In this world, in this economy, with these media, extremists always win.

[Ron Green]

Whether it's Teabaggers or Taliban, whoever has combined craziness and energy will prevail. Rational people won't grab headlines or screen time, so they'll be like Carter in 1978 or Obama today: marginalized in the middle by loud puppets working for dark, powerful forces.

The very ideas of accord, compromise and collaboration can never withstand the withering shower of testosterone and fear, so simple and effective when times are hard.

FDR was able to do what he did not only because of his exceptional talents, but also because the morons of 1932 didn't have their own blogs.

[elleng]

1. right, or microphones and $.

[EFerrari]

2. It's happening all over the world, and it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Just as 1968 was a global event, xenophobia and isolationism is spiking right now globally.

[HereSince1628]

3. No, simple messages that resonate are what usually win.

When we were at the end of our luck, "Hope" worked great.

when people are worried about their finances they think about meeting their bills and securing their assets.

So, the worried people don't see gov't stimulus as helping create demand that leads to job creation.

They see the nation doing something they are frightened of doing--going deeper in debt.

And those people see taxes as a bill, and they'd like to see their bills reduced. So taxcuts for all works.

They see mandated health insurance as a new bill if not just a loss of freedom. They don't want a new bill forced on them...so they back the repeal of the f'ing health care reform (which could save their lives in a few years) and its jacked-up insurance prices (which are unlikely to go away even if the HCR is repealled).

Kitchen table economics cannot be expanded to running a nation. Kitchenomics is going to create multiple crises some of which could be existentially catastrophic for the United States.

But the folks don't get that. Kitchen table economics are what plain old everyday American families know. And the Dems didn't do anything early on to educate them.

[Ron Green]

4. The worried people are then responding not to reason, but to extremists.

Kitchen table economics, as you point out, are no more suited to running a country than a "businessman" is fit to be a legislator. And yet screamers on the right have convinced these worried people otherwise.

That's my point. The "simple messages" don't resonate naturally within human experience when they're delivered by the corporate message machine. Hope can be moderately powerful, but it's nothing compared to fear.

[HereSince1628]

5. Perhaps, but they are responding to extremists whose message they

feel correct for themselves.

Democracy isn't guaranteed to produce rational results.