerful 'corporate' bogeyman that is the personification of evil reveals itself to have an agenda other than moderate reform. Corporations are only relatively powerful, and their interests do not always conflict with 'the average citizen'.

[Fumesucker]

28. When your oil tanker is headed toward the reefs to the starboard..

You don't put the rudder midships, then you just continue toward the reefs but somewhat less rapidly, instead you put it hard to port (left) to change your course away from the reefs.

Moderate reform when moderates have been dragged to the right for thirty years is just more rightward drift albeit slightly less rapidly.

Corporations are immortal and amoral entities whose only obligations are to the shareholders to make the maximum profit possible, they aren't "evil" per se but they are indeed amoral and that gives virtually the same effect in practice as if they were in fact evil.

[NJmaverick]

13. Why is following the wishes from the vast majority of moderates called

"serving corporate interests"?

[StarfarerBill]

17. If you perceive your wishes as being followed, bully for you.

From where I'm standing, there's a helluva a lot of discontent out there (and no, I'm not counting the teabagging grouplets). With high unemployment and home foreclosures, looming health insurance mandates and little support for a public option in DC, and foreign war escalations, many people don't seem very happy. On the other hand corporate bottom lines, fat on taxpayer and borrowed money, seem quite content.

[NJmaverick]

19. We are still recovering form the Bush/GOP economic meltdown, so why would you expect people to be

happy? Plus you have not explained your formula that results in moderate=corporatist

[StarfarerBill]

20. If things were improving, why yes, I would expect them to be a bit happier.

Actually, I did explain myself; please re-read my previous post.

[NJmaverick]

21. Things are improving. However one truism in life is that there is a tendency

to take as long or longer to clean a mess as it does to make it. In this case the mess was made over the course of 8 years, so one would have to expect things to take a long time to fix.

[StarfarerBill]

22. Then once again, we'll have to agree to disagree.

The only improvement I see is in the corporate bottom lines. Most of the rest of us are still hurting, and unless things do improve soon and markedly, I doubt Obama and many Democrats in Congress will be there in seven years to see the restoration you predict.

[rhett o rick]

33. Things are only improving for the bankers and corporations. The common people are seeing

the min wage decreased, unemployment out of sight, are losing their homes and savings. Infant mortality in common people is at all time high. Where are you that things are improving? Oh yeah, the stock market bubble is up. Once again the common folk are being tempted to buy into another bubble.

[rhett o rick]

25. Do you favor corporatism? nt

[NJmaverick]

30. In many ways the attempts by many here to demonize moderates with the corporatism names

is similar to what the right wingers did to liberals and how they made the term a dirty word to many.

[rhett o rick]

32. Is that a yes? nt

[rhett o rick]

35. Do you suggest that corporatism is a moderate view?

You seem to avoid telling us what you believe in.

[rhett o rick]

27. As the republican party shrinks, the Democratic Party shifts to the right. nt

[grantcart]

4. It is a fact that Republicans engage in civil war when there is no clear head of the party

The evangelical far right feels compelled to respond to their religous impulse for ideological purity and engage in full conflict.

Once a clear head of the party is selected the war subsides and people follow orders.

Ironically the choice of Cheney guaranteed that in 2008 the Republicans would engage in internal conflict.

McCain compounded Bush's error by picking Palin.

If no clear winner is agree upon by the 2012 Presidential campaign then it will last another 4 years.

Had someone of some substance like Romney been chosen at any point then party discipline would have been restored.

Ironic again that the evangelicals distrust of a Mormon who would be their favorite if he were a Baptist helps prolong their fraticide.

And some people say there is no God.

[The Midway Rebel]

6. Yes, when many Democrats act and vote like Republicans...

who'll need the Republicans around anymore.

[GoCubsGo]

9. Sad, but true.

One would hope the Dems could learn from the rethugs' potential demise. But, the way many of them have been behaving lately, I don't have much hope.

[RC]

10. What I was going to post

Who needs republicans when you have the democrats.

[Frank Cannon]

8. Don't worry, a new party will rise: The Business Party

You know, a party that will be more like the conservative Republican party of old. One that will finally cut loose the teabaggers and the religious kookoos, but will screw all of us over just as regularly as they do now.

The game has never changed and will never change. It's the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals. It's Dusty Rhodes vs. Andre the Giant. It's politics in America.

[anonymous171]

15. Don't be so naive. It won't die unless we kill it. It's that simple

Dems need to grow a pair

[rhett o rick]

26. This is not a good thing. The results is that the right of center has moved under

our "big tent" and has dragged the Democratic Party to the right. CorpAmerica has shifted to funding the right-wing of the Democratic Party.

[Uncle Joe]

29. I disagree, the abandonment of the public option, combined with the mandate

to bail out the primary villains of our nation's health care crisis and thereby solidify that corrupt, dysfunctional system at the very least, threw the Republicans a lifeline for 2010 and probably 2012.

[madokie]

34. When the best you got is two dudes who sound like they are mafia

chinless and boner, what do you expect except their demise?