It was with a sad and heavy heart that I watched the election results come in last night and realized that my pessimism about the electorate was warranted. However, with the popular vote so close, it seems that we are, as Drudge says, a very divided country. I expect that we will stay that way for some time. Given the difficulty that Republicans have in winning elections — how can they win Ohio or Pennsylvania, for example, given the large number of unions in those states? — it is important to think through psychological and economic ways of coping for the next four years or more.
One important way of coping is to realize how many conservatives and libertarians are out there and connect with them. I spent some time out in California last month and was amazed and delighted to see so many people who had a similar take on politics as myself. We ate dinner, went to events and shared stories about our experiences as right-leaning individuals in left-leaning professions. It was refreshing and good for my emotional health.
It is also imperative to make connections with those of a similar political persuasion not just for the social aspect, but for financial and legal ones. As the economy continues to do worse (and it will), we need to lean on each other for support, work, encouragement and even legal help. Given the press and the liberal’s penchant for making those on the right into pariahs, our jobs, reputations, academic freedom and economic well-being are often on the line. Because we tend to be more individualistic, we are often left to fend for ourselves in these arenas. Don’t let that happen.
If someone on the right has a business, support it if it is worthwhile. If they need help defending their reputation, jump in. If an angry professor is isolating and belittling a conservative in the classroom or a public forum, speak up. A group of two is better than one, and more is better. If you find yourself in a situation where you need help, ask for it. If you see another conservative or libertarian in trouble, even if it is just in a blog post, do something. Defend them, fight back, and support your fellow political travelers, because if you won’t, who will?
Also read: Why Obama Won — and What Conservatives Must Do
I referenced a desire to do just this in another topic – the big question is how do we connect with like minded people and businesses?
As you noted, we tend to be individualists and self sufficient, so we don’t tend to network in such a manner.
My suggestion was a conservative/libertarian equivalent to Angie’s List or Craigslist. Unfortunately, I know of no such entity at the moment.
Freedomworks provides an opportunity to connect with conservatives as well as local tea party meetings. Haven’t done it myself but my cousin participated and said she enjoyed Freedomworks.
Great idea. A board like Angie’s list for jobs and services sounds like a good one
Scott,
We tried to launch a conservative business network over four years ago when Obama was running for president because the writing was on the wall. Unfortunately, we lacked the proper contacts and connections to venture capital.
Our concept was very well received, but we just weren’t able to get it off the ground. However, the 2012 election provides further evidence of its viability.
Who knows, maybe through forums like this, we can build a network of interested investors.
Also, I wrote and self-published a book earlier this year, Don’t Bully Me For My Lunch Money – Or My Vote!
Is it not obvious that America has been politically-hijacked?
So, the prescription for what ails you guys is to try and purify and expand your circle or Republican friends? And you’re hoping a website can come along and help you do that.
What ever you do, don’t take a look at yourselves or question if you might be taking this a little too…I don’t know the word, it needs a Melville…monomaniacally?
I really hate that Everything Is About politics. The Left started this way of thinking: patronize left-oriented businesses, boycott and slander businesses they perceive as right-wing… or those which are owned or run by someone who in their private life is conservative…. or even simply refuse to take a stance on a political issue.
Politics should be a very, very small part of our daily life and consume very little of our attention span. Instead, it’s become infused into our work, our recreation, our entertainment, our religion, everything.
It’s sad, but given that it’s happened, not much we can do other than play that game and support one another.
Conservative bloggers need to stop making fun of liberals and start trying to convert them. It is wise to blog about the benefits of conservative policies, but when they make jokes about liberals and ridicule them they just harden the liberals in their positions and the liberals tune out the conservatives’ arguments and data.
Bloggers have to decide if they want to be part of the solution or part of the problem. Changing the minds of people who disagree with you requires a different style than preaching to the choir. Preaching to the choir is easy and is a great way to attract a lot of attention to yourself. Changing the minds of people who disagree with you is a lot harder – it requires respecting people who might be misinformed and explaining things to them with patience and clarity rather than sarcasm and irony.
Conservative bloggers need to have a discussion about this. Is their job to help change society, or just to complain about it? Do they want to be part of the solution or remain part of the problem.
The results of this election proves they are not part of the solution.
Have you paid attention to what the left says about us? “Making fun” of them is mild compared to what they openly desire to do to us.
I am often bothered by the inflammatory headlines some of my favorite bloggers attach to informative stories. I would prefer that they let their excerpts speak for themselves.
Liberals can make fun of us with impunity. They don’t have to convert us to win. We need to win the argument. Be precise. Make it clear why individuals and society would benefit from conservative policies. You can’t talk slash and burn when you have 15+% real unemployment and people who may have listened to you at one time are now dependent on the government safety net.
At lease we know there is no election fraud in over half the congressional districts, though there is some in far too many states.
We can look forward to sequestration. We can look forward to the government resorting to inflation to fund their corruption once lending to the government drys up.
Now would be a great time to borrow to start a small business. You pay back the loan in highly inflated money, which is nearly free. Make sure the business is finely divided to avoid the health care taxes once you get too big. Rather than hire new employees, start another business, and pass your products business to business. Have another business own the product through the cycle so you don’t have to pay sales taxes as you move work from work station to work station.
The wages you pay to your workers would decrease over time, due to inflation, so anticipate giving them frequent small raises in the ever more worthless money. You get paid after you create the product, so you have a chance to set prices to compensate for inflation. Anticipate giving your employees a long lunch so they can go out and spend their money before it becomes worthless.
A good idea to sell wheelbarrows and purses. Take your money to the market in a wheelbarrow, and bring your food home in your purse.
Here’s the problem – we not only have an obviously stolen election, but we also have a voting infrastructure that allows future elections to be stolen at will.
Until we can go back to paper ballots, purple fingers, and picture IDs, we no longer have a republic, and it no longer matters whether we can educate or persuade our fellow citizens.
I will agree that we need to stop taking the liberal bait, so to speak. We tend to engage and spit it back when the venom is spewed at us. There is no converting someone who is so willing to resort to personal threats and the vile name calling, some of which I have been a target of.
We are not dealing with something that can be converted when you reach to the far Left. Now, it is different for someone sitting closer to the middle. I mentioned in an earlier reply there must be an impetus or something of personal significance for someone to change their thinking. That goes for most things in life, not just politics. For me, it was Monica Lewinsky that started my tip from Democrat to Republican; then came 9/11 and I made the full journey. I am not saying things need to be that extreme, but it has to resonate.
Does that include death wish toward those who agree with you on most issues, but disagre on some?
‘Cause that’s what happened to me on PJM on another thread, today.
I offered no threat of my own and no name-calling of my own…but the respiondant wished that I might die as a result of my opinion.
No. Republicans and conservatives do not have the high road wrt this issue. It’s immature and counter-productive…and, like little children you claim, ‘Well, he started it!’
It’s time to grow up, people. It’s time to question your premises, brutally and honestly…’cause what you’re selling to the nation just isn’t working. Especially if the sentiment you’re selling is ‘Submit or die!’
Far easier said than done. This election I encountered willful ignorance. And, worse, willful acceptance of the lies told. It’s not possible to reason with those who willfully choose not to accept reason. Even attempts at appealing at their emotions failed as they chose to buy the spin.
I’m afraid that we’re on the same path as the Greeks and Europe. The citizens know there is no money yet they persist in the belief that they can keep going has they’ve gone on without change.
I’m afraid that the tree of our liberty may end up being fed by the blood of patriots. It will not end well. Not because those of us on the right (who have guns and know how to use them) want to fight, but because we’ll be forced to defend our liberties from them who will forcibly take them from us.
I agree with what you say but the fact of the matter is that Romney received 3 millions less votes than McCain and McCain received slightly more votes in 2008 than Obama did in 2012. These votes would have changed the election. We have to tell the story the media won’t calmly and clearly if we hope to educate and motivate.
The media and public schools are the enemy. The media will become more irrelevant. Unfortunately, that has been set back for awhile. Unless we can take back the schools and quickly, the eventual fiscal collapse will do it in a far more ugly fashion. I doubt that will happen.
Hello, financial disaster. It’s only a matter of time now.
40 years of owning the Education System and the Media has been bearing fruit.
As with a child, reasoning with liberals has clearly been shown not to work. Their minds don’t think that way, and interestingly enough they display the maturity levels that a child has.
They WANT to be taken care of, and when mommy and daddy can’t do it, then by Gaia the government should step in and do it.
Can’t be taking responsibility for ourselves, now can we?
And as with that willful child, sometimes the only recourse, the very last resort, is to hope they survive the experience when they finally go through with their ill conceived plans regardless of warnings to the contrary.
Nothing like getting burnt on a hot stove or breaking a leg jumping off a roof to finally impress upon one those were bad ideas..
That level of ramification is the ONLY thing that will convince liberals.
Unfortunately, they are childishly insisting that we all go down on the sinking ship with them as they continue to drill holes in the bottom to let the water out….
well said. Also agree with Helen’s excellent advice. However, I don’t want to be depressing, “but” in addition to the good advice given, I think all of us need to accept the fact that, short of unforseen circumstances, the America we grew up in is gone – and plan accordingly.
I’m not going to act like others from Empires Once Great who, for centuries, hang on to the ridiculous notion that their countries still are what they once were. The results of this election show that the belief system that made America great, is no longer held by the majority of its citizens. And worse, the powers that be will assure that trend increases rather than decreases.
Not to say we can’t be restored, but it may be centuries and a perhaps even colony on another planet before the rot that has now become entrenched can be removed to make way for a restoration of the America we once knew. No longer do a majority of our citizens hold dear the beliefs of self-reliance and charity from “me”. Rather, they now hold the belief that Government is God, from whom all blessings flow.
This country was founded by a population of people who believed in God and a higher calling and their actions refelcted it. While there was many a scoundrel to be found, enough of them took the 10 commandments to heart. Don’t steal; lie; covet; honor your father and mother. Now coveting is official policy of this administration. Society promotes sexual promiscuity. We don’t value families and the media ridicules, not honors, our fathers and mothers. The lynch pin or our legal system requires that people give honest testimony. One viewing of Judge Judy reveals that bearing false witness against a neighbor is to be expected and now just a part of the game. How can we be what we once were when the majority now openly scoff at following the laws that prevent the rot that now infects us?
You don’t even have to BELIEVE in God to understand that if most people at least try to live God’s laws and share the brotherly love of Jesus Christ, America will becoome more like the America we lived in yesterday, and less like the one we live in today. It’s not rocket science.
If you want to return America to the country it once was, send your kids to a church or synagoge that teaches them to follow God’s word. If enough Americans do it, we can be restored.
Well,
judging by the number of catholic voters who voted for Obama and the number of curchgoers I personally know who voted for Obama I would guess you are way off base.
I think the whole church/gid thing is more a function of where you are in the country. In the red states church goers tend to vote republican. In the blue states, democrat.
Yours very depressed
Earl.
Ditto for the Jewish vote.
some does not a majority make. The majority of Christians and Jews who actually take the commandments to heart do not fall prey to the coveting (aka class warfare) and much of the other rot we face, as I noted above. Most of them voted for Romney.
The fact that a few of your friends go to church on Sunday and do whatever they want Monday- Saturday doesn’t change my point that America is a different place because they no longer share the values and beliefs of our forefathers.
We are not who we were. The values and beliefs have changed and our society with it.
The only “solution” that most of us will likely experience over the next four years will be the kind usually dispensed from a rubber bag with a hose attached. Party Faithful and Large cash contributors exempt, of course.
Taking the high road will not win any longer. They’ve been fighting to win cheating stealing lying framing lynching etc. What makes you think polite languge will stop that sort of thing?
You can’t convince them by being polite and rational. I’ve spent foyr years on several different forums – not having to do with politics but with online “friends” formed through another common interest. But they also discuss politics.
All that time I’ve been rational and polite, because that’s just the way I am, and could never descend into ridicule or name-calling.
But I’ve spent four years being called names for my conservative views, and simply condescended to by the most polite among them.
The result? Many of them, if not most, like me and respect me. Which is saying something, since they have run off EVERY other conservative who has dared express political views on those forums. They consider me something of an anomaly – sort of their pet conservative, I suppose. They pretty much like me despite the fact that I’m so stupid (never mind that my education and accomplishments leaves theirs in the dust), so unable to think for myself, so stubborn about accepting The Truth, and such a dupe.
So that is a four-year long, excellent real world experiment regarding the hypothesis that to change minds one should be polite. I’m here to tell you they not only will NEVER change their minds, about anything at all, they will NEVER stop being nasty and vicious.
They like you but they’re nasty and vicious to you?
I would say that’s a good idea except, being a Conservative blogger, you cannot covert a liberal one nor vice versa without an event or impetus to motivate said change. Think about the conversations and forum debates you have with liberals on your own. Now imagine trying to do so with someone even more entrenched; someone so involved they *write* about it to spread their belief set and ideas.
That’s a nice idea, but it’s a wasted effort. The effort instead should be focused on our kids and those coming up through the schools in coming years.
We also need to focus more on social media and realizing that identity politics plays a bigger role than we’d like in our elections.
We witnessed half of the country voting for more of the same — more of the binders, big bird and women as walking bags of birth control.
To quote a famous person who’s name I forgot; “You cannot reason someone out of a position they were not reasoned into.”
The left “feels”, it doesn’t reason. No amount of logical argument will make a difference. It is too late for any long range plan to work.
We are 3 days into the “New America”. America is going over the cliff. So protect yourself and your loved ones and wave bye bye to the fools as they fall.
Waste no effort on trying to stop them from going over the cliff. That is what Lemmings and Liberals do;
Carlprit “Do what you do”. House with ‘THUMP’. So if you don’t love house or THUMP, don’t click;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D0tLt0GmwQ
I suspect that your heart is in the right place, but as you’ve described it, it may not be a good use of your (or anyone else’s) time. There’s no such thing as “conversion” really.
The idea of “leading the horse to water” comes to mind. In blogging, you have a double-fold problem: First, you have to get someone to your site (leading them to water) and getting people to a new site is not easy. Second, you have to get them to convert (drink you in). Chances are that you’ll put people off if you attempt any kind of proselytizing. If people are good at anything, it is smelling a rat. Even if you’re nice about it, when you go about doing something with the idea of changing someone’s ideology, you’re operating from the assumption that they’re current ideology is wrong. Folks don’t like that. They are what they are because they think it is right.
Moreover: There’s an old adage about the 1 to 15 rule. It holds true in complaint departments and in advertising. It goes that for every complaint or person that you hear from, there are 15 others just like them who don’t communicate with you. That means that if you have 16 broken toasters, only one person brings it in for repair. The other 15 customers threw it away and chose never to buy your brand of toaster (or anything else) ever again. If a customer writes to complain about your TV commercial, there are 15 who didn’t complain, but won’t buy ANY of your products, etc. This is why both complaint departments and advertising agencies take these customer contacts so seriously. They KNOW that these interactions are FREE research, and need to be responded to immediately.
It is also nearly impossible to convert a Coke drinker into a Pepsi drinker (or visa versa)… and any brand/idea switching example will do here. Even if you GIVE the Pepsi away for free, people won’t convert to it themselves. They MIGHT use the free coupon, but they’ll keep the Pepsi for company, and continue to drink Coke themselves. All the time and money spent trying to convert that Pepsi drinker, you COULD have been protecting your existing customers, or finding people who were not yet brand loyal, or those were at risk of wavering (more about that in a moment).
What the above really means to you is that you’ll NEVER know how you’re doing. In blogging, that 1 to 15 ratio could be 1 to 150, because of the anonymity and size of the Internet (1 person may comment but 150 may be reading and taking you in) or 1 to 1,500, because you’ll NEVER know and you’ll never be able quantify, with any reliable certainly, the impact you’re having on others. You’d need to go into this knowing that you’d never know if you were doing any good, and if you need to know if you were having an impact, forget the idea now, because you would NEVER get a squishy-warm and fuzzy feeling about what you’re doing. On the contrary, most of what you’d get is people yelling at you, and people slandering you, with the intent of doing everything possible to ruin your personal reputation to destroy you and your family.
(On the latter, I speak from personal experience!)
With all the above disclaimers, there is a way that you could do something similar that would have a much better chance of having an impact. This has to do with protecting your existing customer base: People who are already conservatives. It may seem like a waste of time, but it is the BEST use of your time. If you had a blog that discussed conservatism, FOR conservatives, sort of like taking to yourself instead of to others, that explained all the reasons you are a conservative, that solves all the problems of coming off as preachy, or suggesting that anyone else might be wrong. It also gives you the opportunity to work through all the arguments you worked through that convinced you why being a liberal was a bad idea. Again, why it convinced YOU it was a bad idea, rather than why it should convince THEM it is a bad idea.
What this does is protect the base, and protecting the base takes far less time and effort than trying to convert someone from the Left. Think of the moderates or moderate-rights who voted for Obama, or folks who didn’t vote in this election. Getting those people to vote next time would make a HUGE difference. If they’d voted this time, the results would have been different. Obama won by protecting and appealing ONLY to his base.
Think of the people who call themselves conservatives who might want to waver on tax increases, gun rights, or any of the hot button issues with the idea of getting along with the other side. Consensus, when it goes against your major principles, is a bad idea. Consensus, when choosing the lesser of two evils is not necessarily a bad idea.
IF, while protecting the base, someone happens by (and ANYONE may listen), and sees that you’re all a reasonable bunch, who came to your opinions through fact and reason, someone might convert THEMSELVES to your way of thinking.
“YOU” never convert anyone to anything. People convert “THEMSELVES.” You can BRAINWASH someone, but conversion is something people do on their own.
It is especially true that you cannot “convert” someone to an individualistic / self-reliant ideology. It is learned thinking, not something one is converted to. It’s akin to an oxymoron to think otherwise. People have to do the heavy lifting on their own, read the history, and understand the unfettered arguments others are having, verify the facts that are presented, etc., and only then is there a chance of a corrupting seed taking root, and then, if you can imagine it, anything could happen. But you will never know.
(Helen, sorry for the LONG post!)
Sadly, a lot of Republicans have to fly under the radar or they risk losing their jobs and/or businesses. That will make it harder to ID them and support them. Our family’s bread and butter is the entertainment industry and you’ve never met a more vindictive bunch. They succeeded last night and I fear Republicans in the industry will be driven even deeper underground. I will do what I can, though.
You right wing bloggers gave me hope. “Don’t get cocky” you said. Don’t believe the polls you said. FOAD! Tears of sorrw for the future demise of our country are flowing today.
Lovely, S., as gracious in victory as you were in defeat in ’04. Let the healing begin.
I agree, S. My depression is much deeper because I half-believed all the optimism that was flowing so freely. Alas, it was not to be.
The sad truth is that 3 million people who voted for McCain did not vote for Romney. Was that because they were cocky, unmotivated or unconcerned by the importance of the election?
Or, the elephant in the room, has there been enough voter fraud, firmly entrenched, to get this effect? No ID my *ss.
This is what I can’t figure. Almost 3 million less votes for Romney vs what McCain did in 2008 when we had every reason to turn out even heavier than the last time. what happened to those people in Florida, Virginia and several of the other “swing” states. The national party structure has a lot to answer for here. Obviously their voter turnout efforts were pathetic.
There’s also the folks who stayed home because Romney was the RINO who gave us Romneycare. I don’t know how many of them there were, but they got progressively more irritated as their choices got shot down in the primaries.
I think it’s safe to say that the only primary candidate they liked less than Romney was Huntsman (and maybe Ron Paul).
And speaking of Paul the Elder … that petty rules change at the convention might have lost some of those votes, too.
Exactly. Rince and dry blew the deal. Instead of a focused campaign, with goals, objectives, timelines and all that MBA stuff, he was all over the lot as we say in the car biz. He tried to win it all and lost everything. Steele focused on winning what he could, which is why the GOP controls the House. He should have focused on taking the Senate. With the Senate AND House, it doesn’t matter who POTUS is.
One other possibility that could account for some of those missing voters is the rapid disappearance of the WWII generation. We all know that dead people vote Democrat, not Republican.
Mormon – the elephant in the room.
That at least cost Iowa, where they still seem ready to lynch Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and almost North Carolina. A lot of the deep south showed Romney at less than 60% (GA under 55%). I still say blacks (and many hispanics, I regret to say) were also playing possum or at least until the end were “pleasant neighbors” and might have told yall what you wanted to hear.
It is not unlikely that many of those voters were elderly and have died since the last election.
Go Galt.
Patrick Henry – I agree. I love my country and hate to say this but it is clear that we are now far outnumbered by the liberal special interests and the moochers. With help from the liberal media and the Democratic party, the moochers have figured out that they need to keep voting in order to keep the gravy train going. Amnesty will only increase the moocher class. As such, we might as well “Go Galt” and let the rats sink the ship that much faster.
We’re all frustrated and saddened by the the results last, but to “Go Galt” is like following through on a Mutually Assured Destruction strategy; it’s a good threat assuming the other side has the same interests, but when they clearly don’t, following through is suicide.
Instead, there’s a more positive strategy, more like what Reagan did in the Cold War: Build more and build faster than the other side. The free market and free people move fast. Central planning is powerful but slow. Those two things can be leveraged to our benefit if we keep innovating, keep investing, keep working hard to make new things and a brighter future.
We can build the future too fast for them to catch up. If we “Go Galt,” we’re done, but if we move fast enough, they’ll never catch us.
A little hope to go with the lack of change . . .
Those two things can be leveraged to our benefit if we keep innovating, keep investing, keep working hard to…
Not much incentive to do that when the government is positioned to confiscate the fruits of those efforts as soon as they’re able to be picked.
I’m sorry, you don’t have a permit to build yet as the environmental impact study has not been satisfactorily completed. You must begin the process all over again. In the meantime, make sure you are following our latest regulations – the current revison is only 15,000 pages long. Make sure you are only hiring union labor as well!
Oh, and when you do build it, make sure to abide by the latest regulations that you incorporate a breast feeding room, and we have a whole slew of new health care mandates you have to pay for.
Aw, who are we kidding? You won’t build that.
Our opportunity to turn it around has passed. They only way forward is to go off the cliff, crash and then pick up and start over with the survivors. Or, to use a different analogy, starve the beast. Don’t feed it. It needs to die. If we can’t slay with a sword, then it’ll need to be with a famine.
Do you have any idea of what Obamacare is going to do to small business? Heck, it’s already impacting big business.
Producers will stop producing. When you’re consistently getting less back than you put in you quit putting in. Half the country feels that way already.
I was hoping to take a big breath and go back to work this morning. I woke up and do not see anything different from the last 4 years. Same people in the same places doing the same things. I have no hope Obama will behave differently. I can only hope the Republican congress doesn’t.
It’s just depressing.
I can only hope the Republican congress doesn’t.
Placing bets on the possibility that congressional Republicans would be inclined to do the right thing would likely cause you to become poorer…
Lemme guess, you’ve never actually read Atlas Shrugged?
What is the incentive? Why bother working hard when you can have more disposable income living off of the system? Why work hard, when in the end there will be nothing to pass on to your children? The government owns you anyways. Why work hard when all of your effort will be criticized and any gain you make will be scorned and confiscaed? Why work hard when the government could choose on any day for any number of reasons to confiscate all of your assets? Why bother?
No, it is time to “Go Ragnar.” We revolted over far less in 1775.
I agree with your husband that you are a wise woman. A friend of mine who was liberal has lived in a nanny-state for several years and the tyranny and unintended consequences of its policies are changing her mind about many issues. I wonder if specific examples of misguided policies here in the US will help liberals change their minds.
And she still probably voted for Obama.
Two points :
1) Given that conservatives still refer to hard leftists as ‘liberals’ means conservatives still don’t understand why leftism keeps advancing against them. The are not liberal at all, but rather they are illiberal, rigid, and intolerent.
Yet, when I see a conservative refer to them as ‘liberal’, I see a conservative who will never figure out how they are themselves assisting their own defeat.
2) Most ‘conservatives’ actually support socialism… as long as it can be packaged as ‘chivalry’, where the woman is appeased and some man is punished.
Current divorce, alimony, child-support, and domestic violence laws are all heavy wealth redistributions, that have been zealously enacted by Republicans. ‘Welfare reform’ of 1996 was nothing of the sort…. it merely transferred the costs onto innocent fathers who could be jailed for being unemployed….something quite a few Republicans think is a good idea.
As soon as socialism can be packaged as ‘chivalry’, Republicans jump at the chance to out-left a leftist.
And to think that Rush Limbaugh used to hammer his vast audio radiance with the phrase “words mean things” in order to mock
liberals“hard leftists”.The time has come for conservatives to stop using pretty words to describe ugly things in order to be polite to our opponents. It’s as if we believe that if we don’t use ugly words there won’t be any ugliness. Meanwhile our hard left opponents scream vile epithets and death threats at us.
Strictly speaking, what you’re talking about isn’t socialism, they’re punishing an individual man here and another individual man there. Socialism requires spreading the takings against all men as a class. Your underlying point, that leftists advance their socialist agenda by gulling Republicans into expanding the reach of raw State power for anti-man aims (country club Republicans are sooooo easily swayed by this, IME), is undeniable though.
Micha,
Strictly speaking, what you’re talking about isn’t socialism, they’re punishing an individual man here and another individual man there.
Well, yes. But you get the broader idea. Many ‘conservatives’ do indeed support brutal and punitive redistribution, as long as the recipient is a woman and the ‘evildoer’ is a man who knew her.
That is actually more painful, in fact. The humiliation and shaming drives many men to suicide (as Dr. Helen has written about many times). At least when the left transfers money from men to women, it is all men to all women (as you point out). Having 10% of your 1040 taxes spread across ‘single mothers’ is less painful than having your kids taken from you, your earnings taken from you, and then have some ‘conservative’ call YOU the villain. You know, those same conservatives who are supposed to be for ‘personal responsibility’, ‘economic incentives’, etc. Funny how all those values get tossed out when groveling to women (and punishing a man as a means of this groveling) is possible.
Demographically if the Republicans can’t figure out how to get a significant minority vote they are toast in the Presidential election.
Americans fundamentally want a safety net. The Republicans need to figure out how to structure a better safety net and how to transition it to the states. Block grants of Medicaid is a good start. Republicans need to control the issue of education and how it is paid for and provided. There is large dissatisfaction with the results of current k-12 education system. It is a wedge issue they can use to crack parts of the democratic ecosystem.
If the Republicans/Libertarians can figure out how to transition from the blue state model to a purple/red model they can win.
With a growing portion of the population living in a single parent model designing a platform that gives them a helping hand while strengthening the capitalistic model of society would go a long way to moving voters over to the right side.
Breaking the MSM as primary sources of information should be a key as well as actually using science and facts to support your goals. Beliefs in this is the way it should be often founder on the shoals of reality.
The very problem is that Americans want a safety net. The idea of being a “purple” country is one that will slide is into blue, again. Human nature is what it is. History is our guide. Europe is our example. We are red or we are not (how I wish the colors were reversed – we are not communists).
Purple always slides into blue. The mistake the Republicans made after FDR was accepting that purple was OK. It should have been fought 60-70 years ago. We’re reaping what was sewn then and it’s a bitter harvest.
Want a safety net? Get a job. A job not enough, get two. That is what my father did, almost. Actually, he held three jobs as he needed to shelter and feed a large family. (The stuff the ‘greatest generation’ was made of…)
Society should not be about providing a safety net. It should provide opportunity to allow the individuals to flourish.
Survival of the fittest works. Always has and always will. Socialism be damned.
It’s not necessarily bad for society to provide a safety net – via friends, neighbors, churches and other voluntary associations; but “society” is NOT “government”, and “safety” is not a guarantee of keeping a middle-class-or-better lifestyle through all of life’s storms.
Or maybe we can call women who have kids out of wedlock irresponsible sluts. Why should I pay for their kids when I can’t even afford my own? Why should I reward behavior that is implicitly wrong and bad for children, both on the aggregate and individual levels?
This. That “helping hand up” just rewards bad decision-making…and they made it very clear yesterday that they do not want to raise themselves up, they want you to give them stuff.
“Socially unacceptable” behavior needs to become unacceptable again, exactly right.
This.
Note that many conservatives actually think single motherhood only happens because the father was a deadbeat (despite ruthless laws that make this impossible for a man to do).
In reality, single motherhood is a conscious choice by many women, who put the well-being of the child at a lower priority than getting money from the father, while having sex with a sequence of thugs and pickup artists.
Good lord. I think it’s imminently clear where your “political philosophy” comes from. Please don’t come near any of my daughters thank you.
You have proved my point better than even I could myself.
Come near them? More likely, they will pursue men like those I describe even without those men being interested (and if they are older than 18, probably already have more than once). Too bad you don’t think they are adults who can make their own choices (how misogynist of you).
You truly have no clue, and it shows. Re-read my comment 100 times if you must, but you are a huge example of exactly what is wrong with conservatives today (as I describe in my above comment).
You are in pathological denial about the reality of what women are vs. what men are.
Yes. Hiding ugly behavior behind pretty words only lets perpetrators of bad behavior escape the just consequences of what they’ve done.
By the way, females led the movement to shush anyone who identified those irresponsible sluts for what they are. Only females can undo that mistake. Tell your girlfriends. Ask them to tell their girlfriends too. Pass the word.
Uh, because females are suckers for cute babies and their baby mommas?
Q. What’s the difference between a kidnapper and a welfare momma?
A. The latter doesn’t have to take hostages, she makes them herself.
Let’s face it though. If females cared more for innocent children than for the most irresponsible sluts (your phrase) on Team Female, they’d insist that babies born out of wedlock be immediately liberated from their momma-sluts and sent straight into adoption into the stable heterosexual homes of married couples. But females don’t. Why not?
Uh, because Team Female protects their own, even if it harms children? And looks the other way if there’s a man to blame and squeeze cash out of (despite the fact that he’s usually less to blame financially than the momma-slut)? I’m looking at you, bupalos.
You can have pretty words or you can have reality. But not both.
Darn the lack of a “preview” feature like the big blogs have!
Romney would have won if he could just have turned out the same number of voters that McCain did in 2008 and in the right states. His campaign did not do a good job of getting the early voters out and relied on voting day turnout which was miserable. Over 13 million less votes cast than in 2008.
I disagree with your assessment that Romney’s campaign didn’t do a good job. Was it perfect? No. But I know many who worked long and hard to GOTV for Romney for weeks. It was the most massive effort ever put out by the GOP.
They did everything they could with headwinds of the strength of a Category 5 hurricane. Obama lied about Romeny and was never called on it. Obama lied about Benghazi and has not been held to account for it. He lied about his “successes” of the last 4 years. The MSM has aided and abetted the lies of this administration with their own lies and coverup of its failures.
My children, who know better, come home from school incredulous at what they’re being taught and even more so at their peers. Logic and reason have disappeared, replaced by emotion and “fairness”. It’s clear that it’s not just their teacher’s union teachers, but their parents who have accepted the lies, too.
Patrick,
It was Romney’s responsibility to call him on it. He was very weak in that area. He also had little credibility on arguing against leviathan government, having been the architect of it himself. Many conservatives tried to point this out all during the primaries and were told to STFU.
My husband is a teacher. Last week I was looking at a book they had teachers studying and giving presentations to each other about. The book was about how to differentiate lesson plans for regular and for “gifted” students. The lesson plans used as examples were about fairness and the environment. A few were about academic things, sort of – with an emphasis on how to apply these things to politics.
We’re doomed.
I agree with Jim. Republicans have to figure out how to get the minority vote. I also agree that education is a good place to start. There is agreement that the current system is not working as well as it should. Plus many choice options work specifically because they foster a sense of personal responsibility in the students.
As far as the safety net, I also agree that we need to accept that for now it is part of the culture. Too many people are uncomfortable with the idea of giving it up all together either because of guilt or fear that they may one day need it (or perhaps did need it at some point in their lives.) However we do need to change the language — it is not an entitlement. It is something that we as a country do because it is a good thing to watch out for those who may suffer misfortune. It should be viewed as grace and a gift to those who need it.
Good points but got any ideas that don’t require first changing the government over to your point of view?
How do you get from the point in history where we are to the point where individual freedom and liberty thrives? You start by dismantling piece by piece the regulations and programs that prevent it. You use the law, the courts, the media, and whatever tools you can. It is a process and a journey. The current unwieldy edifice of bureaucracy did not occur overnight and it will not go quietly. You take the socialists words and programs and use them against them. There are large portions of the populace who have been trained and have learned to not think deeply. Teaching them to think for themselves and to pursue freedom and liberty will not be easy. Putting shackles on ourselves because the world does not conform to our views is not a reason to go Galt or to give up. A better use would be to work and fight for the people, ideas, businesses and institutions that also believe in freedom and liberty.
Take a walk. Enjoy the sunshine. Start Christmas shopping. Enjoy life. My newspaper column today was about the 2013 Ford Shelby GT 500 that goes 200 mph for less than $60,000. I don’t own one, but if it warms up today I’ll drive with the topdown in my Mustang. If not, I won’t drive home that way. My point is, it is just an election. There will be another one in 4 years.
You can do that because you’re not going to lose your livelihood. Many of us aren’t that fortunate.
Well said Heather. Four years is a long time with little money, food or shelter. If worse came to worse, Don could always sell his Mustang before the roof started to leak.
What was your livelihood that this election just caused you to lose it?
Surber, try living on $16k (gross) per year.
Hey, kudos to you, seriously. Enjoy the fruits of your effort. I’m not envious.
I am however, completely flabbergasted by this attitude. Another election? Every election since I’ve been alive has moved us into worse and worse positions. I am very very disheartened about the coming 4 years and not entirely sure they’ll be free and fair elections again in my lifetime.
So forgive my lack of optimism.
My baby boomer parents. Went from the world’s most powerful empire in history to the world’s most screwed up basket case in 30 years or so. Impressive, really. The Russians couldn’t even jam us up as badly as we’ve done ourselves.
Maybe if we taught less social justice pap and more atual history, this crap wouldn’t be so cyclical.
Sorry, Dr. Helen, but it’s going to be way more than the next four years. Yesterday, the majority of the country voted to continue America’s transformation into Western Europe. Conservatism as we have known it in the past is over; from now on, elections will be about which party is deemed better able to manage our social-democrat structure.
Mochalite, you are right. Conservatism as I knew it is gone. I read one blog calling this our Dunkirk, its not, its Conservatives Waterloo.
Conservatism is dead. We no longer hold the high ground and can limit ourselves to conserving it. We have to start our own march through the institutions.
“…which party is deemed better able to manage our social-democrat structure”
Last night cost far more than four years considering at least two SCOTUS seats. But you’re correct about ‘which party is deemed better…’, and it’s an ability to get a message across to someone who is NOT listening and is so numbed to the noise that you can’t really shout loud enough.
There’s a failure in education which will require at least a full generation to correct. But before you can make a correction you’ve got to have educated educators. And a union go ahead to employ a successful educational strategy.
We’re a looooong way from making a correction to the country’s political direction. And last night wasn’t really our first clue. Right now, best case scenario is maintaining a struggling chance in the House Reps.
Right now, I feel like a Jew in ‘The Pianist’. I can only be glad Amtrak is such a failure.
MochaLite or Malachite or Molochite or whatever
There will not be a next time.
That there will be is the most widely shared
psychological protection mechanism in politics.
The current system is bankrupt, and the bill
comes due during this administration for _all_
the Pols.
First step to recovery? Re-elect John Boehner speaker of the house! Oh, wait, that doesn’t sound right.
See you at the next neighborhood Tea Party meeting, eh?
Hopefully to plan on winning State and local elections,
because the Federal level no longer matters.
We need to be persuasive. That requires not so much finding people of like mind but arguing in civil terms with those we disagree. A big concern I have after this last cycle is the level of discourse, especially on Twitter and FB. Spippets tend to be snippy and the discussion devolved into memes and name calling. I think we need to learn how to ask respectful questions. We need the opposition to come to the conclusion that the way we think is right. Insults just exacerbate the rifts. I know that is not compromise. Compromise is not my goal. Persuasion is.
You people make me sick… Can you give me some examples of Liberals admitting they are wrong and willing to compromise, EVER????
Wake the eff up…
Are you advocating compromise? I clearly am not. Persuasion requires changing their minds. It’s hard work. They have been increasing the number of takers. If we are are the producers, we need to pull more over to our side. You would think high unemployment might send the message that “killing the golden goose is not good for your well being” is self evident. Apparently 50.2% of the people presently disagree.
CivilWar2, the goal of arguing with a liberal is to win over persuadable moderates. I try to use relatively neutral primary sources of information to like Bureau of Labor Statistics to show number of people working, for example. Many liberals will throw the whole set of Saul Alinsky tactics into the argument. Calmly call them out when they throw out straw man arguments. Don’t demonize the opposition. Instead, let the persuadable moderates draw their own conclusions. When someone says something that isn’t true, calmly state that they are wrong and why, but don’t accuse someone of lying. If someone is lying, show the video to prove it and let the persuadable draw their own conclusion. Expect liberals to resort to ad hominem arguments as they are losing. Don’t get into the mud with them. Call them out, but drag the conversation back to the issue at hand. Work to win respect for conservatives and conservative ideas.
Moderate liberal!? Another mythical creature similar to a moderate Muslim.
George B never mentioned “liberal moderates”, dear Dog. I believe his intent was to demonstrate that the only productive purpose of arguing with a
liberalleftist is to sway the other people who are on the outside listening in on you and your leftist.^^^ THIS ^^^
Clue #2… How can liberal be wrong is the majority is right???
I’m sorry to admit, I’m on Facebook a lot. During the campaign, I got into a lot of ugly arguments on FB pages, like Kitchen Cabinet, and beyond the frustration, I enjoyed it. But after weeks of sarcastic jibes, mine and others, it finally occurred to me that it was counterproductive. If someone attacks me, even if they’re right, I will dig my heels in. Why wouldn’t my opponent do the same? In the aftermath, people on FB are feeling bad about the huge divide between us, and some little dialogue has begun to open up. We don’t all have the same FB connections, I know. I play games on FB, and however I got my gaming friends, I seem to have acquired a lot of salt-of-the-earth types. They are generally good people, reasonably intelligent, grossly uninformed, but some are open. I think my approach for the future will be what I’ve already begun to do: stealth education. I come to PJ a lot and have a few other sources I highly respect, and when there’s something I think they could understand and relate to, I post it. I lead off with a really good quote, so they might be curious. It may be the only time they’re offered a chance to think deeply about a topic. Not all people who voted Liberal, are Liberals. Some ARE accessible, they’ve just never been offered another way to think, after decades of being indoctrinated.
I propose to print up a bunch of “BOHICA” bumper stickers (with the Obama “O” logo in place of the O in BOHICA), then apply them to cars that already have Obama bumper stickers.
(For those who aren’t hip to the acronym BOHICA, it’s “Bend Over Here It Comes Again.”)
Rusty
Rusty, you’d better make magnets. Sticking a bumper sticker to a car is akin to vandalism and could get you in a lot more trouble.
I think you should also make up a bunch of magnets that say “Lady Parts! Squeee!” and put them on any cars that are owned by men.
Or, you could sell your coveted car, buy a junker and stick it on that. Send the difference to your favorite candidate or pjmedia. Some of our Founders suffered more than the loss of a nice ride!
Point well taken. I don’t think a center right platform will ever win the presidency until America experiences a very rude awakening. Even then it is doubtful a majority of Americans will be able to connect the dots. I am very pessimistic today. Your advice is spot on.
Fraud and corruption on a scale this major means America is toast as we know it. The Declaration clearly states “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”
That time is here folks… Arm up and save this Country..
I’m not advocating armed insurrection – but I do advocate being armed so as to protect your hearth and home and all your family therein.
Considering Greece as our probable future (maybe early 2013?), it’s only prudent to stock up on all kinds of things you won’t be able to go down to the local grocery store and purchase later.
Beyond that….
The only way there can be a successful push back against the overreach of federal tentacles is for the states to step up and lead it via state level legislatures.
They are the only game in town with any legitimate authority to do so.
I’ve begun researching the fall of the old USSR, and how that played out. (Yes, I am concerned enough to at least acquaint myself with the history of that particular national implosion – not saying it’s going to happen here, just saying it’s a possibility.)
That implosion was due to economic collapse.
The various states that made up the old USSR basically revolted against the centralized government when it got bad enough, and when the hardliners tried to reimpose old school Soviet suppressive measures the military refused to fire upon their fellow citizens.
I could see the states performing a similar function if things get bad enough, to either force a re-evaluation of the relationship between the federal government and the states – or to hold a new constitutional convention if such talks fail to produce a viable outcome.
But it is going to depend upon the states, not on individuals.
Indeed, the USSR is the best comparison, on account of the fact that they are the only instance of a nuclear power collapsing. Who will sign a new Megatons to Megawatts treaty with us to keep our scientists from going rogue, our military-industrial complex from becoming arms dealers and our soldiers from becoming mercenaries?
forgive this liberal for making comments but I intend to add rather than be snarky
1. demographics: the nation is changing…how many women, Hispanics, voted Democrat? WHY
2. Ohio: don’t blame that loss on unions ..it was what Obama had done to save jobs that saved him there.
3. The polls: look at all the polling prior to the election and how it gave a false sense of what was taking place…look too at the conservative pundits and their mistaken and bluffing optimism: Rush, Fox News, editorial writers for WSJ, Rove–all said that not only would Romney win but he would win BIG.
Is there a more accurate way to find out what is going on? Yes. (write me for answers to this)
4. In our history and politics it is the center and not the extremes that win support among those not fully aligned with a party. Seek a candidates) that reflect this rather than appeal to a group that, in its core beliefs, is off putting to the middle, the uncommitted.
thanks you for allowing me to make my comments.
“Demographics: the nation is changing…how many women, Hispanics, voted Democrat? WHY?”
Because they get free stuff and a free ride. We are expected to pay for all of women’s contraceptions/abortions and other medical issues (but men are never included in that mix for some reason). Illegal aliens are rewarded with citizenship ahead of other legit applicants.
“Ohio: don’t blame that loss on unions ..it was what Obama had done to save jobs that saved him there.”
Stupidity lost Ohio–and I mean that since they had to be stupid to ignore what Obama promised to do to the coal industry. He saved them long enough to get what he wanted. Now they’re toast and will be wondering what went wrong.
“The polls: look at all the polling prior to the election and how it gave a false sense of what was taking place…”
You’re right. We underestimated the power of stupid people in large groups.
“In our history and politics it is the center and not the extremes that win support among those not fully aligned with a party. Seek a candidates) that reflect this rather than appeal to a group that, in its core beliefs, is off putting to the middle, the uncommitted.”
That was why Romney was nominated, because he was more of a centrist, so what’s your point?
Lapides,
1. demographics: the nation is changing…how many women, Hispanics, voted Democrat? WHY
– For free stuff? Out of fear? Woman ALWAYS vote for issues of security, and Obama convinced them that Romney was the scarier choice.
2. Ohio: don’t blame that loss on unions ..it was what Obama had done to save jobs that saved him there.
Obama didn’t save jobs. Romney wanted the auto industry to go through a legal, structured bankruptcy. That would have resulted in someone or some other entity buying what was being sold. They DID go through through a bankruptcy. THe only difference is that the bold holders (some fat cats, but mostly grannies who lost THEIR pension savings) were illegally seized all of their assets, because they were legally entitled to first crack at the assets. Instead, the unions seized the cash. Now what was that you said about not blaming the unions???
3. The polls: look at all the polling prior to the election and how it gave a false sense of what was taking place…look too at the conservative pundits and their mistaken and bluffing optimism: Rush, Fox News, editorial writers for WSJ, Rove–all said that not only would Romney win but he would win BIG.
Is there a more accurate way to find out what is going on? Yes. (write me for answers to this)
The only true reliable person who thought that Romney would win big was Michael Barone and he was going by the historical indicators (a reasonable thing to do), and the fact that Romney was leading 5 days before the election. This is backed up by some large % of voters (can’t remember the exact number, so won’t quote) of people who actually made up their mind on election day, and hurricane Sandy had an impact on their decision as well (which was AFTER many of the folks you mention made their predictions). The fact that the election was very close in the battleground states proves that a few hundred in each of the counties, could have changed the outcome.
4. In our history and politics it is the center and not the extremes that win support among those not fully aligned with a party. Seek a candidates) that reflect this rather than appeal to a group that, in its core beliefs, is off putting to the middle, the uncommitted.
You need to re-calibrate since you’ve drunk from the Kool Aid if you think a moderate from Massachusetts is the extreme right. You need to get out more and spend some time in flyover country. Romney is about as Middle/Moderate as Republicans can go without being Democrats. Democrats have gone so far into the Socialism spectrum that you can’t even recognize the extremes anymore! It is Obama who is extreme, but he lies really, really well. He managed to convince over half the people that the economy is and was Bush’s fault, even though it never really was, and was the fault of a Democratic congress who forced Fanny/Freddie to write bad loans AND a Democratic Congress voted in during Bush’s last term. The reason the economy tumbled in the last few month’s of Bush’s term is because it was clear that Obama was going to win, and people who knew what that meant pulled their cash from the economy and got out, stage right. In addition, Romney is a Yankee who chose another Yankee as a running mate. Big mistake! No one in the last 100 years, as I recall, has ever won without at least someone on the ticket from the South (or at least 1 non-Yankee). Many conservatives stayed home (as with McCain) because they thought Romney TOO liberal. Romney didn’t appeal to Nascar Dads, even if he got 60% of the white male vote. Good grief. Extreme? Not even close. That’s a laugh. If you met anyone who really is part of the extreme right??? You might wet yourself. They even scare ME sometimes.
Oh, Mrs. Deety! Would that you weren’t one in a million.
Big govt tyranny runs on money, your money. So, you have to find ways to keep some more of your money from them.
It will fall apart because it simply cannot go on. Decide if you want to simply be a spectator or do you help push it over the edge by jumping on the gravy train now. Get a govt job or somehow get govt bennies and laugh as it goes over the edge but be prepared for the fall.
My biggest fear is for civil liberties. I think we need to form “Corresponding Groups” to communicate with like minded people.
Do not worry about the next election. When so many people believe in the govt gravy train, believers in individuality cannot win so don’t bother. Romney didn’t lose because his message was poor, he lost because of the MSM being on the side of tyranny. Nothing Nixon did comes anywhere near as bad as Benghazi or Fast and Furious yet Obama was re-elected because the MSM covered it up and they will continue to support tyranny.
Do not go out and buy a gun thinking that it is some sort of anti-tyranny fetish to scare them away. By the time they come for your gun, the game will be over.
We need to use their system against them because the best way to fight them is to make them look foolish. Don’t do anything illegal, their own system is the best weapon against them. File Freedom of Info Requests on anything you can think of, demand Environmental Impact Statements anytime they do anything and then say the one they do isn’t complete and we need another. I’d love to talk to like minded folks about how to do legal “monkey wrenching”.
I dont think people realize how bad the situation really is. It has been alluded to before but the imposition of Obamacare will fundamentally transform the Federal nature of the Repubic. There will be no turning back from this. Justice Roberts’ ruling allowed the imposition of a program that will be impossible to overturn via the ballot box. He did us no favors but pushing the decision back to the electorate. The creeep towards universal healthcare has never been reversed in any country. It is only the Constitution that makes America different – people are people and when given “free” anything they never relinquish it, no matter how effectively you argue against it or how service is – look at the NHS or Canada’s healthcare system. Big governemnt then grows from big healthcare and the Republic is lost. There is no turning back form this. I am a brand new American and am truly heartbroken today.
Damn it, you just made me cry. I’ve been holding it back until now. I often think about my ancestors coming here during the Irish (socially engineered starvation) potato famine hoping for a better life. I keep thinking, where in the world can we move to a free country? Here, this is where everyone has come to escape tyranny. Now there is nowhere to run. I can’t stop crying. My children keep asking why I am crying. I don’t know what to tell them. I have no hope left for their future.
Thank you, Doctor, they are wise, much needed and encouraging words.
Hiding in plain sight could be a valuable survival strategy. When my tennis elbow gets better I’ll be practicing the Party Salute; my devotional picture of Dear Leader is already on order. I’m considering a change in career too, but can’t decide between T-Shirted Union Goon or T-Shirted Union Thug.
I fear America has already passed the tipping point and there may be no going back. No democracy (even though we’re really a representative republic) can survive when the majority of voters can vote themselves more money from the minority. We’re there. When you have 47+% of Americans who pay no income tax added to millions of federal, state and local government employees, they appear to constitute the new American majority. As such, they’ll vote for people who’ll promise them ever more free stuff (and lavish pensions for the government employees).
If my pessimistic outlook is correct, America is on an inevitable slide to European-style mediocrity. I fear for my grandchildren’s future. They’re likely to curse all our names. At least for the two of them in Colorado, they’ll be able to buy pot to numb their pain.
The fiscal cliff will help with that: some government downsizing plus tax hikes putting many people back on the taxpayer roles, if only for a small amount.
I woke up in Argentina this morning. We are done, the indoctrination has won and Tocqueville lost. Empires come and go, history is history. The future is for the young, they have been simmered in Oikaphobia, they do not like us and they will not ever truly understand what it was to be an American, and Eagle Scout, a proud defender of freedom. Our armed forces will fall apart at the loss, they will not re-up, the new recruits will not show up.
I am sorry, but we must face it. No rose colored lenses are allowed, the fight is finished. We conservatives have lost the war, we were the last holdouts, Mr. Franklin was right, we could not keep it.
Yep
The Left owns education. Boomers who still equate conservatives with the John Birch Society and the GOP as the party of Nixon have been teaching our children for years. The kids are old enough to vote now, and as the twig is bent… Young adults see America as the land of Jim Crow, the Japanese Internment, & robber barons. They see the Democrats as the saviors during the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, and the Viet Nam War. Bill Ayers became a professor of education for a very good reason.
Conservatives have to make an inroad in what our children are being taught in school or we’ll never see an informed electorate that can protect us from invidious creeping socialism.
Ain’t gonna happen. They guard those gates VERY tightly.
You cannot confront evil, much less defeat it, until you are willing to identify it. Krauthammer nailed it years ago when he said that Republicans think Democrats are wrong and Democrats think Republicans are evil. As one of the Powerline bloggers noted, it is remarkable how often Democrats are guilty of psychological projection.
The Chicago-style machine corruption dominates the current Democratic Party. Slander dominates their campaigns because slander defines who they are. Dishonesty, corruption and criminality have become an epidemic. More importantly, Democratic voters know this and they do not care. On some level, all those who voted for Obama know he’s a liar and fraud. They know about the corruption and the shredding of the rule of law. They know he’s devoid of moral character and they know that he is using the government to enrich his friends and cronies. And they have no problem with any of it.
They know he left men to die in Libya and flew off to Vegas after lying to the world about it. They don’t care. They know that Corzine, and the Black Panthers, and the perpetrators of all manner of scandals and crimes walk away unpunished — and they do not care.
All they care about is free birth control (that isn’t free) and free cell phones and ‘free’ health care. Besides, they KNOW that Republicans are evil. What more could there possibly be to think about?
This situation will not change until Republicans are willing to address reality. Their opponents are not people of goodwill. The vast majority of Democratic voters have no interest in the America of our founders and they have no interest in morality and virtue. To turnaround America, we can’t focus on campaign season and elections. We have to begin to fight every day for the moral fiber of the nation. We have to fight the news media and the education establishment and Hollywood. We have to start by calling evil what it is. We have to teach, starting today, about the benefits of virtue and honesty and accountability. We have to teach the law of unintended consequences.
We have to begin the quest for honest elections and honest news coverage. And that begins by recognizing we have neither right now.
In some commentary with the left/liberals in my community, I put forth the following:
The European right wing (fascists) is marked by an allegiance to an over centralized authoritarian government with an emphasis on obedience to the State.
The American right wing (Constitutionists) is marked by an allegiance to a decentralized federated republic with an emphasis in personal liberty.
They Could Not Understand The Distinction I Was Drawing.
How do we “convert” when we don’t even share the same language?
It seems that you have a contradiction in your argument. Allegiance to to an overly centralized government is indicative of either socialism or communism (fascism carried to an extreme). That is, a left of center government not too far removed from serfdom.
The European “right wing” (so called conservatives) is pretty much ‘center left’ in the U.S. political spectrum. What there is; is a divergence of governing philosophy. Do you wish to live in a society with minimal freedom and opportunity, where the government runs your life (often rather poorly unless you are one of the ‘eliete’) and attempts to provide for you? Or do you prefer a government that allows the greatest opportunities for the individual to succeed, and to lives their life on their own terms providing they do no harm to others? Chose one or the other; there is no both possible.
I have my green card. I will think about going back to Canada now. There won’t be much difference between the 2 countries in 4 years. The muscular optimism of America will be replaced by the passive aggressive mediocrity of Canada. They say despair is a sin. I weep for a once great country.
Actually Canada will be a lot better off. They have their budget and balance of payments under control. The danger is a collaspe in cross border trade that will hurt Canada badly.
We will drag you, and many others, down with us.
I simply do not “get” my home state, Pennsylvania. We have a GOP guv, GOP Senate, GOP Assembly, GOP Senator, and almost all state offices are held by the GOP.
And it goes blue every presidential election.
Third highest NRA membership of any state. Strongly pro-life. High % of veterans and, if memory serves, the second highest membership of VFW members by state (Texas). You can’t get elected in the midstate as a Democrat, unless you’re in an urban area (HBG, York, etc.). Even the Dems are fairly moderate to survive.
And it goes blue every presidential election.
…and calling your fellow citizens “bitter clingers” seemed to have no affect. Go figure.
Two words: Unions. Fraud.
What part of the black panthers outside of Philadelphia polling stations, did you not understand?
They only come out and intimidate people during Presidential elections. Doing it elsewhere would make their tactic less effective.
It is not dyed in the wool liberals we need to persuade. It is the walking (brain)dead.
I spent some time out in California last month and was amazed and delighted to see so many people who had a similar take on politics as myself.
There isn’t enough of us to matter in this state. For the large swaths of red areas in the interior, it’s more than offset by the blue metro areas on the coast.
If the Republicans cannot win with a pro-choice, big government, pro-socialized medicine, pro-illegal alien liberal vs. an openly racist, warmongering, + $5 Trillion debt Goldman Sachs owned socialist, then the Republicans cannot win.
EVER.
It is over.
The end.
Remember that in the abortion debate, both sides are leftist.
Democrat (pro-choice) : The fetus is expendable.
Republican (pro-life) : The father is expendable.
Democrats want to transfer the cost of bad choices by women onto the fetus. Republicans want to transfer the cost of bad choices by women onto the father, and their ‘solution’ for reducing abortion is to jail/impoverish innocent men in order to give freebies to the mother, even if the father wanted to be in the life of the child, but the mother wants her bedroom to continue to be a revolving door.
So while I detest abortion, I also detest the fact that the Republican position would reduce abortion by jailing/impoverishing innocent.
Noe that NEITHER side says the father should have any rights, and neither says the woman should bear the costs of her actions. Hence, neither side of the abortion debate is anything but detestable.
The father is only innocent if he was married to the mother. If he’s a fornicator, he’s just as guilty as she is. Contraception is a lie.
We needed a piano tuner a while back; I found a list of certified tuners and started googling them. During the search, one tuner’s opensecrets record popped up with a donation to the McCain campaign.
He got our business. It’s a simple thing.
I guess that I’m feeling sort of isolated these days as I just can’t stand any longer to be in a room filled with snarky, superficial and abundantly self confident liberals who are unable to accept that others might have different opinions. Adhering to the proper doctrine is the price of admission to their social club and they are perfectly happy with the lack of ideological diversity. It seems to be true that most thoughtful conservatives and libertarians view the political process with a certain amount of disdain and while this might be a problem of sorts, it’s also who we are. But I think that you are right, we need to try to find one another, to share ideas and to support each other to some extent. It’s easy to be a little bewildered and distressed to realize that crowd has four more years.
The story goes that as Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall at the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a woman asked him, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”.
Mr. Franklin replied, “A republic, madam – if you can keep it.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, in looking over the events of last night, I would submit to you that Mr. Franklin’s Republic is now gone.
Actually, that republic ended in the mid-1860′s with an undeclared war against sovereign states exercising the rights they retained under the 10th Amendment whereby they originally joined the union.
Might, however, made right, and that pesky little constitution thing has been a dead letter ever since. We had a chance to revive it, and we had a good run trying these past couple of decades, but with the entrenchment of Obamacare and subsequent seating of SCOTUS judges of Obama’s liking – it’s game over.
Only thing now is to try to predict how it will all come crashing down and place yourself and your loved ones as safely and advantageously as possible to weather what comes.
Two points :
1) Given that conservatives still refer to hard leftists as ‘liberals’ means conservatives still don’t understand why leftism keeps advancing against them. The are not liberal at all, but rather they are illiberal, rigid, and intolerent.
Yet, when I see a conservative refer to them as ‘liberal’, I see a conservative who will never figure out how they are themselves assisting their own defeat.
2) Most ‘conservatives’ actually support socialism… as long as it can be packaged as ‘chivalry’, where the woman is appeased and some man is punished.
Current divorce, alimony, child-support, and domestic violence laws are all heavy wealth redistributions, that have been zealously enacted by Republicans. ‘Welfare reform’ of 1996 was nothing of the sort…. it merely transferred the costs onto innocent fathers who could be jailed for being unemployed….something quite a few Republicans think is a good idea.
As soon as socialism can be packaged as ‘chivalry’, Republicans jump at the chance to out-left a leftist.
It is amazing that to some extent, the Mayan calendar was right.
Not just 2012, but the final 2 months of 2012, signaled the beginning of the end.
That was a pretty precise call.
Bill Whittle has an idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02SypCcYIc&feature=youtu.be
It’s long, but thought-provoking.
I listened to Whittle for a bit but then turned off when I realised he was equating “virtuous” with “conservative”. Half of America is virtuous and the other half is not virtuous. What a crassly simplistic view! No wonder conservative pundits have lost all credibility. If this is their underlying assumption, then it’s very very stupid.
Bill’s video’s are a lot more complex than virtue. I’m relatively certain that he’s covered the political aspects of the 7 Deadly Sins, and their antonyms, the 7 Passions.
But to address your comment: Occam’s Razor. Logic says that the first explanation, however simple it may be (if it fits), should be the one you stick with. Don’t suspect anything more complicated or a conspiracy if the simple answer works.
Virtue is not too difficult a concept. It basically means that you are faithful and you don’t cheat or steal. What Bill often relays in his videos is the idea that using the power of government to take from others to give to you cannot be virtuous (nor sustainable), ie, any kind of wealth redistribution is not something a virtuous person would support.
The Constitution says “General” not “Universal” welfare. BIG difference.
Welfare for the truly desperate is NOT wealth redistribution (and would be a teeny-tiny $$$ if defined the way it used to be), nor is funding the military or roads, etc. The latter are services, not the wallets of individuals.
Will those are some nice thoughts for the aftermath I would add one more – demand all of your entitlements from the government and bring it to its knees. They don’t want to believe that their path is not sustainable so let’s help them understand this fact and the quicker the better. For those who are tired of paying the bills (taxes) stop. Close your business, downsize it, do whatever else makes you happy. Just don’t feed the beast.
To those who can afford to start living off the government – go for it. The more conservative understand that living by their principals doesn’t matter. Take whatever you can and drive up the cost to the point where it cannot continue.
The basic assumption that the statist make is that they can impose any burden on the productive and the productive will just try to find a way to still get ahead. Once that assumption is no longer valid the whole thing will collapse. Just ask anyone who lived through the soviet bloc.
An interesting suggestion which caused me to remember a personal observation during Katrina. (I live in the affected area.) I couldn’t help but notice the number of people who seem to have a hard time managing their personal lives but who seemed to become absolute wizards in understanding and deciphering the government framework for supplying aid and assistance. I’m not commenting on their need or motivation because I don’t know about that. I’m not being critical. I just found it interesting that some of the most unlikely folks had such an impressive level of knowledge and skill when it came to dealing with government and it’s representatives.
In other words, co-opt the Cloward-Piveb strategy. Destroy their attempt at a coup by beating them to the transitional poin;, where they impose a socialistic government upon the remnants of the U.S.. In other words; “Cut them off at the pass”. Blow the system up enough to show the population the result of their plans and derail their endgame. Show them for the traitors to humanity they are. Then take the necessary steps to ensure they never again are near the levers of power.
1) We are not going to convert the Left. They will not change their demand for an all-powerful state until they get the results good and hard.
2) They will not have to wait long for that. As of this morning, I know of small businesses here that are shutting down because they can see where the economy is going.
3) The Dow Jones went is down 2 1/2 – 3 1/2% so far this morning, gold and silver up about the same percentage, the dollar and US Government securities, and market futures are also down this morning. Normally a 1% move in any of these is significant.
4) The “Lightworker” is talking up a Carbon Tax on everything to solve the deficit; which will work about as well as the new French 75% tax rate did for their economy. The EPA admitted a few days ago that they had a bunch of regulations that would shut down the oil and coal industries ready for release right after the election. Government borrowing authority has run out, and the fiscal cliff is upon us. Right now I see the Institutional Republicans as shell-shocked, and even more submissive than they were before the election. I give it a maybe 30% chance that they will give in to whatever Obama wants outright. If there is resistance, effective resistance; I expect Obama to act unilaterally to impose what he wants. Congress has already LOST the power of the purse; there not having been a constitutional budget for 4 years. In that case, and in any case now, those I call TWANLOC are responsible for whatever happens.
5) You are right, in that Conservatives have to take care of each other. The Left will be out to destroy us. We also have to quit enabling the Left. If we are downsizing businesses, one major factor must be political affiliation where choices have to be made between equally qualified current employees. Voter rolls are public. Democrats have made their choices as of Tuesday. Let the government take care of them. And let them fail when the government betrays them. If you have to hire someone as a critical replacement, include a check of the voter rolls as part of the screening process. After all, do you want an employee who regards your business the way the Left regards businesses? It is not as if there are not whole industries where being a Republican, let alone a Conservative, is not the kiss of death for a career.
6) Where you have a choice, do not patronize businesses owned by Democrats. Small towns especially can use the Chamber of Commerce rolls cross checked with voter rolls to sort it out. Make them as poor as they are making us.
7) #’s 5 and 6 don’t have to be emblazoned across your business letterhead. Just do it. Until 10-289 comes down, we can still make choices. After it comes down, we still have choices of a different nature.
Subotai Bahadur
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville
While the United States is not a democracy, the sentiment applies in this case, and de Tocqueville wrote this regarding the US. I now see a much higher chance that his prediction will come to pass for us in my lifetime. A storm is coming.
It is a miracle that we held out for this long, in retrospect. Even Tocqueville might not have thought it could hold out for 200 years.
The Achilles heel was bribing women with government freebies. While single vs. married men don’t vote very differently, single vs. married women have a huge gap. It is safe to say that marriage civilizes women, far more than men.
A large portion of the young women in America today are not just leftist parasites, but downright feral.
The Achilles heel wasn’t giving women freebies for having babies. It is cancer and it started with FDR and Social Security.
Social Security was sold with lies and almost everything we know about the program is a lie. It is the cancer that’s corrupted us.
The “Great Society” program was just extra radiation to make sure the cancer burrowed deep.
What some clever country has to figure out is that a lot of Americans who want to be productive exist, and that country has to roll out the red carpet for them.
Singapore has a points-based system of meritocratic immigration. If they give the most qualified people citizenship in, say, 6 months rather than a year, they might get a lot of highly productive Americans. Like Eduardo Saverin.
Call it the ‘Saverin effect’. There just needs to be a rising country that will roll out the red carpet (15-year tax holiday, etc.) for Americans who think the American dream can now rise elsewhere.
China can choose to turn Hong Kong (already a low-tax state) into a special zone that attracts the top Westerners. Get HK citizenship on a fast-tracked basis.
That is what it will take.
*3 years, for Singapore citizenship, is what I meant to say.
Countries need to fast-track that. The reality of the 21st century has to be that the pool of most productive people is highly mobile, and countries should have to constantly compete for their residence and presence.
That citizenship is too hard to change quickly, even for the highest-skilled, is a bottleneck that prevents free-market forces from correcting the negatives of leftism…
I believe that, on the way home, I will stop at Chick-fil-a and have supper. I think I will make this a regular practice.
Is it legal to discriminate against liberals when hiring? How about a jobs website explicitly for conservatives? Of course it would be twisted as discrimination against minorities and sued into oblivion.
It is neither legal nor illegal, yet. They are already doing that to us. Try to get a job in the academic world or in the media as an open Republican or Conservative. Sauce, goose, gander. Some assembly required. And they will turn the oven up on all of us.
Subotai Bahadur
Perhaps all you would need to do is put a big American flag on the website. Liberals would avoid it like vampires avoid sunlight.
Too many people on our side of the aisle engage in no effort to make the personal political. Thanks.
Thanks, Helen… good advice, support conservative individuals, businesses and organizations of all kinds. This country was formed and fought for by a small group of American Citizens who believed in Liberty and Individualism.
We can not let them down at this juncture in our history. Continue the good fight.
Here in Colorado, where the state just voted to legalize marijuana, (so stupid), even here, we have to show ID to vote. I don’t hear any complaints about it. Of course, Al Sharpton rarely if ever pays us a visit.
Helen, thanks for the words of wisdom. I love the idea of an Angie’s list for libertarian/republican/conservative businesses. We’ve probably passed the tipping point where the producers can outvote the moochers. So going Galt may be the best option. As a wise spacefaring man once said “I aim to misbehave.” Don’t cooperate with them. Don’t make it easy. RESIST. Take care of you and yours and enjoy your lives. Courage.
Thanks Hodge.
Perhaps a website would work where conservative businesses could register, and then have some sort of small and inconspicuous logo on their product or website or marketing material that the knowledgeable would recognized as a significator of a conservative/libertarian business.
Say you have to have some auto mechanic work done. You could pull up that website, click on the type of business you are looking for, click on your state, click on your city, and then there would be a directory businesses that are registered on the website that would pull up you could choose from.
It could be supported by a nominal fee to advertise, criteria for being accepted being maybe a clean Better Business Bureau record, possibly a referral required at some point to get on the list….
Give the system a neutral name. This would keep businesses from being penalized for advertising on there – but spread the website by word of mouth and noting it on sites like this.
Anyone know how to make this happen?
64% of the population has IQ below 100. Basically they are dolts and are easy prey for the liberal socialist message. They have no comprehension of how the economy works nor do they understand wealth creation and destruction. These are the people the liberal democrat machine is focused on.
Furthermore these people think in clichés. For them life is the next five to ten minutes. They are unable to project much beyond that time span.
They will always vote for cake and circuses.
This is the result of democracy.
Aristotle discussed this some 2400 years ago.
George
Uh, no. By definition, an IQ of 100 is normal intelligence, with half below and half above. The problem isn’t intelligence, but a desire to be cared for by Big Brother. I know some very smart young people, research scientists, actually, who voted enthusiastically for Obama both times, because they believe that the government has an obligation to take care of them, and besides, Republicans are like their parents: semi-religious, but hypocritical. I think there may be a lot more like that out there.
I have a different take.
When reading the exit polls last night Hume on Fox said that 60% thinks government does too much. Yet the majority votes for more stuff from the government.
60% of the Country THINKS like a conservative but ACTs like a lib. They are happy with cutting off everybody else but they want their stuff (I include seniors).
The GOP, to win, needs to figure out how to promise more stuff than the Dems.
I’m going to rethink my opposition to vagina police. And support drug prohibition. Just to show conservatives I care. Well not really Conservatives. More like Progressive Conservatives. You know, “Government should…..”.
I don’t think conservatism is dead or will die, although it will be set back on its’ heels for a long time.
Why do I say that? Not because I’m a Pollyanna, but because socialism does not work and will not work. 51% of this country think that they can vote themselves out of a debt crisis and that the government checks will just keep on coming because Obama says they will. Eventually, they will run out of other people’s money.
I had hoped we would wake up and act like adults before it got to that point, but no. Yesterday’s election made it clear that Americans will continue to kick the can down the road – but they won’t be able to do that forever.
Greece is being carried by German taxpayers right now. Nobody will carry us. It will all come to an end and then – at that point, when everyone has forgotten about binders and Big Bird and all the other trivial things that caught the fancy of American voters in 2012 – we’ll rediscover the U.S. Constitution and the principles that made this country great.
It might not be in my lifetime. But it will happen.
“The GOP, to win, needs to figure out how to promise more stuff than the Dems.”
We’ll basically have a one party system then. “The party of free stuff” and “the party of even more free stuff.”
I am personally going to lay down. Gonna quit work, get on Obamacare and roam the country taking photos. I’ll apply for disability and food stamps. And Probably live better than before. It will take enough pissed off middle class citizens to utterly revolt to get any results.
Not enough people who are fed up, yet. Republicans will never be able to win over people who want more and more handouts.
My strategy to cope psychologically with this is to realize that the America that I grew up in is gone and that nothing can bring it back. I loved America and was loyal to the point of being willing to die for that country. Reelecting a man who has demonstrated in his first four years that he is absolutely unqualified to lead any organization has made me realize that my country died some time ago but that I had been holding onto an animated corpse like something from “The Walking Dead”.
I am trying to come to terms with the loss and to get in the habit of referring to America as “them” rather than “us” and to get used to the idea of being merely a resident rather than a part of America. When I don’t care what they do to the country that goes by the same name as the country I loved and I don’t care what happens to the people who live there, I will be a lot happier and it will hurt a lot less. Before yesterday I could not have imagined thinking like this.
I believe that the majority of American’s who voted for Obama last night, have not suffered much in the way of financial problems in this economy. There is no consequence today to losing a job, a house, etc. You’re unemployed, oohh, 36 plus months of unemployment, food stamps, medicaid insurance, free phone and internet.Foreclosed on? Big government will come in and wipe away your debt, allow you to refinance for 40 years, provide rent subsidy if you cannot remain in your home, etc.
I personally know people who have short saled and then immediately bought another property, with little effect to their credit. Most Americans, myself included, have refinanced even though our homes are underwater, to an unheard of rate of 3 %.
So as we conservatives run around screaming the sky is falling(and it is), our countrymen believe we are liars, as the evidence to our claims is just not there.
If you are a young person who can’t(or won’t) find work after six years of college, you’ve been told you’re entire life that it is because the evil corporate CEO’s won’t hire you because they are keeping profits to themselves. We have raised at least a generation, if not two, who have never had to actually work at menial jobs to get through college or entry level jobs to start their life. They live at home with their indulgent and overprotective parents, who feel vindicated in their cocooning of their kids by a government who mandates insurance until the kid is 26 and continously preaches that these kids MUST have advanced degrees and a year of travel in Europe before they embark on employment.
All of this is supported and propped up by popular culture, such as Jersey Shore, and other “reality” shows that portray an alternate universe and lifestyle as “normal”.
It’s normal to indulge in feeling sorry for how this turned out, but the only reasonable alternative is to learn from it, learn how to better fight this decline.
I want to see the Republicans stop mitigating the disaster that the Democrats keep offering. The Dem’s want to raise taxes? Good, let’s raise them on EVERYONE, including the 47% who don’t pay taxes. That is what at least half this country wants, right.(yes I know they want the rich to pay, but not themselves.) Don’t mess with my SS? Sorry, SS must be trimmed for all, including the 4pm buffet set in Florida. Obama has already started to raid Medicare, we certainly don’t need to take the fall on that one. Don’t try to be the good guys, who are going to agree to not tax the poor(who can make up to $75,000). Let the poor find out what they voted for.
Learn from the Dem’s and go on the attack. They are already today attacking the House Republican’s as obstructionists. Go after the Dem’s with the wildest accusations possible, apparently this stuff sticks.
How about in a show of solidarity we turn our flags upside down on the magnets on our cars and our homes. That way we can see that we are not alone. I mean, the country is in distress.
I started the day just thinking “I’m done”, I’m done caring, participating, it doesn’t make a difference, why bother. After spending time at work in a non-profit, catholic, educational institution and listening to their excited chatter, I just kept thinking, I don’t belong here, how is it they don’t see what they just did to themselves? By the time I was driving home it had expanded to thinking that I don’t belong where I work, I don’t belong in the state in which I live and apparently not even in this country. I agree with the other commenter who said it is “their” country now, let them have it. I don’t want to be part of an “us” right now, there is only me.
The way I see it we have two choices. One, make it a law that if you are receiving any kind of assistance from the government for your daily existence, your voting rights are suspended until you are on your own for x amount of months, of course social security would be not be included in this formula. Or two, quit be producers for the government and become consumers. Right now its just drip, drip, drip and we all know where its going. Some people have to learn the hard way so lets just excelerate the process to is natural conclusion.
More people should consider sending their children to private schools if there is any possible way for people to do so. We have liberals rocking that cradle and we need to change that. If you are well-to-do, find a local private school that is strong on traditional American values and make a donation to go toward tuition for students who might not otherwise be able to afford to go. If you have traditional American values, consider becoming a teacher or a teacher’s aid in a local school, even at the elementary level.
The way to the future is through our kids. 2016′s new voters are 14 years old today and 2020′s voters are 10. I would suggest engaging with younger people as much as you possibly can.
Engage in your local newspaper comments sections. Get out of the insulation of the conservative echo chambers and expose more people to our point of view. Be respectful, thoughtful, but have your say.
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.
I would also suggest that people engage with DEMOCRAT politicians when they have town halls. Not in a confrontational manner, but in a very simple way asking them how they are going to use the money that we give them in a responsible manner. Put them on the hook for fiscal responsibility. They might not be the same party as you, but they ARE still your representative and should get the total spectrum of opinion from the community.
As far as electoral politics, one answer is to colonize a swing state. Retire or start a business or go to school in one and turn the numbers around!