The impending death of the Republican Party:

[PCIntern]

BWAHAHAHA.

It's Lucy with the football all over again. FDR has finally given up the ghost.
This is what America wants.
Oh well, gotta get up and go to work, raise my family, enjoy my life best I can.

[MADem]

1. WTF?

That was helpful, not. People--some of whom worked hard to help elect candidates--feel like shit today.

Rubbing their noses in those losses isn't decent, kind, or anything but rude.

[PCIntern]

2. Up until last night I was reading

Posts about how the Rethugs are on their way out and if they win it will be merely transient. You know, I worked very very hard for Wolf in PA here as he is an acquaintance of mine so I have a right to point out the ridiculousness of the statement that the nation is moving away from these ideologues. In fact things may be getting worse in that regard so don't tell me that some severe reevaluation isn't necessary by what's left of our Progressive movement. Maybe people need some stark reality. This nation is filled with those who loathe themselves and their fellow man and vote that way. Don't believe me: I give you the Governorship of Wisconsin as a prime example. Don't think for one minute that he couldn't wind up as your next President. Don't think so? We had the same thoughts about that dunce Romald Reagan - Americans would never vote for him.

[MADem]

4. Well, I was dragging elderly people to the polls all doggone day.

And a lot of them weren't super-mobile so it was a long hard evolution. So I wasn't spending the day reading the pontifications of keyboard warriors.

There are days when I think this website is all talk and no walk. I would like to be wrong about that. I'd like to read more about what people are doing to help get people elected, rather than the "Waah, Hillary SUX, man! Waaah, Obama is LOUSY, man!" childish bullshit that is lather-rinse-repeat here. Keyboard Kampaigners. It's just too much effort for some to move and actually do anything, it seems.

If everyone dragged a less aware friend to the polls after explaining to them why their vote counted maybe we'd be in better shape.

I don't know--I guess some people LIKE to be miserable. I don't.

[PCIntern]

6. So you did your part

As did I.

My point is that it's not enough to fight the fear and loathing which the other side imparts. You know this is not some athletic contest wherein you're granted kudos for trying. The Democrats didn't try: they never touted their own ideology or intents, they distanced themselves from the President who has fumbled the ball and kicked it into his own end zone. The mistakes were made at the top and down the chain we are all affected. Yeah I can be miserable - if more people were worked up and angry including the President maybe this wouldn't have been the outcome. You want politesse, good for you. Lemon or cream with your tea?

I'm miserable. You're goddamned right I am.

[MADem]

8. I don't want politesse after the fact, I want effort ahead of it.

I'm not calling you out for not doing your bit. I am wondering if everyone doing the snarking and sniping can say they did as much.

I see way too much griping and not enough of any conversation regarding what the complainers have done to effect change.

I used to work for a guy whose solution to any drama/difficulty was "I will write a STRONGLY WORDED LETTER!!!" like that would make any fooking difference. I see a lot of "strongly worded posts" but this place is a circular firing squad.

I think we need to look outward.

[PCIntern]

11. And so when you look outward upon

this vast wasteland that is jokingly termed the electorate, what do you see? You see a group of Pavlovian victims who have been taught, oh so carefully taught, to fear and loathe. If you're an optimist, a glass half-full person, the powers that be will insist that your glass is twice as big as it has to be.

I'm fresh out of optimism.

[MADem]

12. I can see why you might be fresh out of optimism.

Especially looking inward, here.

I met a shitload of very old people yesterday who were excited about exercising their franchise. I mean, really excited. How can that enthusiasm be transferred to the generations that are following them? Aside from engaging in violence, mind you--can't have people drowning that word-salad/don't vote/professional asshole-cynic Russell Brand in the bathtub to shut him up...but how can these jaded "too cool to vote" types be reached?

[PCIntern]

13. How?

Threaten to take away their iPhone earphones.

They have been cleverly manipulated into thinking their opinions don't count and don't matter. It actually may in fact now be true. What with everything going on, nothing may matter as far as the powers that be are concerned.

Off to NOT watch Morning Joe at work.

[MADem]

14. Ok, you made me laugh!!!

Threaten to take away their iPhone earphones.



We have to figure out a way to "cleverly manipulate" them back to a position of activism. Hope your day is better than yesterday was...

[PCIntern]

23. ...and to you, MADem. nt

[Chathamization]

7. I suggested doing the same in another post - reaching out to family and friends to make sure they're

voting and voting for good people. I was told what a horrible idea that was. You're right that there seems to be a certain number here who are not only disinterested in working for change themselves, but openly hostile to others who are working for change.

[MADem]

9. Yeah, tell people to GOTV and you get called an asshole--makes no sense.

I'm with you--I love hearing stories about how people reach out to others--because some of those arguments can be lifted and used in other circumstances. I wish there would be more sharing of that kind of information here. The negativity is wearying.

[merrily]

3. It wasn't dead in 2010 when Rs won the election that gave the GOP re-districting power, either.

If I am not mistaken, it won big in the states that year, as well as winning a very critical House election on the federal level. Governors who negotiate with public unions, who appoint people to state supreme courts* and who appoint people to fill US Senate vacancies, thereby creating an incumbent who has an easier time winning the next Senate election.

*I know I am biased about Massachusetts, but only because it's a blue state. The power of a state supreme court can be seen in the fact that it was not our very Democratic state legislature that created the first right in the US of equal, state recognized marriage. To the contrary, the state legislature's response to our Supreme Judicial Court's equal marriage decision was to try to repeal it legislatively by replacing it with civil union, which Vermont had instituted. The SJC had cleverly left it so that inaction on the part of our legislature would allow equal marriage to become the law of Massachusetts. And, when civil union was unpopular with both the left and the right, the legislature froze in place. Equal marriage became law in Massachusetts and is on its way to becoming the law of the land. I like to think that our state supreme court helped "build that." Anyway, state courts are important, too.

People who think the Oval Office is all that matters should stop and think more often and a lot more deeply. And maybe read some history books, maybe starting with Hoover vs. FDR.

[BarackTheVote]

5. Democrats shot themselves in the foot

They thought running dinos, dixiecrats, and bluedogs was a solid strategy. Not so, obviously. You get people out by running a contrasting candidate, not two candidates trying to out-conservative each other. I do believe the extreme right is on the way out... they were trounced in 2012, after all. But when their ravenous base is energized and ours isn't and independents just don't see the point of voting between two politicians with basically the same agenda... you wind up with a zombie teaparty.

[newthinking]

10. Exactly!!

After Bush everything was given over pretty much on a platter. It has been the Democrats to lose. They have been so tone deaf that what should have been a resurgence has turned into a resurrection (of the Republicans).

They don't even believe in their own proven platform (from years ago).

[merrily]

15. Not what America wants by any stretch, unless you equate the 10% with America.

(I say "10%" instead of "1%" because I bowed to the wishes of another DUer, but you know who I mean.)

[PCIntern]

16. So what measure do you suggest we use...

these are the people who control Federal policy, disburse money, manage the military and the judicial branches. These are the people who, although they are puppets, have been put in place by the electoral system. By definition under the Law, this is what America wants.

[merrily]

17. America can be, and often has been, bought.

I just finished posting in the Mass. group a bit ago that the ballot questions were decided by TV ad buys.

By definition under the Law, this is what America wants.

What law? Could you possibly make it sound more authoritative that America is rightist? Try that post at FREEP. It will probably get lots of recs. Here, people know better, though.


How did ballot questions about the minimum wage go last night?

So many factors go into who wins elections, money and messaging probably being in the top 5, and you want to pretend Americans are rightist, and it's all that simple. Why would any DUer sincerely want to sell that message?

[PCIntern]

18. Election Law. It's how we decide who our 'leaders' are...

there is no appointed board of overseers whom we select as a populus.

[merrily]

19. Election law is nothing like a legal definition of American people want.

It says things like who can and cannot vote, what time polls open and close, etc. (And it doesn't always say great things about those things, either, especially in red states.)

Which reminds me of another reason why elections do not prove America is RW: vote suppression, which reached a height this year, aided and abetted by a crooked SCOTUS. Still, Americans voted firmly in favor of increasing the minimum wage in every state in which it was on the ballot. That is not RW.

Sorry, but your attempt to imbue your fantastic, but inaccurate, claims about America's alleged right-wing preferences with the force of law falls flat.

[PCIntern]

20. you are missing the point entirely:

elections are how we decide who 'runs' this country. any other method of decision is "revolution" which is illegal and "anarchy" which is extra-legal. This is how America works within the Law.

[merrily]

21. Nope, I am not. Please review Replies 15 and 16, which began this entire discussion.

You think I don't know what an election is? Or the difference between an election and a revolution--which btw was even more "illegal" (not to mention unheard of) in 1776 than it is now.

You and I, however, have not been debating who got elected or whether the election was valid. We have been debating your claim about the policies that Americans actually want. As I stated, election law says nothing about what Americans actually want.

[PCIntern]

22. OK...never mind..sorry to trouble you. nt