The Morning After
“I’m worried we’re suffering from the Pauline Kael effect,” a friend told me early last night when the mood was still convivial. I don’t think that’s it exactly. When she got the news of Richard Nixon’s victory, Kael is said to have expressed astonishment: “How can he have been elected? I don’t know a single person who voted for him.”
That’s not the bubble we conservatives inhabit, at least not those of us huddled in blue state redoubts like New York and Connecticut. No, we are surrounded by big government, fiscal incontinents who worship Barack Obama. We know plenty of people who voted for him.
What surprised me was the paucity of support for Romney. As I read the tea leaves, all the enthusiasm — not to mention all of the sane policies — belonged to the Republicans. And people across the country seemed to get that. The cheering crowds, the battalions of get-out-the-vote workers, the clarity of purpose expressed by both Romney and Ryan.
Well, I was wrong and my friend Ron Radosh (among many others) was right: Romney never quite closed the deal and Obama’s efforts to paint him as an out-of-touch plutocrat eager to conduct a “war on women” succeeded.
For conservatives, it is a depressing situation. Ron is right, too, about “the coming crisis of a growing entitlement state” and the myriad foreign policy challenges, not least the challenges of radical Islam, that Obama, and the country at large, will continue to face. I fear that what an English friend just wrote me is true:
You just don’t care about being a Great Power any longer. That’s what this is about. The world should start sucking up to China instead now, as Americans have shown they’ve no appetite for world leadership any longer. You’ve had a century in the sun, and now you’ve decided to become Sweden instead of shouldering the burden. The 47% have won and you’re going to slip into social democracy and in 4 years time no-one — Christie, Rubio, Ryan — will be able to do anything about it.
RIP American Exceptionalism
It is said that the one unforgivable sin is despair. Depression is not quite despair, but it is an allied and a corrosive sentiment. I agree with Ron that “it is essential that conservative intellectuals do not abandon the effort to change the culture . . . and do all possible to challenge the ascension of a failed intellectual liberal ideology, whether it be in the form of Progressivism, liberalism or socialism.” But I misread and misread badly both the mood of the country and the depth of support for Obama’s failed policies. I will doubtless get around to rejoining Ron in the battle, but a little hiatus for reflection will not come amiss.
Also read: Democrats Successful in Making Abortion a Wedge Issue
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Image courtesy shutterstock / spirit of america
Two questions come to mind:
1/ If God is just, how can He allow this to happen?
2/ Because I don’t see any good coming out of last night’s results, does that mean that there can’t be any?
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B487M8KEkpHZSEpscE11MW0zakE
Can’t download your MP3, but I think it’s pretty clear that we get the government we deserve and the Bible is RIFE with examples of the Israelites having that exact problem. When killing the unborn and halting religious liberty and giving stuff away become accepted as norms, God will let us live with the results of our choices. This happens in our personal lives and it happens in our country. It is truly sad and discouraging, but we’ve got free will, and God lets us exercise it…
I’m here to taste the tears of unfathomable sadness. Hmmm, they taste a little like tea! Tee hee hee!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=owzhYNcd4OM
Jennifer Rubin’s tears taste like matzo ball soup …
I always wondered if you were merely a Marxist troll. Now I can add anti-Semite to your resume. Drop dead.
Yeah, it’s being quite clear about it lately. And it has “Jewish friends”.
As usual, Cynical Wonder shows the far Left’s true nature: they are petulant, spoiled little children.
And those are Clueless Wonder’s best features.
Note it, people: CW is a textbook example of the class and grace of a “liberal”.
God let’s it happen because he has given us our agency. We are free to choose and he will never take that away.
Maybe God is on the side of decent working people rather than rich racist haters.
Were that the case the other side would have won, purusha.
Ha! Bullseye.
Maybe God has far greater things in mind. Did you even listen to the podcast?
The short answer is that God let’s bad things happen to good people and visa-versa. He’s more concerned with your character than your comfort. Our Heavenly Father watched his own Son die at the hands of government workers. That’s the ultimate example of a bad thing happening to a good person. Friday happened… but then came Sunday.
We can’t understand it all in real time but I can’t wait to be looking back on all of this with an eternal perspective.
Hispanics, hispanics, hispanics – the vast majority love big government and are highly tolerant of centralized control. How many Hispanics wouldn’t LOVE to cross a border and live in Sweden – Sweden doesn’t sound like complacent mediocrity to them – that sounds like heaven compared to the third-world rat holes they come from. You come to America legally or illegally and you get free education, in-state tuition, free school meals, SNAP benefits, etc. You get told your a victim of discrimination and your children should get affirtmative action – I mean, who wouldn’t support the party giving you all that free stuff?
Demographics=Republican Doom. Look at California and despair.
I’ll repost something from other thread.
To the people concerned with immigration:
Did it ever occur to you that European migration of educated, rich/semi-rich or middle class people, who has always been used to -and happy with, welfare states from cradle to grave, with plenty of degrees and phDs titles, is actually worse than poor but honest, hard working latinos who never really trusted the failed siren songs of free meals in their original countries? (Seriously. Maybe Mexican people are an exception, since they are just on the other side of the border so they are not exactly “migrants that want to integrate”. See V.D.Hanson for better understanding. Maybe).
I don’t blame it on the poor immigrants, they might be desperate enough to accept charity without actually selling their souls. I’m more inclined to blame richer childish educated Europeans who enabled the system to begin with, and gave it the aura of righteousness.
After all, “welfare state”, “social contract”, “socialism” are european inventions; not Mayan or Incan, or Aztec. I’m not defending here Mayas, Incas or Aztecs; but when they robbed you they just robbed you. Socialist people robs you all while proclaiming moral superiority and requiring your own sanction.
Change the politics of the Third World and they’re still not going to make solar reflectors to beam power to Earth, or even dream of such a thing without being hand-held by the West. Cut off intimate contact with the West and the Third World would sink even further.
The West will innovate no matter it’s politics, as long as it is not emigrated into to the point productivity is shunted over to dealing with massive failure. Cut off intimate contact with the Third World and the West will once again shine. This is not an opinion; it is a world map I can look at.
Yes, therefore, put the correct values in the correct system and it will generate prosperity.
The right values in third world systems doesn’t work (and so the best minds usually try to flee to the Usa);
but wrong values in the first world won’t work either.
You’re living in a dream world. Cultural relativism is passe. It just doesn’t know it’s dead yet. The First World HAS the values; why create hypotheticals? You see a bright future of South America? Fine, but let’s talk about it when it happens. In the meantime, osmosis didn’t work with school busing and it won’t and hasn’t worked here.
You need to read carefully and not jump to conclusions. Where am I defending South America or telling good things are going to happen there? I am describing that, if there is anything good there, it’s surely trying to flee to better countries. Not that every thing coming out from there is good. OTOH, not every thing coming from Europe is good either.
That is the most original and penetrating thing I’ve heard on this issue in years.
No, they ripped out your heart and sacrificed it to the sun.
Marco Rubio I think proved to us that we cannot deal for the Hispanic vote without favoring illegal immigration. And may I remind you that Spain is also a European country?
However, I don’t think we should have been so insistent on right-to-work.
I’ve always heard that fads start in California and spread from there. I’m afraid this will be true with America’s fiscal policies.
Don’t forget single women voting. It’s all about fixing mistakes, whether it be a divorce or unwed pregnancy. Women are all about security. They need to know that if they pop out a kid by accident, or split from hubby with the kids, someone will be there to support them. They’re afraid the Republicans will take that away.
So much for a job and taking care of themselves and making good reproductive and marital decisions. This demographic isn’t going away anytime soon, and it will always vote for every future Obama as well.
“They’re afraid the Republicans will take that away”
Not really…they’re not afraid of anything being taken away,
They just dont want to be part of the “real world” of men struggling in the socialist nightmare anymore.
A Local hysterical lesbian columnist said it best:
“Romeney would set women back DECADES” and I asked her how many…like, say, 3 maybe?
She said yes. OK, so thats 1983. Contraceptives were available in every Drug Store, abortion available on demand, and no “restrictions” of either were realistically forthcoming
So what gives with women voters, particularly SINGLE WORKING women?
What gives is, Single Working Women (with kids, or the chance of having them) realize what “the real world” has been like for MEN all these decades… working hard AND being taxed to the hilt, AND supporting more than their own mouth to feed…all with little or no “leisure time”, no real “days off” without yard work, house/property repairs, planning and maintenance, errands, and bill paying and everything else, after completing a 40 or 50 or 90 hour work week when you add in all the commuting time. Sweating out skillset/career ladder/economy slumps to keep “the family” fed, warm and dry.
A real Rat Race, made ever MORE difficult by the kinds of Leftist Government Theologies that Confiscate and Squander the wealth they DO earn while ALONE (with children!) because they encouraged them to sleep around and “not need a man” for the last 40 years.
Single women have gotten a taste of “the real world”, subsidizing with THEIR earnings the voracious appetite of a corrupt Government that sells the lazy culture of the Entitlement Dream in exchange for votes to key demographics…and they are more vulnerable BEING single working (and sometimes, moms on top of it) than a typical man their age in that reality, so….
They are freaked out by it. They’re not afraid of what Republicans will “take away” they want a SOMETHING like the security a partnership USED to provide… a place where their, genuine, valuable and necessary efforts of SHARING the load can bear 100% “efficiency” by keeping it within “the family” instead of forking over 50% of their labor/dollars to The State…..Being Mother AND Breadwinner, Mother AND Head of Household, Mother AND Chief Financial Officer, Maintenance Supervisor etc etc…..
But the Feminists have effectively destroyed the Nuclear Family Model, so the only “male” or “family” these working women now have to turn to for support is…
(wait for it!)
The State.
The State that they are trying actually trying to FLEE in the first place.
They arent afraid of “losing” anything, they just cant handle all the Crap the Government has heaped on them, and ironically, whichever “lifeline” gets sold the most effectively, is the one they grab for.
And the Democrats have perfected the duplicitous nature of their lies.
No one can sell the kind of self-destructive Snake Oil (abortion, needle exchange programs, taxes, spending, sexualizing children, censorship as tolerance, etc etc) and call it “goodness” and “progress” like them.
THAT is a complete, truthful and powerful summary.
Well said, and I generally agree with your clarification. To paraphrase, the State has become the husband they no longer want, but still desperately need. And it doesn’t require daily interaction or disagreement or expectations. Nor does it demand sex when they don’t want it, etc.
My reference to Republicans taking it away, is that there is no argument that Republicans would like a return to the nuclear family as the norm. The scare tactic employed by the Democrats is similar to the one where the Republicans are accused of planning to take away their right to an abortion and force them pay the consequences of promescuity.
Similarly, in order to resurrect the nuclear family with dad, mom and their mutually related kids, the Repubs plan on making it so financially destructive that divorce and single motherhood are not options. Women know the Dems back programs to ease single motherhood. They have been told that Republicans will literally throw these women out on the street to get the traditional family back. That’s the fear these women have for Republicans.
I have a cousin who lives north of Los Angeles. She wondered what illegal immigration was costing her state. Here goes:
A family of four, one adult and 3 children, in California, with income below the welfare threshold, receives @ $30,000 in untaxed welfare benefits:
$8,000 in free food,
$10,000 Medicaid insurance free, plus no co-pays, no deductibles,
$8,000 rent subsidy,
$3,000 child tax credit refunds.
That’s non-taxed, so a family which IS TAXED, would have to make $38,000 or $40,000 to get the same earnings to spend on their family.
Flee a 3rd world life, come to “USA of Fantasyland” where the free stuff floats down from the clouds, plus your children will probably get preferences in admissions and hiring as adults, instead of just competing with the smartest kids back home. USA is not a country, it is a laughing stock.
You think growing up as one of several children to a single low-income immigrant, presumably living in subsidized housing in the worst neighborhood in town, learning English as your second language, and simultaneously overcoming the severe disadvantages of attending the most underfunded and neglected schools is a privileged situation? The benefits to which you are referring to are for the welfare of the children -who are in no way responsible for their situation-, not the parent.
I live in Colorado where this is a substantial issue and while I have no substantive rebuttal to the fiscal difficulties this poses, I am personally quite happy to see a small percentage of my hard-earned money go towards reducing childhood poverty and desperation. Some will, of course, take advantage of such programs, but I do not measure the merit of a system by the extent to which a small number might abuse it. This inevitable. I measure its merit by the good it does.
We’ll see how satisfied you are when national bankruptcy ensues and there are no programs “for the children” whatsoever. What country do you plan to flee to for your free lunch then?
Economic illiteracy is about to find it’s own remedy through bitter experience.
You don’t have a substantive rebuttal?
Well there is the problem, front and center, And add to that microcosim on immigaration and poverty, everywhere we loo be it energy, education, pollution, commerce, healthcare, government is expanding it’s presence and it’s spending.
Just so that you can feel better and delude yourself into believing that you did your fair share.
Yesterday in California we raised taxes on ourselves so Sacramento can continue its spending spree unabated, voted down a proposition that would have curtailed public union power and gave Democrats a super majority in the state legislature.
In Utah voters rejected Mia Love, a wonderful Congressional candidate, and Massachusetts elected the execrable liar Elizabeth Warren to represent them in the Senate. Illinois re-elected Jesse Jackson, Jr. to Congress even while he’s hospitalized for mental illness, Florida re-elected the alarmingly horrible Congresswoman Wasserman-Shultz and rejected the honorable Alan West. And last but not least, Obama’s been granted four more years to complete his destruction of America. I woke up the morning of 11/6 confident the good guys would win and went to bed sick and fearing for the future of my country.
As Mencken knew: the Presidency is “reserved for men favoured by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.” Re China: the BBC’s John Simpson is in China and was asked [Radio 4 this morning] for Beijing’s reaction to the Obama win. Citing a ‘senior, well-connected source’, he felt Bejing were euphoric – ‘they believe Obama is easy to push around’. So the next Four Year Plan looks pretty balanced: ruin at home, embarrassment abroad.
The Republic is lost and the ONLY solution is a Civil War to retake America.
Oh come off it. Even if you are for real, do you seriously think Russia and Red China would set on the sidelines and watch us cleanse this land of Marxism? It wouldn’t stay a “civil” war long enough load a magazine.
The word secession did cross my mind. We aren’t there yet but it does my heart good to imagine it. The left should suffer the real consequences of their philosophy (if you can dignify them with that word) without dragging the rest of us down. I’d love to see the reality show “Liberal Island”.
You know, it is the Blue states which support the red states financially. How do you explain this?
If the Blue states are as deep in debt and doodoo as we know they are, how can they be paying our way? WE are the ones with low deficits and balanced budgets. Get off your high horse and clean up that pile of manure.
your concept of support…
is only relevant if the blue states are actually putting up money. they are merely posting debt.
you also seem to fail to understand that money is shuffled to corporations in based in blue states. production is rapidly increasing in red states. production is rapidly ceasing in blue states.
as a hypothetical, if the red and blue states divided, the blue states would produce insufficient energy and food to survive. the red states would be economically poorer, but also warmer and better fed.
this would only be temporary, as wealth would leave the blue states and enter into the red states. the blue states, on their own, are closer to greece than almost any red state.
This is genius. I love Arby’s by the by…but anyway – the genius is creating a TV show which pits two teams against each other on an island. One is a team of “liberty” folk who do their own work, support each other, learn fishing to bring in food, and mimic a more conservative mindset. The other group gets everything handed to them, watches TV and plays video games, and has a snug bed. A few weeks into the game – the handouts shut off cold turkey, power is turned off, and they have to survive without their overseers.
Then you just sit back and watch the pattern.
Someone claimed that the only way conservatives have a chance in America anymore is to win the culture war. Make it cool to be self-reliant and independent of Uncle Sugar. This could be one way to do that.
You are exactly correct. It is not possible to vote out a dictatorship. History has shown there is only one solution.
This is my favorite quote of the day, which someone else posted earlier but I’ve appropriated:
“Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the ‘new, wonderful, good society’ which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean: more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
This is not the first civilization to fall to fools.
It’s a nice quote, but Cicero never said it. I’ve read almost everything he wrote, including the letters. I first saw this quote about four years ago and looked into it. Made up by somebody.
The “Wisest” Knight.
Scripture tells us: “They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.” John 18: 40.
There is a children’s story by Max Lucado: “With You All the Way”
It is about three knights on a king’s grave quest. The strongest, swiftest and wisest knights of the kingdom are chosen. To pass through the perilous forest, they must listen for the sound of the king’s flute. They each choose a companion and set off. In the end, two of the six are lost completely, two are stripped and badly beaten, and only two make it through.
Neither the strongest, nor the swiftest make it. The wisest, however, chose as his companion the king’s son. The son could clearly discern his father’s flute. The two together avoided the many deceiving instruments at play in the forest.
We must still pray, however. Even though we are not traveling with the “wisest” knight, we may be able to help our companions recognize the King’s flute when greater troubles arise!
A civil war will do nothing unless it ends with a government that is NOT democratic (so NOT selected by voting in any way whatsoever).
And were that to happen, the UN would be sure to send in “peacekeepers” to “restore democracy and the rule of law”.
If we can’t win an election that was there for the taking, how are we going to win a “civil war”?
Uhh…by having lotsa guns and being good shots…
Same way the Patriots did in 1776: by being a minority with guns and the will to use them.
keep your civil war, and wage a private one.
more resentment for the people who voted for obama than the messiah, himself.
lots of resentment for the people who turned out in 04 to vote for bush, but failed to do so 8 years later. they are the most contemptable lot.
they had their reasons. accept it, and move on.
Why are we the contemptable lot? Given a choice between a nationalized healthcare, foreign war supporting liberal and a nationalized healthcare, foreign war supporting liberal, we chose neither. Somehow the coming calamity is our fault?
my political persuasion is soley tied to economics and voting for the lesser of two evils.
I’m sorry that you couldn’t distinguish between romney and obama on the matter.
you are 100% correct about afghanistan.
2008 spending, 43.8 billion.
2011 spending 119.4 billion.
there isn’t a single person in the press who knows how many troops we have there-conservative or liberal.
for romney to be afraid to suggest it is a war not worth winning, seems to have been a complete overview of his campaign.
People wanted to be on the side that’s better at gloating, that’s better at insulting.
People wanted to be able to bask in the schadenfreude.
So naturally, they gravitated to the side most willing to indulge them.
The Duke and I agreed last night that the only solution will be to disintegrate the Union. This nation is not only divisible: it is divided. As Honest Abe once said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
This is what we’re now living.
Fortunately, we live in Texas. And, as far as I know, there is an Independence movement afloat there…
I never was a fan of Texas or texians but independence from the obamanation is worth moving to Texas and putting up with Texans.
We have lost the opportunity for liberty and the pursuit of happiness.life is now an option! God has left this nation.
God didn’t leave this nation. We left God a long time ago.
I beleive that when Texas joined the union they were given the right to secede or to split into several states. Do you still have this right?
If you’re not a “fan” of Texas or Texians, I respectfully suggest that you stay where you are (bless your heart). As far as the post below concerning Texas’ right to secede or subdivide, the discussion is pointless. Should Texas elect to secede, it’s doubtful whether we would give a whit whether the rest of the country thought it was legal or not. According to the Declaration of Independence, the colonists didn’t appear to be too preoccupied with whether they did or didn’t have the right to declare independence or for that matter, what King George thought about it.
I fully expect Texas WILL secede when the implications of the Democrat victory sinks in as the new year unfolds. It will be interesting to note the reaction of Washington to that development. I wonder if they’ll collaborate with Mexico to quell the insurrection using secret agreement to sede parts of Texas back to our southern neighbor. Divide and conquer. Really though, what could Washington actually DO about it? If I still lived in Texas I’d be seriously considering the proposition. Why remain attached to a failing nation when by declaring Independence you can live in Freedom and Prosperity? That’s a dead serious question.
Amen to that! But we also have daily battles we can fight. The REFUSAL to pay any “carbon taxes”, ObamaCare taxes/fees, participate in oppressive laws, etc. Not even the most suppressive governments in history have been able to stop people believing in God. Not even Rome.
Arm up while you can. Stock up on food. Know your survival techniques.
If you are religious, as am I, these could very well be the end. There is a prediction of Israel being attacked, and the resulting aftermath so go to church and be ready for that as well.
RIP America.
You do realize that the Civil War would have lasted all of ten seconds if the Union army had access to drone technology, right? Just saying.
And Obama already has included Americans on his kill lists. That future ones might be inside US borders probably wouldn’t trouble anyone that he won’t add to the list.
So we’ll just have to make sure we’re in your neighborhood when the drones / artillery / etc. come in.
You’re presuming that a mostly conservative/religious/Republican military would accept, without hesitation, orders to fire on American citizens for professing those same values.
Do you have a point, or do you just enjoy inserting useless observations?
Sorry, you are indulging in Sedition-Porn.
I was also thinking of succession, preferably without Civil War. I wonder how many others are?
Frankly, from talking with my daughter it seems not that many Americans ever heard of what Obama did in Honduras, Cairo, Benghazi or the stimulus. They just could not see that much difference between the Romney and Obama.
It makes more sense to sit back and let Obama take the blame for the coming disasters. Sooner or later even if the Obami still blame Bush some will recognize Obama cannot fix the problem.
On the other hand if he runs Michelle in 2016 and she wins then by all means succession.
Meet you in Manassas, Bob.
If it’s still open, I recommend the chicken fried steak with white gravy at the Yorkshire Cafe on Rte. 28.
Trailer Park Soul Food to DIE for.
The fact that there was a taxidermy studio located next door was, I am sure, just one of those unfortunate coincidences…
Just saw the remarkable statistic that Romney got some 3 million fewer votes than McCain in the last election, and that if he had held even with McCain he would have won. WTF. Did the Barrone, Morris, and Rove predictions depress turnout?
A strong Venetian Republic grew from the ashes of Rome.
Get up already, we have yet to start the fight!
Excellent point.
Did you sleep through the Dark Ages part of history?
So, what’s your point? You -we, are at the doors of a new dark age.
Romney’s was a tone deaf campaign and I always thought he was that.
Where was the championship of Reaganomics v. Obamanomics? Where was the indictment of the plight of the poor and minorities under Obama? If anything, Obama served the plutocracy.
Romney never took apart Obama’s narrative; he ignored it and bleated platitudes. It’s as if he never debated an intelligent liberal. I see it all the time on cable TV. Instead of working to understand and refute what Democrats are saying, Republicans ignore them and bleat talking points.
Horrible. I like Rubio, though. And the GOP does have 60% of the House. Just too bad it’s 60% of the wrong chamber.
That 60% is due solely to gerrymandering. If you let districts fairly reflect people’s votes, the Republicans would be in the minority.
What it means is that Obama handed us state elections in a census year. The state I live in has been majority Republican as long as I can remember, but serendipity handed the D’s the state legislature in key years. For the first time in my adult life the R’s got to do the redistricting. It’s payback time. Jerk.
You are incorrect. As the election just showed us, fairly split districts would likely give us a 50/50 split.
Obama successfully painted him as out-of-touch because it’s painfully true. After winning the first debate Romney acted like Obama’s chastised side-kick in the next two. Romney provided no reason to vote for him and no criticism of Obama. You can’t expect a neutral press to examine your opponent and his policies if you don’t, much less a partisan one. Ryan had a plan, one that anyone could understand, and not only could he articulate it, he could soundly thrash the opponents, but when Romney hides him like a crazy aunt in the attic, it worries the voter.
A complete disaster, he squandered a rare opportunity, the GOP needs house-cleaning.
Hi Republican Party!
Just a quick followup: How did choosing that ‘compromise’ and ‘electable’ Mitt Romney work out for ya? That good, eh? Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t take a hard stand on difficult issues, as you might have lost.
Good plan you had there. Got $10 says you didn’t learn anything from this, just like you didn’t learn anything from the McCain fiasco.
I’ll bet America’s future you’ll believe some white forklift driver in Kansas is responsible for failure in inner city Baltimore and in far-off Mali til the day you die. That attitude is acted on, with actual policy. Result: destruction. Hope your great-great-great grandchildren learn from that when they’re trying to reverse engineer a 21st century laptop they found while trying to find your grave among the ruins so they can piss on it.
“I’ll bet America’s future you’ll believe some white forklift driver in Kansas is responsible for failure in inner city Baltimore and in far-off Mali til the day you die.”
- What the h#ll does that even mean?
My point is that the Rpublican party lost because it ran the worst possible candidate. Republicans spent their entire time telling people to shut up and get in line behind Mitt Romney. Republicans couldn’t beat someone who, in my opinion, the worst president we’ve ever had. They wiffed it!
Why my great grandchildren are going to blame ME for that (my state went red) is not something I understand, nor do I think you do.
You haven’t heard of the New Jim Crow or imperialism holding back entire continents? Everything’s MY fault and never the fault of the actual failures, and Obama won because of that mindset and also blamed Bush. Wake up.
I think you need to calm down. I don’t recall blaming you for anything.
What I did say was, basically, that what other result did the GOP expect nominating a fraudulent ‘conservative’, doubling down on the worst of the discredited neo-con crap, for pres instead of someone who actually represented conservative values?
I never expected Romney to win. He’s nothing more than a caffeine-free, diet version of Obama.
We ran Eon Paul? I thought we ran Romney.
No, you ran Romney, the man with zero principles. Hence, you lost.
Civil war? Nah; it’s time to start figuring out how to cut off a nice thick slice of that Government Cheese for myself. If you can’t beat ‘em…
This is the best response to the current climate. I truly believed that the momentum was on our side, that the enthusiasm to restore our country to greatness and snatch it from the left wing collectivists and Marxists. The promise of free stuff and cradle to grave entitlements, including free contraception and abortion on demand, is too strong to overcome. The population has spoken, and a country gets the government it deserves. Fight it with civil war? You and what army? Obama has proven that he can use drones to snuff out American citizens deemed terrorists, and the DHS has already defined those “obsessed with individual liberties and size of government” as terrorists! Why fight it? Don’t give a dime to charity; Obama will tax you enough to spread it around. Just climb aboard the gravy train and grab some largesse for yourself. Hasten the collapse of the system, and let the looters, moochers and parasites reap the coming economic collapse while Obama is in office. Maybe this is what is needed for the population to realize there is no such thing as a free lunch.
To Eulogatos: God is just. It is the American people that he allowed to harm each other. America is divided and we stay so forever. That doesn’t sound encouraging does it? It shouldn’t, but look around. What made America great, Capitalism, is being made into a villan. I know of a Capitalist who tried to save the world and was nailed to a cross – Jesus (he was carpenter before he started his 3 year ministry). Pray, make things, and traded fairly in cash. You will then survive. Anything less and you are done.
Jesus was a capitalist?! How do you figure? Jesus hung out with hated Roman tax collectors, prostitutes, the poor, outcasts, and Samaritans, i.e., unpopular ethnic minorities. He criticized the rich harshly and violently threw profiteers out of the temple. About taxes, he said: give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s — in other words, pay your taxes. Techniques to terminate pregnancies existed in Roman times, but Jesus never mentioned them.
Jesus also took for himself the expensive gift offered to him by a woman, instead of “selling it in order to help the poor” as suggested by the traitor disciple Judas. “You will always have the poor” was the answer Jesus gave.
In one of his Parables, he taught about a man and his freedom to make contracts with people as he wishes, not based on “equal salary”, nor on theory of work-value, but based on “if my wish is to do it so, what’s your business in it? “. Very capitalistic and respectful of the private property.
Let me know when you can rebut any of my points.
You don’t have any point to begin with.
The Prosperity Gospel called while you were out. They wanted their discredited BS back.
As you can read, I’m not using those examples to defend the “prosperity gospel”, but to point out that, while Jesus had many concerns about poor people and ideas about government, etc, he also taught things (and behave in ways) not compatible with the “social warrior” vision that Liberation Theology BS tries to sell.
No, your statement that Christ was a Capitalist is BS. The fact that he wasn’t a Capitalist doesn’t make Him a a product of ‘Liberation’ theology either.
The problem with both Republicans and Democrats that i can see is that they try to cram Christ into their little, political box. In short, doing it either way makes Jesus something much less of what He was.
And your statement linking me to prosperity gospel is BS too. I’m actually an objectivist, so spare me your anti-religious rant.
wait, me saying that your silly claim that Jesus was a ‘crucified capitalist’ is false is an ‘anti-religious rant’? Wow, way to try to twist the calling out of your ignorant statement. For an Objectivist, you’re pretty darn irrational.
I didn’t mean “He is the ultimate capitalist hero”, but “he has a pretty capitalist attitude in those cases”.
My wrong if I didn’t express it well.
On the other hand, I did it just because I have the same motivation as you: I just dislike it when people try to claim “Jesus is on my side of the fence”, both, left and right:
* The one who actually claim Jesus was a crucified capitalist is the original poster 11 “hiscross”, not me.
* Someone called him out on it, trying to show when Jesus was kinda pro-government (“pay your taxes to Caesar”).
Fair enough.
* Fair enough, I was trying to offer the point when Jesus behave kinda individualist.
* I wasn’t trying to debunk the previous poster “purusha”, nor trying to advance any Prosperity Gospel. Just offer the other side of the debate. Specially, because saying Jesus was a “nailed to a cross capitalist” is pretty weak (the original poster, not me), but offering some actual examples is better (assuming his biographies, the Evangelion, is true).
* Again, I didn’t do it to advance one or other side, but to put a stop to this “hey, He is on my side/party/agenda/ideology”.
So, peace?
“Rational” is a standard and a goal, not to be confused with “I’m perfect” or “I’m so infallible”.
My bad, X, looking back over the posts. I was posting from my phone and the layout got me confused as to who was responding to whom.
It’s all ok. Let’s move on. We have still to fight the evil the best we can.
Infanticide also existed. Jews praticed neither. Tacitus thought it was weird of us to xonsider infanticide a crime.
“Jesus hung out with prostitutes…” I’ve been sick to death of this stupid line for decades.
He didn’t “hang out” with them. He tried to convert them because they were sinning; because they were (and are) wrong for leading their lives the way they do.
Good God. The “Jesus was a cool hippie” crap of the ’70s just won’t seem to go away!
We r skrued… hello third-word economics, politics and enjoyability of life.
“As I read the tea leaves, all the enthusiasm — not to mention all of the sane policies — belonged to the Republicans.”
Precisely your problem, Roger. You were reading “tea leaves” while the MSM and progressives were reading facts, figures and statistics.
All hail Nate Silver, the Lord of Numbers. Long may he trample the false prophets of “gut feelings” beneath his light loafers.
some of us thought the same when George W Bush won his second term
The good that will come from this is President Obama will have no one to blame but himself, during the next four years. Hopefully he will understand what a true leader is and unite us. I’ll be waiting.
Agreed. The first thought that came to my mind is that in spite of all the unpleasantness and hardship that lies ahead at the hands of the Obama regime, maybe (not holding my breath) but maybe someone can actually make them accountable for the results they get.
Forgive my harsh tone, but: How naive can you get? When the Democrats held the Presidency & both Houses, 2009-2010, their excuse was that Bush had done SO much damage that it would take maybe four or five years to improve things. Then November 2010 came, and we thought it heralded rebirth. Wrong. All it did was give the Democrats their second excuse: We’re trying our best, but those awful Republicans in the House are blocking everything and refusing to cooperate. And the public bought it and wore it home. The GOP held the House this time, and the Democrats have a solid, working excuse for at least two more years. We are well and truly boned, and the GOP will take all the blame, thanks to the presstitutes.
Yep. And to this day Herbert Hoover is widely blamed for the Great Depression, even though FDR failed over 10 years to do anything about it. Had WWII not come along when it did, I think we might still be in it today.
Good lord….
A ‘conservative’ who still buys into the ‘WWII ended the depression’ claptrap?
If this is the state of economics in the GOP, then we really ARE screwed.
To what do YOU attribute the end of that Depression? Are you some sort of Krugman like economist?
I attribute it to RATIONAL means. Rationing basics, PORNOGRAPHIC government spending on destruction not production, killing thousands, does not create prosperity. That’s stupid on its face.
If war spending was what creates prosperity, then all we and Europe need to due to become wealthy again is divert most of our economic activity to the federal government and have them build the most massive, most complex, most expensive deep water fleet in the history of the planet, sail it all out into the middle of the ocean, and then taking all the sailors off of it, blow up each other fleets.
We can then congratulate each other for how much prosperity we’ve created.
No, slashing massive amounts of spending, unleashing human capital, getting the government out of the way, resulted in 1946 being a FANTASTIC year for growth a real prosperity.
BTW, all the same pro government spending economists warned at the time that once the war, the economy would totally crater again if we even slowed down government spending. They were totally wrong.
Am I “some sort of Krugman like economist?”
- Hell no. Krugman buys into the same ‘government spending = prosperity’ silliness as Cousin Dave seems to. He was also one of the ones who claimed almost up until the very end that the ‘housing bubble’ didn’t exist and was nothing but a mean scare tactic, even though rational economists were warning about it YEARS earlier.
Well, Mike, all the pent up demand from Wartime depravation on the home front is what spurred economic activity post-WWII. That depravation was the result of wartime scarcity. The war DID result in economic activity that brought the country out of depression. Roosevelt would have had us in permanent depression until he left office and someone with business sense was elected.
Congressional Republicans have sworn to destroy him at any cost and Issa is probably writing up impeachment proceedings already. On this board you have people explicitly talking about engaging in civil war because they lost an election. Obama would be stupid to treat Republicans as anything other than dangerous cornered dogs.
Gloat now. You idiots now own the coming economic and world disasters.
We’ll all be dragged down too unfortunately.
Simply clueless. But enough, utopia awaits. With the unparalleled genius of Barack Hussein Obama, what could possibly go wrong?
Actually, talking civil war just because you ran a total garbage candidate, a ‘compromise’ candidate I remember him being called, who ran a garbage campaign and couldn’t beat one of the worst presidents we’ve ever had, is a bit too extreme.
“On this board you have people explicitly talking about engaging in civil war because they lost an election.”
Thank you, purusha, for demonstrating the vapidness of liberal thought. The point is not doing something because of losing an election, it’s due to looking ahead to see what the results of that loss are likely to be. I know, looking ahead is foreign to you “liberals”, so you may not be able to understand what I’m saying.
“The good that will come from this is President Obama will have no one to blame but himself”
I wouldn’t count on that. Republicans still control the House, so he can continued to blame them, as he has for the past 2 years.
You’re dreaming – he will continue to blame Bush until he dies, and then THAT will be blamed on Bush.
Democrats will always blame someone or something other than themselves for their failure to deliver on their promises. As Bush becomes more distant (just as Reagan has) he will be blamed less and some new fallguy/scapegoat will be introduced. The House of Representitives should be targeted by the Left fairly intensely during this coming year or two. It will all be Boehner’s Fault shortly. Probably because he won’t “reach across the aisle” far enough to suit them. In other words, he won’t become a card carrying member of the Communist Party–probably the only situation that would be acceptable to the more enthusiastic Democrats.
I have been wracking my brain trying to find some positive aspect of yesterday’s election. I have, after much soul-searching, found two:
1) For all those in Europe who are thrilled by another 4 years of the current policies I can only say this: Be careful what you wish for. Europe can only be Europe for as long as America continues to shoulder more than our share of the burden. Good luck maintaining your vast welfare state when there is no US military there to protect you. The 65 year knap will be over once our armed forces are reduced to World War One levels. You are going to get what you want and you are going to get it good and hard;
2) The other positive thing is petty and vindictive, but vastly satisfying, and can be encapsulated in just two words: Biden, ’16
Ironic part is that Democrats had no problem electing Dem “plutocrats” such as Dianne Feinstein. She and her husband are twice as rich as the Romneys and his firm, Blum Capital does the same thing Bain Capital does.
What Republicans need to do is concentrate on economics and stop with the social issues. Americans do not like to be told what to do when it comes to social stuff. The primary defining issue that differentiates Republicans from Democrats should be economic growth.
Unfortunately for your ideology, the economy grows faster on average under Democrats.
Under both Democrats and Republicans these past several administrations, the ‘growth’ was largely bubble growth, ie not real growth at all.
Because we saw tax cuts under old school Democrats like JFK and even Clinton. There was a time not so very long ago when Democrats were VERY anti-socialism. FDR’s stab at socialism extended the Great Depression by several years. It was a huge mistake.
The main impact from the Obama tax hikes is going to be from the capital gains tax increase. That will reduce revenue and reverse what meager economic growth we currently have. We currently don’t have enough economic growth in the latest quarter to keep per capita GDP static.
“The Morning After”
They have a pill for what we got.
The Affordable Care Act mandates that your insurance carrier provide it at a $0 co-pay!
Unless you are middle-age or older, in which case the IPAB death panel deems it an “inappropriate” treatment for you. Take two aspirns and don’t call in the morning.
Nice to hear from you, Mr. Kimball.
I agreed with you when you wrote in March of this year:
“…Then for the next few months we can read about how he is the only electable candidate and, come November, shake our heads when Barack Hussein Obama is reelected President of the United States and continues his work dismantling the freest, most prosperous, and powerful country in history.
“There you go again,” Ronald Reagan said to what’s-his-name in 1979. And there they go again, the folks that brought us the candidacy of Bob Dole and John McCain. Their latest retread is Mr. ObamaCare-lite, the former Governor of Massachusetts, the man who makes bets with people for $10,000 on national television and whose zillion-point tax plan calls for a tax code that is simultaneously “flatter” and just as progressive as it is now. Talk about square circles!”
(http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/03/06/super-bluesday/)
I also entertained the hope that the Electorate would see Obama for the con-man and the failure that he is, and that that would overcome the latest RINO that our Party Elders foisted upon us.
Should have known.
Let us remind those who spent the spring and summer telling us that Romney was “electable” that Romney last night became the Republican McGovern.
And then invite them to shut up.
At least the fruits of Obama’s first four years will ripen to poison his second four years.
I’m wondering how long before the New Black Panthers get around to tweeting bounties on Hannity, Limbaugh, Zimmerman (again), and all other high ranking Conservative and Republcan individuals?
The DOJ will just call it “free speech” if it comes from their favorite sons. It’s “free speech” only if they say it’s “free speech”.
Farewell to the Vanished World of Wonder Bread, Sealtest Ice Cream, Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix, Borden’s Milk, the Sears Roebuck and Co. Catalog, and All That
—————————————————————-
Election Day, 2012, will enter the history books as a seminal date in our History. For on that date, a fundamental transformation of the America character took place, a change long since in the making, with the resounding and embarrassing thrashing of the Republican party (the party of the old guard) by the party of the future.
I remember looking at Romney during the long campaign and I kept asking myself: Who is he representing? Who is he talking to? And I could never figure that answer out.
Romney and Cia. went down in ignominious defeat precisely because he was representing an America that no longer exists – even in the Midwest. (After all – and just as an example- our first “openly gay” senator just elected to Congress is from Wisconsin – as “heartland” a state as you can find. Not only that, she’s a woman (I mean, of course, biologically) to boot. (Talk about a double whammy).
But it was more than that. I remember those scallywag Republican leaders plainly stating things like “Our main job is to deny Obama a second term” and “We will not cooperate with them at all” and so on. They should have been forced to resign it that was there attitude. People like me clearly remember all that and vowed to not forget it and let no one else forget it either.
The 30s, 40s and 50s are over. They simply are. It’s a new ball game with different players. The sea change that has taken place is now a permanent part of the American panorama. Those who refuse to admit it and to adjust to it are simply living in the past and becoming more irrelevant and inconsequential as time goes on.
Thanks for summing up the nutball accuasations of the Left against the Right. Sure, we all want to go back to Jim Crow and barefoot women.
As for who Romney was addressing, it’s called success; real success. This is something a Dem sees in failure.
To what success are you referring?
‘“We will not cooperate with them at all” and so on. They should have been forced to resign it that was there attitude.’
That being your attitude, I am sure you will be first in line to demand the resignation of Harry Reid, who said last week that it was laughable that the Democrats in the Senate would cooperate with Republicans.
Come to think of it, when President Obama told Republican lawmakers to pipe down because “I won” in 2008, shouldn’t he have been the first to resign. Or can I guess that this is just a one-way street?
Socialism, including Obama’s version, is doomed to fail. People like “Pied Piper” are ignorant of history and and are morally bankrupt – hence their glee that they get to continue stealing our children’s future to support their frivolity. They are so stupid that when their hare-brained Rube Goldberg schemes fall apart they won’t even see that they are the one’s that caused it.
I hate people like Pied Piper. They are evil. We commit suicide by tolerating them in our midst.
So what do you propose we DO about Pied Piper types? Murder them in parking lots as they exit their Prius? Stalk them and individually whack them as is practical? How do we prevent them from dragging us along into the Hell they create? The country is about to take a final header into the abyss and we apparently must accompany these Champions of Equality into their Worker’s Paradise in the Underworld. What’s your solution?
I woke up this morning in a cold sweat. Four more years of the muslim-in-chief. A dead senator’s legislation on immigration is still in force and allowing millions of foreign people into our country who will never love America, the ideals it stands for, and its greatness. Instead, they come for the percieved benefits to them. this leads to the destruction of our country, maybe not intentionally by them but it does nevertheless. Others come with the singular vision to destroy our country with stealth jihad and they are being invited into our administration and other governing bodies, eagerly, by our so called leaders. I look down the road four years and I really do not want to see the mess.
Muslim?
You voted for a Mormon instead of a mainstream, church-going Protestant Christian.
So Obama suddenly becomes “a mainstream, church-going Protestant Christian” after sitting in the racist, anti-American, black-liberation (read: Marxist) pew of the good “Rev” Wright for 20 years?
Gotta pick your poison: 1) economic populism; or 2) moderation on social issues; or 3) give Hispanic voters what they want on “comprehensive immigration reform.”
You don’t have to do all three. I think you need to do two.
I recommend #1. The universe of citizens who want to be John Galt is maxed out and all of them voted Romney. Perhaps you can convert a few Hispanics by embracing option #3, but I don’t think enough to make a difference.
The worse – the better. Four more years of stupidity and mediocrity, four more years of economic crisis, four more years of high unemployment – this all will be used against the Democrat party. Unless the media still blames Bush.
But the Republican party should nominate a black candidate in 2016.
Yea; Michelle.
The last sentence was a joke.
The problem is that if in 2016 Dems again nominate some kind of a minority guy, he might win again.
I admit that a Hispanic Republican would pull more of the Latino vote which would have won Florida and make California slightly competative, but what makes you think that blacks will EVER vote for a black Republican?
I really thought I would be celebrating today.
The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights, will now be moved into museums. America will not be recognizable as the same country in a couple years.
The military is already being defunded, and the intelligence agencies have been gutted of their authority.
The Secret Service and IRS shall be the largest contingent of armed forces in the coming days, as the DOJ has been transformed into a Presidential civilian police force for the revenge of minorities.
It’s gut wrenching and sickening that this regime has taken power of our government.
It’s going to effect Obama’s minions, too. Boy, are they gonna be pissed.
I challenge you to save your comment & revisit it four years from now. It’s total nonsense–but if I am wrong, I’m willing to eat crow in 2016. Can you say the same?
Well, if not 2016, how about 2020. Remember, if you are a good slave all your life, you will go to heaven AFTER you die. Just BELIEVE!
I have my comments recorded back to September 2008. Where’s yours?
If you voted for Obama in 2012, you can use the “Blind exemption” on your tax return for the next four years.
We may have been guilty of misreading the mood of the country but were even more guilty of misreading the mood of our own voters. Voter turnout almost 13 million shy of 2008. Looks like the reports of lower enthusiasm on the Democrat side were correct but we turned out almost 3 million less. McCain got almost as many votes as Obama did this year. With everything going on why couldn’t we we get our own people out to vote?
Because they were not excited about Romney. As I alluded to in another post, I have a white, conservative friend who is a hard working professional (he’s a CPA), and he refused to vote for Romney because “he’s a old rich white dude”. he voted for the libertarian candidate instead.
As much as we tried to delude ourselves that this election was about the economy, the reality is that many, many millions are just fine with the way things are. To the unemployed 23 year old girl, the threat that her precious contraceptive would be taken away – no matter how false – was the trump card. Unemployment be damned! I need to have sex! Romney beat the economy drum to hard and too long….he never tapped into the “culture” issues that make so many of us tick.
It’s all cyclical. We conservatives need to work to take over both Houses of Congress by 2014. By then, the blinders will be gone and 2 years of more disastrous policies should demoralize the Dem base. We can take our government back.
Of course until then it’s going be painful for the next few years. Hang tough everyone.
Nope. I hope I’m wrong and the GOP does come to its senses, but I predict that you will run another slate of “rape baby” candidates and you will lose another election. The problem for conservatives is that whenever you lose an election you conclude that the reason you lost is that you weren’t right wing enough, so you go even further and further to the right.
If the republicans want to win you need to go back to the future. Moderate pro-choice republican stars like former Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman is a good model, as is former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. Get rid of the tea party. They are terminal cancer.
First of all, Christie Whitman lost the last time she ran.
Secondly, it’s not the candidates, it’s the party itself.
The GOP can’t win elections anymore if 70% of Hispanics and two-thirds of single women vote Dem. Those are the two fastest growing voting groups in America, and the GOP has effectively written them both off.
To fix that, the GOP has to change its platform to emphasize that it really does welcome *legal* Hispanic immigrants. Marco Rubio could suggest some ideas there. And the GOP should stress that one’s personal life (including one’s sex life) is one’s own, and neither the GOP nor the Government should interfere with it.
I consider myself very much a conservative. But things like sodomy laws and the proposed Human Life Amendment aren’t what I think of as limited government.
I agree the next step is to make gains in both House and Senate. In this cycle, the Republican losses in both House and Senate were small (2 in both chambers).
A wave of massive taxes and regulations go into effect in January 2013. Many defense-related businesses have to announce layoffs (something they should have done legally a month ago but they all kow-towed to Obama in delaying the announcements). I put the fault not so much on Romney but on the RNC. As Mark Levin stated: you have to take the high road AND the low road AND the middle road. There is so much to object to on Obama’s past and present (as told/written by M Malkin, M Savage, M Levin, A Coulter) that one can put out 1 different ad everyday for 3 months. But RNC acted as if it is castrated.
We lost because although the American people are uncomfortable, we’re not yet miserable. When gasoline is $10/gallon, a loaf of bread costs $8, armed gangs and vigilantes roam the streets, racism becomes vengeance-driven, sharia law replaces the Constitution, private property is severely curtailed (if not outlawed completely), Christianity is “downsized,” Jews prevented from holding jobs, and the unemployment rate is 35% or higher, THEN Americans might realize the consequences of their continued support of “hope and change” and be willing to retake the country.
I think you’ve just described lower manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, as well as coastal New Jersey today.
Have you seen the returns from those precincts?
They’re eating out of dumpsters and have no heat or electricity, but Obama and his FEMA are doing such a great job that they re-elected him.
The DemocRats have perfected the Politics of Hate
Enough of the electorate hates us more than they despise the government that abuses them.
True enough, Bilgeman, but NYers are telling themselves that “it’s only temporary.” Just wait until it becomes the new normal and there’s no improvement on the horizon without a major effort on the part of We-the-People. Even somnambulent Leftists will rise up from their delusions if they get hungry enough and realize that the boot’s on their necks.
No, I’m afraid that they won’t. Obama publicly declared a “War on Coal”…and he carried Pennsylvania and Ohio.
He instituted a baseless offshore drilling moratorium, which sent the price of fuel and every commodity touched by it skyrocketing, and he won California and Florida, where if you don’t have a car, you are a social troglodyte.
He has mmandated that Church organizations subsidize contraception in opposition to their faiths, and he carried Maryland.
As long as the proles can have their “Goldstein” at which to direct their anger and loss and hate, they will loyally lick the boot that stamps their face.
We are that “Goldstein”.
RIP America. How one could reject Romney, a decent, thoughtful, intelligent, successful and accomplished business/manager in the current economic climate beggars the mind. That so many can be so stupid is difficult to grasp. The curtain is descending on the American century. I fear for my grandchildren.
How did this happen?
Free Pie.
Oh, and revenge on the folks who dont want you to HAVE any more Free Pie…
Because you’ve become so fat and lazy and unproductive….
From EATING all that Free Pie..
THATS how this happened.
Thats how.
2008: 1.004 trillion dollar deficit, 7.3% unemployment.
2012: 1.1 trillion dollar deficit, 7.9% unemployment.
ironic that the economy obama inherits for 2013 is worse than the one he had in 2009.
obama lost 10 million supporters, but the ones that showed up still blamed bush. he hasn’t even come close to the bottom of eroding support for his economic policy.
sorry that it didn’t come sooner/faster, and while my first instinct was to surrender the idea that economic policy matters anymore, I find the serenity of patience-waiting for people who need a little more time to judge liberal economic policy-to be rather calming.
obama is still in freefall on the economy. if romney came in and had success, the media would have been quick to attribute it to the actions of obama, and we would be at stalemate.
far better chance of winning the war, for losing this battle.
…and, 2014 senate races look good.
Perhaps the ‘war on women’ was a success, but perhaps it was successful for a reason different than that surmised: rather than it being a reminder to single women that evil Republicans were out to steal their ladyparts, perhaps it was just a reminder that “we’re Democrats and we’re here to give you free stuff such as contraception and free abortion on demand”.
In that respect it was just part of the larger Democratic message, “we’re Democrats and we’re here to give you free stuff” period. The siren song of ‘free stuff’ to that 47% of the voters that Mr. Romney impoliticly but correct identified is a strong one, and it was the voters who wanted free stuff who turned out.
For all the talk of ‘Mitt-mentum’, the enthusiasm of the conservative base, and the ‘broken-glass voters’ who would vote Obama out, Mr. Romney received fewer votes than Mr. McCain in 2008, and Republican senators received fewer votes, in aggregate, than they did in the disaster of 2008.
That suggests that the Republicans have the wrong message, or rather that the Democrats know their voters better.
It’s the siren song of free stuff.
“… or rather that the Democrats know their voters better”
They sure as sh*t do…
16 trillion dollars worth of Obama-Phones buys plenty of voter knowledge
The siren song of free stuff might be powerful but how does one explain
the huge Republican victory in the House? The citizens who vote for
free stuff from Obama surely must know they can support a Congressman
who will also give them free stuff. Yet many who voted for Obama must have
pulled the lever for a Republican Congressman. Why?
Romney’s defeat could be nothing more than voters just didn’t like him.
Besides everything is still Bush’s fault.
Principals in both parties, always desirous of reelection, have told Americans for decades that they can have what they want but don’t want to pay for: ever bigger social security checks, exploding Medicare benefits, easily obtained disability payments for life, public service pensions that are mind-boggling in their generosity, and lots of government spending, always increasing. With Democrats seeking to expand government and its benefits at every turn—government creates endless wealth, doesn’t it?—and Republicans refusing to raise the money, i.e., taxes, to actually pay for said benefits, Americans have come not only to enjoy but to believe in the proverbial free lunch. How, after all, can there be a looming crisis when my government check keeps coming? And with COLAs, no less? Eventually, the free lunch will no longer be possible and the checks will stop. But we don’t know when; or at what cost, although it will probably be painful and deep. Perhaps when that time does come, and it will, Americans will begin to rethink their duties and obligations as free and responsible citizens. Until then, we will continue to demand that our government provide for us. We all remember, don’t we, that famous exhortation of long ago: ‘Ask not what you can do for your country—ask what your country can do for you.’
“With Democrats seeking to expand government and its benefits at every turn—government creates endless wealth, doesn’t it?—and Republicans refusing to raise the money, i.e., taxes, to actually pay for said benefits, Americans have come not only to enjoy but to believe in the proverbial free lunch.”
Nicely put.
Bilgeman, #18 above, notes (if I understand his argument) that Mr. Romney lost because he was just the latest RINO foisted upon us by the plutocrats of the Republican party.
Well. Let’s recall our choices this last cycle, shall we?
Newt Gingrich, who had more social baggage than a Pullman porter. Rick Santorum, a failed Senator (and nice man) whose social message would have gotten him 30% of the vote in this election. Ron Paul, whose economic message appeals to a good 10% of the voters? Michelle Bachman, who could barely win her own district last night?
Ah, yeap. That’s them.
Who were our other choices? None. Jeb Bush? Didn’t run and couldn’t win. Christie? Didn’t run, first-term governor, couldn’t win. Jindal? Barely known small southern state governor who couldn’t win. Palin? Polarizing, polarizing governor who quit office and couldn’t win.
But okay, those of you who wish to pile on and kick Mr. Romney now that he’s done, feel free to tell me who could have beaten Champ last night. I honestly thought Romney had the best shot, and 10 days ago I thought he was going to win it, but what do I know?
Name the Pub candidate who would have won last night.
…and dont expect a spirited call for recounts from the Class of 2010 Republican governors (WI, OH, PA, FL, VA, NM, NV) and senators who would rather have Mittens out of the way for 2016. I always suspected Obama has a sweetheart deal with Scott Walker, for example – I’ll stay out of your recall in June (2012) if you lay down in November. I may even grease the skids by dissing old man Joe or old heifer Hillary if they decide to run against you.
“Name the Pub candidate who would have won last night.”
I fully understand your reticence to do so, but I was discussing the Republican candidate who DID NOT win last night.
And the one before him.
Losing with class, (and no-one denies that Romney has class), is STILL losing.
I agitated for and voted for Mitt…would the Rockefellerians do likewise for a Santorum or a Bachmann?
And for whatever his many, many flaws, would Newt Gingrich have given Obama a pass and NOT nailed him to the wall over Benghazi in the second debate?
Newt may be an amoral RINO, but he STILL remembers how to play “Rough and Tumble” street politics.
Who could have won last night? The ones you conveniently left out.
Anyone have news of the lines at the Canadian border?
If you thought the last four years was bad…
Have to say I’m shocked at the naivete of conservatives I see around the internet, dusting themselves off with a smile on their face.
This. Was. The Ballgame. Game Over.
National sovereignty. Gone. Bill of rights. Compromised. Supreme Court. Gone. Free market capitalism (such as it used to be) Gone.
Turn the lights out.
Roger’s friend in the UK was wrong in one respect: we haven’t
become Sweden, we’ve become Argentina. Argentina went from
riches to rags in a short period of time…and so will we.
my one takeaway…
I will never support a ‘pure’ pro-life ticket, again.
The standard that should be adopted, by non-religious conservatives:
legal/protected abortions first trimester.
let states decide on second term.
outlaw third trimester, with the exception of threat to life of mother. clearly, if a third trimester abortion is needed, it should be done in a hospital, and not a clinic.
romney/ryan, in this matter, played right into the hands of a campaign that was driving home fear among women.
if akin and mourdock couldn’t win in missouri and indiana, the issue is settled.
Apparently, over half the country now believes the purpose of government is to effect an ideological social agenda rather than to uphold constitutional principles.
The chickens of ignorance have come home to roost.
This configuration is going to be hard to come back from. I want to call it a national government as opposed to a federal government.
The word “dysfunctional” seems too tame.
The election to the Senate of the lying wacko in Massachusetts is especially hard to believe.
Why?
Hmm, Mr Kimball, I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself: many got this wrong and, yes, Pauline Kael’s famous error ain’t it. Intellectuals and media pundits are notoriously brittle, because a lofty pontificator’s perch puts food on the table but otherwise carries little accountability or consequence. Hard to believe? Well, maybe try a job where you get fired if you don’t hedge $millions of client money right the first time and there’s no second chance. Or must order exhausted men to cover a retreat where’s there’s little hope of survival (mercifully, never happened to me, though I know a couple). Very different from the cosy safety of the ivory tower or the newsroom. One effect, pace Nietzche, can be that if it doesn’t kill you, it should make you tougher. Those of us survivors outside in the rain just normally just shrug and move on. You learn what you can.
In this case getting it wrong was surely not an enormous surprise: nobody could figure the effects of Sandy on Benghazi (and still can’t); it sure looked as though dislike of Romney took second place to loathing of Obama. Maybe the most interesting question is how did Michael Barone get so far off base? He is a true expert and only a complete idiot would ignore his analysis. His explanations will make good reading, since he’s still the true expert he was two days ago.
The future is what should concern us all much more than yesterday’s far distant country. In a shameless bid for the award for mixed metaphor du jour, I confess to being irked that so many now drone on in a make-it-up-as-you-go fingernails-on-glass effort to slap lipstick on the pig that is the Republican party, the large and dumb elephant that just crapped on the carpet in the nation’s livingroom.
Events will now likely take over from a party in collision with itself and doomed to disintegrate — from my POV, the sooner the better. Two main types of loser: the dull marionettes of party central (Romney, Mack, Allen) with their sniveling bag carriers (Kristol et al); and the religious loons who identify as ‘social conservatives’, a misnomer for the ages.
As for the first group, the drones: Romney is not a conservative, just a fundamentally decent guy, though an over-protected opportunist with a defective ‘vision thing’ that went awol. He failed to express the conservative ideas that are — or used to be — the foundations of our greatness. Reagan he ain’t. FWIW, Romney’s is the kind of inarticulate decency that often substitutes for thought in the country club, but has no place today. Doubt that? Then explain why Romney lost his native Michigan and current home state of Massachusetts — as the NYT chortles, a feat last achieved by George McGovern in 1972. So, for many lingering Republicans, now is the time to go: run don’t walk from congressional leadership, anything connected with RNC and their media lackeys. Do you cede your future to Boehner?
As for the second group, the religious loons and their champions Mourdock and Akin. Will any here argue that the pious cant about legitimate rape and the malignant assertion that any resulting pregnancy is God’s will didn’t have an effect? Given the tendency to whimper and blame others (tea partiers are handy), note that this self-righteous bunch of freaky zealots must now argue that to be against the results of the election is to deny God. Only you guys, it seems, can discern the mysterious movements that you say bind us all. Thanks, but I’ll take my chances with St Peter and blame it on chaos theory. Time for you all to get out in the yard, polish your rapture rockets and pray for liftoff, since Earth has no place for you. WHOOSH! The final words the rest of us will hear amid the static as the rocket explodes will be YOU’RE A BABY MURDERER! God’s will again? Perhaps the real thing at last. Poof! Begone!
So, the Stupid Party is done; don’t mend it, end it. Tea-party Republicans, including many in congress and scores of millions of decent Americans everywhere need a new party. Early to say, but I believe Texas is the key. We’ll see, but meantime don’t kid yourself.
Secession and widespread violence are both turnings in the road ahead.
You know, I generally thought Mitt was a decent guy up until the 47% remarks. It doesn’t make a difference if he was just going along to play to his rich constituents. Mitt and any presidential candidate knew that lumped in the 47% are people who hold down jobs and are trying to get by some of them his own constituents.
Yet Mitt couldn’t even stop and say, “Well they don’t pay federal taxes but some of them are our people, hard working Republicans/Americans who believe in the American Dream and are struggling to get by.”
That didn’t happen.
Holding down a job doesn’t mean you aren’t a net drain on the national government. It doesn’t mean you are standing on your own two feet.
IMO, truer to say he was speaking both off the cuff and off the record. The enormous failing was later, akin to the idea that it’s not the crime but the cover-up that does you in.
Attacking the MSM witch hunt head-on should have been hard-wired into Romney, a reflex triggered automatically in a display of blood-red anger. Instead, we got the usual roll-over-and-tickle-my-tummy display from both campaign and party central. So yes, I believe your conclusion is correct: he seemed to be abandoning lots of good Americans down on their luck, often through no fault of their own. The same happened again later when he failed to show sympathy for the struggling waitress moms of the land — and walked straight into a trap. I well remember Romneybots on this site proclaiming that a waitress and her bastard were just too far down the food chain to matter — probably, she’d had an abortion or three as well, YOU BABY MURDERER!
Romney would certainly never say or believe anything of the kind but he stayed silent and was damned by association.
Not exactly an election-winning tactic. And all the more reason to leave the GOP for a new third party — for every ‘social conservative’ and RINO left behind, you’ll attract two patriotic replacements from the ranks of centrists and independents. The GOP will become a bitter rump, the place where morons and incompetents muster. They deserve each other.
The standard bearers of a new party and a new alignment?
How about Palin and Ryan.
The dem candidate in 2016 will NOT be Biden.
The candidate will be Michelle Obama.
And if you think liberal women voted for Barack with enthusiasm, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
We’re already a country deeply divided, time to make it official and split for good.
Oh, by the way!
The DOW is crashing and the dollar is on a steep slope today.
Congratulations America.
A couple of tactical notes for the Republican party. Stop treating the Tea Party like radicals. You could have gone farther if you’d tried to include them more into the process. The same thing with the Ron Paul supporters. We need Libertarian minded Americans in the Republican party and it’s increasingly looking like we need them in charge of the party. I’ve seen nothing yet on Evangelical support in this election. If they sat this one out, then the party needs to marginalize them. Rick Santorum is never going to be elected President. We can broaden the base by going more liberal on social issues and broadening the base is what needs to happen to win elections.
And finally, how can we continue to let Democrats paint Republicans as racist? Can’t we at least education the American people on how the Democrats institutionalized racism? Woodrow Wilson segregated the military, the KKK was full of Democrats and yet Repubs are all racists? If we want to get elected, we need that “big tent” we talk about. We need a concerted effort to recruit minorities and convince them that smaller government is in their best interests.
We need to focus efforts at the grassroots and remake the party. It’s the only way the Republican party can be relevant again.
You assume the rest of us believe the GOP is worth saving. We don’t. And, thanks all the same, we’ll decide for ourselves who we choose to work with. The GOP ‘leadership’ has fouled the nest for the last time. Fool me once…
The rest of us prefer a clean start and there ain’t a damn thing you can do.
It’s amusing that Carla wonders how anyone could reject Romney, a decent, thoughtful, intelligent …. [man] and how so many can be so stupid. You must be following the usual right wing demonization of education — if informed is stupid, then call me stupid. Perhaps it was because Romney was a shape-shifting panderer who would say anything, including out-and-out lie, to win. Apparently the Commandment about not bearing false witness isn’t part of the Book of Mormon. For the sake of my grandchildren, I am grateful and relieved that a majority of Americans saw through the lies, at least far enough to see that Romney could not be trusted. I am a well-informed professional woman with a post-graduate degree and income within the top 5% (in spite of experiencing lifelong pay inequality), i.e., not one of Romney’s 47% of American leeches. I find it mind-boggling that even 10% of women, educated or not, could vote for a candidate who wholeheartedly adopted the American Taliban’s platform, that is, until the debates, when Tea Party Romney suddenly morphed into moderate Romney.
BTW, Roger, Obama’s supporters aren’t fiscal incontinents. We just believe it’s wrong to claim to love America (the concept) when you can’t stand America (the people).
Eleanor,
Conservatives don’t hate Americans. They are just depicted that way. If your primary source for impressions of conservatives is from media sources, I enourage you to rely instead on your own direct observations.
Congratulations on your education and your career success. People like you will be needed in the Democratic leadership to govern wisely. I would like to ask/suggest that within your circles, you ask people the following question:
Do you know how long a trillion seconds is? Answer: 31,710 years
It is my opinion that conservatives have done a terrible job of two things in particular:
1. Explaining that no one gets any benefits if the government goes broke. Nothing. This matters to me because my 18 year old cognitively impaired daughter will likely rely on government assistance after I am gone. She has no other family that can take care of her, and I am 32 years older than her. If/when our government undergoes a financial collapse, what will happen to my daughter after I am gone? I refer you back to the “trillion seconds” question. I am 100% in favor of compassionate and _solvent_ government.
2. Explaining that conservatives believe they have a better way to increase revenue to the government, so that there is more money available for all the important things. Similarly explaining that having the rich “pay their fair share” (meaning a far higher percentage) simply doesn’t work. It isn’t about sympathy for the rich, it is about what works and what does not.
Obama won in the US for the same reason Chavez won in Venezuela: lazy human nature.
And let’s face it: deep down inside we all want to be parasites; leeches whose only concern is to find our next host.
Whatever the historic expiration date on republics may be (250 years, give or take 50?), I fear that the mass and instantaneous saturation of mainstream media, manned by the products of an educational system that provides, at best, no more than rudimentary American civic lessons and, at worst, nothing less than indoctrination in (albeit superficial) anti-Western ideology, can only accelerate the moral, economic, and political decline of a reciprocally ill-educated public. As John Adams said, “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.” Knowledge is power, but mere information disseminated thusly lulls too many people into losing the will (and courage) to attempt to shape events, and rather into accepting being shaped by them. Alas, Adams also said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Then , there’s Alexis de Tocqueville, who said, “The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”
So what are you Loonies complaining about? Be happy. You basically have a moderate republican in the white house for 4 more years. I am an active participant and supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and our community was very divided this year. VERY FEW of my progressive and left friends and colleagues voted, and those that did voted Green Party (Jill Stein) and other alternatives. So WHO voted for Obama? Many were disappointed that Obama tried to reach out to you wackos, to compromise and work with you. But I personally held my nose and voted to keep Barack in there, and keep the crazy insanity you Pajamas nutcases represent out. But trust me, my Left friends did not vote. You will have to reconcile yourselves to this hard fact. Occupy Wall Street, Now and Forever!
Stop blaming politicians, we go to war with the military we have, we go to elections with the electorate we have. Politicians are our creation.
May be we should revive Earmarks so the Republican districts can get their fair shares of free stuffs. Fiscal cliff be damned, more than half of the voters don’t care.
Let’s face it. The country is in a Mess, due largely, but not solely, to the arrogance and incompetence of our President and his thugs. The Mess is about to catch up with us, and Obama has already proven that he can’t handle crisis. I’m sure Romney would have made a better President than bankrupt and clueless Obama, but I’m not convinced he could have fixed the Mess in four short years. So, perhaps it is better to have the incompetent Left face what they have created take the fall for its collapse?
Venezuela has collapsed, Chavez was reelected.
We ain’t in Venezuela, Dorothy.
I discovered this site thru Real Clear Politics and started reading the column and the related comments. After reading everyone’s predictions and the remarks about “skewed polls”, on several occasions I told everyone to check out Nate Silver’s 538 blog. He has been called a nerd ,a gay, and a sissy. No one on this site spent much time with the electoral college. Nate nailed it, and all the numbers have been available to anyone who cared to look. But everybody here bought Dick Morris’ wet dream. Dick Morris, the pundit who is NEVER right. Along with Barone, and Wills, and Noonan. The empty suit never had a chance. Better make sure Marco Rubio stays healthy. Last night Rove on Fox, simply wouldn’t accept the Ohio numbers. Just like everyone here.
Let this be a lesson, Roger: magical thinking is not thinking. You claim memebership in the party of realism, but your posts on this topic have been remarkably unreal.
As I feared, my predictions for last night came to fruition. While despair may be an unforgiveable sin, I do believe that serious introspection is required. The GOP’s inability to retake the Senate should trouble all of us. This
is the second consecutive election where the GOP was well-positioned to retake the Senate and we instead snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Rule number one should be to cease nominating candidates who cannot articulately defend the pro-life position. If you are not able to intelligently defend your pro-life position then stay quiet and simply provide a canned response (such as “I have always been pro-life and support measures which extend legal protection to the unborn”) when asked any question that even tangentially deals with the abortion issue. We cannot afford any more performances like that of Akin and Mourdock.
We also need to drive home the importance of the Buckley Rule which calls for supporting the most electable conservative in GOP primaries. Over the past two election cycles we have given away Senate seats in Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, Indiana and Missouri because primary voters have insisted upon ideological purity to the detriment of electability. Richard Lugar would have won last night’s Indiana Senate race with more than 65% of the vote and his voting record is hardly moderate or liberal. Understanding and implementing the Buckley Rule tells us that we can nominate Ted Cruz in Texas because he can win there. Texas (at least for now) is a red state that elects more purist conservatives. Ted Cruz is also very capable of intelligently defending his positions-something Mourdock and Akin were not. As Michael Tanner has pointed out, “Tea-party voters would do well to realize that simply being anti-establishment is not enough for a candidate. Supporting a candidate with the charisma and talents of a Ted Cruz or a Jeff Flake makes sense. Supporting a Richard Mourdock simply because he shares similar political views doesn’t work as well.”
By the way, if you want an accurate account of Pauline Kael’s quotation, see http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2012/10/The-Fraudulent-Factoid-That-Refuses-to-Die.
Thank you for that. Anecdotes can certainly take on a life of their own, over time. The scariest thing is when incidents IN OUR OWN LIVES do likewise.
“it is essential that conservative intellectuals do not abandon the effort to change the culture . . . and do all possible to challenge the ascension of a failed intellectual liberal ideology, whether it be in the form of Progressivism, liberalism or socialism.”
Herein lies the problem. It wasn’t Romney or Ryan who let us down. It was the conservative intellectual class that claims the mantle of leadership, but simply does not have the moral courage, fighting spirit or imagination necessary to revitalize conservatism. I blame you and Ron and all the rest of your class
I think it would be highly appropriate for certain folks here at PJ Media, as well as everyone at National Review and Weekly Standard, to take these election results to heart and to rethink the various assumptions you abide that led to this debacle.
Gotta tell you. I am sick of the moderation of comments around here. Hop to.
Your English friend is right. My own assessment is here.
there is a tiny pendulum…
non presidential year elections.
if the electorate has changed, it suggests that core supporters of the gop are still far more numerous than dem core support.
the house will be run by the gop for at least the next 4 years. obama’s leash is about 2 inches long.
California is the future of America. It is now a single party state turned on it’s own to steal as much as possible from whoever it can to pay for lavish public employee pensions and unions who kick back and control The Party–and when I say “The Party” you should understand the import. What will come next is an expanded State Security sector to ensure Order is maintained. Higher taxes will be needed to make up for what The Capitalists have made off with. We all must sacrifice (well, almost all). Emmanuel Goldstein WILL be brought to justice!
Report any infractions for your own safety.
I’d like to remind your friend that the 47% includes the retired, the ones who worked all their lives paying into social security and are able to get that benefit.
I believe the break down of the 47% can months ago and it was found to be a major gaff on Romney’s part. Why is it still used? Because its good to imagine a nation full of leeches when you try to rally support.
4409 — John McCain is a Psychopath, liar, flip flopper, scam artist, legislative terrorist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqLWvDO1Efo&feature=player_embedded
I came across this morning one of the types who cost us the election; an otherwise reasonably intelligent, industrious middle-aged man who declared that he believes Obama has “some good ideas”, and that Romney’s plan to create jobs wasn’t really a plan at all, just an empty claim. It almost amazes me, the profound apathy, ignorance and weakness of intellect that really does dominate. We had the chance to elect a real president again, the hope of recovery while there may yet be time. No longer.
The American character has been driven out of the population by the Leftist education system, mass media mouthpieces, sociopolitical engineering, and all the money behind them. It is both our greatest strength and weakness, our American exceptionalism, and it would appear that we are now outnumbered in that regard. The scale is tipped, and we are headed for almost certain disaster. Obama will now proceed with the destruction with impunity, as he declared to Medvedev while believed to be off camera, that he will have “much more flexibility” upon reelection. In other words, dolts such as the aforementioned are now irrelevant. We are to be transformed into a European style socialist state, at best, the first major step being our forced dependence under government socialized medicine. The Chinese will wait out our downfall until the time is right, then step in somewhere down the line as global socialist leader. I cannot believe I am saying this.
“Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.” Lincoln
It is done. Follow the yellow brick road to Utopia, or else. Leftist Totalitarianism is here, and most of the country does not yet realize it.
I disagree that its the Obamessiah. What he represents is a stark reminder of the continuation or acceleration of that decline.
“This is for all of my fellow conservatives, lets forget every other electoral group for now. We lost because of the women’s vote. Women made up 53% of the electorate and Obama won them by 11%. Why? It does not take to much thinking to figure that one out. Romney outperformed Aiken by 24% and Murdock by 14%. Let’s do the math and get real. Keep your morals in your churches and lets get back to advocating for smaller government, personal liberty (yes, even in the bedroom), and fiscal responsibility. If not, get used to Democratic victories, bigger government, higher taxes, and out of control deficits. Do we really care if Sandra Fluke has an abortion? No, we should encourage her and her ilk to NOT reproduce by any means necessary.
Democratic minorities are as socially conservative as Republican whites. Look at the voting patterns for proposition 8 in CA in 2008 and prop 19 in 2010 and you will see who voted for what. Difference is, they are smart enough to put their economic interests are first. Shouldn’t we?
Social Conservatism is not classic conservatism it is the doom of the Republican Party.
I think that you have put your finger on possibly the largest of the conservative’s blind spots. Even O’Reilly, who fancies himself to be some sort of wily centrist seemed shocked that people did not take up his outrage/mockery of Sandra Flock. You lose the female center, for sure, with that stance. But this is yet one more indicator of the shaky coalitions within the GOP. Candidates are always a hair-trigger away from alienating some part of the base they need, when they soften their position. And while I am at it, the whole oppression of the religious freedoms of catholics has also bombed. What would you expect when most of its women DO use birth control?
I agree completely with your English friend.
US influence over world events rose after WW2 and stayed at a high level through the intervening decades. Landing on the Moon, the creation of the Internet, the ever increasing effectiveness of capitalism.
I remember something Gorbachev allegedly said to Reagan in Iceland, that the Soviet people were exhausted by the Cold War.
Bin Laden may be dead but he will end up as a grand historical figure. 9/11 and the subsequent war against terror/fundamentalist Islam/AQ has exhausted America. OBL was the proximal cause, but the rot started with the radical 60′s.
The kind of can do people created by the Great Depression and WW2 were replaced with Occupy Wall Street.
It’s painful to realize that we’ve all had the misfortune to live through, and watch in real time, the moment when the historical arc of the US went through an inflection point.
When history is written, people will regard the 2001-2012 period as the moment when the last bastion of worldwide conservative thought (aka the United States) gave up and joined the social democracies of the world.
I currently live in Sweden an it is not the paradise many on the left claim it to be. The media is tightly controlled (by the left, so that may be paradise for some); mediocrity is the norm. and pretty much socially enforced; achievers tend to leave quickly (I hope to be one soon); minorities are either lionized or demonized depending on the context, never just accepted as part of the social landscape. It is prosperous and socialistic because it has not gotten involved in costly conflicts that would affect it, but rather let others figure out those problems to their gain. If America becomes more like Sweden, what will Sweden become? It’s existence is inextricably dependent on who and what America is. The schadenfreude is that America gets what it deserves and so does the rest of the world. But if Sweden (or anyone other country) gets burned; guess who they will look to as the cause of their suffering?
Romney got 3 million fewer votes than McCain in 2008, and Obama got 10 million fewer votes than he got in 2008. The Total vote was depressed by 10%, the Voters said “A Pox upon both their houses” and I think it was because of all the negative advertising.
Someone wrote once …”"But understand this, that in the last days there will set in perilous times of great stress and trouble. hard to deal with and hard to bear. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate (greedy) desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffers), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural (human) affection (callous and inhuman), relentless. admitting of no truce or appeasement. [They will be] slanderers. false accusers, trouble makers; intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous (betrayers), rash [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it. their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession. Avoid [all] such people. turn away from them.”… SOme may call it a myth, but it it seems to be happening just as written. The US as we know it is gone because of the above prophecy.
You can’t just blame Women.
I was at the Post Office today and two women were talking.
One was going to shut her business down and the other said in six months(At most) she was shutting her business down also.
They were in shock this morning
Simple minds want simple explanations. Try to guide them to something real.
Yea; Like an escort service with their Obama-phone.
Yes, just look at the left. Simple minds, satisfied by simple explanations.
I think repubs need to do some soul searching, especially on how to broaden our party to get that remaining 5% we need to win, with groups like hispanics, asians, and women. Hispanics and asians are workers and entrepenours and dont want gov handouts, they just want an accomidation on immigration. We can’t cede 70% of the hispanic vote to the dems and win, we need to move on immigration. And we need to make sure that if we nominate any pro life candidates, at least they are not religious nut types like Akin and Mourdock, who badly alienated women and moderates. We also need to move on gays to win young people, who really cares if 2 men want to get married, they dont hurt us or cost us anything. We cant just depend on fervor within our present cooalition, we must expand it, and the type of issues I cited here are not the vital type of pocket book issues we must stand firm on, but can win us a lot of new votes.
All we have ever had to do to change this dynamic, shock the country out of its indoctrinated stupor and re-energize our troops was to confront the media. Make the media the issue. And in none of the post-mortems or reflections or recommendations for how we go forward have I heard this mentioned. We lament the power of the media over and over again but NOT ONE PERSON has said, “well, it’s high time we went after the media.” We really are pathetic.
As an American living in Canada, I wonder why no one points out that significant portions of the electorate did not rally to Romney because for many people his religious affiliation is viewed as a cult, not any different from, say, scientology. Why are Republicans ripping themselves apart over fantasy faults? Seniors normally vote Republican; their turnout was poor this time. Why? No one ever explained why Romney, a seemingly intelligent person, was a member of what seniors were taught was a cult religion, not a real Christian religion? He seemed like a nice guy, seemed normal, etc. But there was, I am sure, this twinge of doubt about him. His religious affiliation was never discussed–for politically correct reasons–but then how does this lack of discussion make Republicans any different from the most leftist politically correct Democrat?
I feel like we live in an emotionally based society that feels more than it thinks. This is the product of an entertainment industry that feeds us a steady diet of unreality that we somehow morph into our own personal world view. That’s my guess as to how Obama won. Political pundits are puzzled as to how a president with such a dismal record could get re-elected. It’s true that Romney could have run a better campaign but in an increasingly secular society people needs to place their hope (use to be religious faith)in something and the entertainment industry with the media as an aid skew people’s vision of reality. People want to believe in the president just like they want to believe in reality show candidates. I fear Daniel Boorstin in his book The Image was right. Malcolm Muggeridge also touched on this in his book Christ and the Media. I’ve been listening to Firing Line debates with William F. Buckley and lament that we can no longer have forums like this to have an honest exchange of ideas. Now it’s just a lot of blather about how the candidate appeared tonight, what he looked like, was he likeable, blah blah, blah. Where’s the substance? It’s all about the feeling.
I believer it’s also a symptom of our loss of a common culture. People only consider how they may personally benefit from particular issues. It’s easier to tribalize groups today an appeal to them to get their vote. America perhaps has seen it’s better days. The only tonic is a deep recession, perhaps a depression. William F. Buckley once said, “Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”
The root of your problem isn’t tactical. It’s that Americans really aren’t Conservatives, at least when they get a load of what you guys are in favor of.
You shouldn’t be too down in the mouth though. You’ve won most of the battles of the last 40 years, especially on the economic front. You’ve got much of what you wanted: deregulation, the drastic lowering of tax rates on the higher brackets, and the dismantlement of many public services that aid ordinary people. You’ve successfully increased economic inequality so that America is now roughly as unequal as a banana republic. You’ve made public education so expensive that a college degree is becoming a barrier to keep the great unwashed from horning in the privileged. You’ve gone a long way towards breaking down the barrier between church and state—the prolife folks might as well be campaigning for compulsory belief in transubstantiation, after all, since their goofy sacred biology about sentient zygotes is as sectarian as anything in the works of St Thomas.
It’s been a great run. Of course you haven’t, at least yet, reduced old folks to eating dog food or relegalized slavery, but nobody gets everything they want.
Are you supposed to be the King of Snark?
Actually, we’ve lost the battles you enumerate due to sabotage from the left. Deregulation was never accompanied by adequate and proper enforcement (thanks to the likes of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank). Many “ordinary people” no longer have any reason to work since it doesn’t pay as much as sitting around the house on various programs while those who wish to work have no jobs available to go to since Democrats make job creating capital risks foolish except for the politically connected who find taxpayer underwriting. Economic inequality is more a product of Leftist policy and cronyism than anything the Right has done. Public education has been made as expensive as it is by the Leftists who run the ‘educational’ institutions. The Church has long been on the ropes in this country and will become as irrelevant as it is in Europe if Obama’s legions have their way. “Pro-life” folks are really only important at election time when the collaborationist media trots them out to frighten women into thinking chastity belts are about to be mandated by the Evil Republicans. As for the dog food diet, Obama and Harry Reid should fix that oversight and make it common place over the next couple years. It is your element who yearns to make us all unpaid employees of Big Brother’s plantation.
No doubt you will modestly demure about your accomplishments and attribute them all to your opposition as their results are tabulated in coming years. Your solution is always to insist we needed more of it, suggest we didn’t go far enough, and that anyway it’s Bush’s Fault.
You seem very bitter. Something wrong at home?
I think that he expresses reasonably well the bitterness on elements in the other side. At PJM we get the endless bitterness at the way society is heading from one side; he gives us the other side. Those of us in the center, who go along to get along, tend to see bitterness as an unproductive emotion, but can recognize that many cherish their bitterness, as it is an essential part of their character. To me, the healthy attitude is to pick yourself up after a defeat and move on, or know that even when you have won a victory, that you are still faced with an unending struggle.
I hope that most of the civil war talk at the beginning of the thread is a relatively harmless blowing off of steam. There was a lot of such talk in the South in 1860 among who “knew” that because they were proud, better fighters, and generally tougher than the soft yankees that they would prevail. 600,000 deaths later, they found out that Sam Houston was right, and that they were wrong. Many elections have been won and lost since Jefferson and Adams duked it out. Only one caused a civil war. Let’s keep it that way.
Well done! a Perfect score – every sentence false.
The disgusting result of this election can be explained with three letters: NEA. As long as the educational system is controlled by these leftists the Dems will rule. They have made interchangeable the terms “success” and “failure”.
Congratulations to President Jarrett.
A solid Romney victory was plausible. It didn’t happen for several reasons, but let’s face it: this shouldn’t have been close. America is headed into a rapid drain spiral now of decline and ever more socialism; think Atlas Shrugged, in effect. The question for conservatives and the GOP is this: do we “moderate” and move left, playing junior-varsity to the Democrats’ full-varsity socialism and reverse racism? What can we offer Hispanics? Even more food stamps and subsidized rents? I’m sorry, but that’s why they favor the Dems. Time for an even more uncompromising, full throated defense of the truth, about Obama and our financial mess. If the country goes down, it’s going there anyway; the Dems bought this, they get to lead us forward over the cliff. I don’t see much hope but if we’re going down we might as well go down speaking truth to power and not try to drink Dem Lite beer.
Still no acknowledgement that the science of statistics maybe, just maybe, trumps the fallacy of wishful thinking in predicting elections?
I love reading all these tales of woe. Romney lost the election because he pandered to all the Neanderthals that post on this blog. What a riot you all are! Please keep me laughing.
Dave–That’s kind of a stupid thing to say in my opinion. You offer nothing of substance. We are Neanderthals? I imagine you get most of your information from Jon Stewart, HuffPo, and DailyKos. Or maybe from Letterman. You come off like a walking cliche when you write stuff like that. Is it your intent to have us believe the Left is even less thoughtful than we think it is already?
This was a very interesting article. Not sure I agree entirely but I never considered it from this perspective,
http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/00643-despite-great-recession-obama%E2%80%99s-new-coalition-elites-has-thrived
Take a look at the top donors for each candidate,
Obama
https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00009638&cycle=2012
Romney
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286
That’s really bad news if the tech industry is in the bag for Democrats. That means Democrats effectively have control of the mainstream media and the internet not to mention the entertainment industry. What do Republicans have – Fox News and radio talk shows. Sounds a little dated. Controlling the internet is like controlling the air space in a war. It’s going to be hard to compete in the future. How did we get here?
Ah, the Democrats celebrate, Republicans wring their hands. A few persons, like Linh Dinh, speak the unvarnished truth:
“As expected, the two corporate and eternal war candidates got nearly all the votes . . . It is remarkable, really, the continuity of the American looting and mass murdering project. The US military has turned the Persian Gulf into its own bloody bath tub in fulfillment of the Carter Doctrine. Democratic Carter cited the Soviet threat, but he was also aiming to keep the Arabs in line, to prevent another oil boycott that would cripple this country. It doesn’t take much of a gas disruption to sow chaos here, as shown by Hurricane Sandy. . . According to the corporate schill that’s the US President, America is well on its way towards energy independence, though gas is up, up, and up, and we’re wringing oil from rocks and brewing it from maize, neither one a cheap or energy efficient proposition, but don’t worry, just keep driving those SUVs and pack the NASCAR grandstands as the seas rise to your neck. As we enter the yo mamma of all depressions, partly caused by the job outsourcing started by the Democratic Clinton, the corporate schill du epoque is also promising more jobs, but where will these be found in this deliberately de-industrialized nation? We make nothing anymore except guns, corndogs, bombers, and pornography . . . The college basketball season will open with a game on an aircraft carrier, I kid you not, and one in an Air Force hangar in Germany. Hoopsters will wear camoflaged uniforms designed by Nike. The militarized corporate monster has infiltrated every aspect of American life . . . Education is the answer, Obama and Romney both stressed, especially higher education, though more than half of recent American college graduates can’t find work, though most are burdened with life-wrecking debts. Our banks, universities, and bank-run government have colluded to jack up tuitions to unconscionable levels. As with the national debt itself, we’re eating our young. Or maybe education isn’t the answer. From the mouth of a two-degreed librarian at a Midwestern university, “We don’t really need industries, since we’re a financial service and information economy now.” . . . If that’s smart, who needs brain dead?. . . This morning, many wake up giddy because they feel they have accomplished something together. As in every four years, they have once again said “I do” to their own rapist. . . American democracy is like a restaurant with only two items on the menu, and no matter what you order, ass or pachyderm, you’re served a toxic and bloody mess. Disatisfied, you must wait four years to order again, only to receive, once more, a toxic and bloody mess. Bon appetit!”