Doubling Down on Stupid
Jay Cost looks at the collapse of the Fiscally Sane/Socially Moderate coalition Bill Clinton put together, and wonders what’s next for the Democrats:
Will President Obama and his Democratic allies adapt this time around? That remains to be seen. Staying the course might leave him with little more than the McGovern coalition, so the demands of electoral victory seem to require some genuine movement toward the center. But on the other hand, Obama is in office in part because of the McGovern wing of the party; all those liberals who hated Clintonian triangulation finally got the last laugh, triumphantly nominating him amid shouts of “Yes We Can!” What’s more, I suspect that President Obama actually believes he is in the political center, that he doesn’t see all the strawman nonsense as strawman nonsense. He looks over his left shoulder and really sees “the professional left,” then looks over his right shoulder and really sees ”dangerous” Tea Party “extremists.” So, I don’t know…
Well, I don’t know, either, but I have my suspicions. Obama’s entire career has been a series of double-downs, especially since assuming the presidency. He seems neither ideologically or practically inclined to triangulate. And Cost’s “strawman” theory comes the closest I’ve yet read to explaining why.
>>Will President Obama and his Democratic allies adapt . . . ?
Sometimes he does look moderate. There are plenty of lefties that Obama has PO’d by failing them on DADT, the public option, the nonexistent war crimes trials of Bush and Cheney, the Van Jones and Anita Dunn resignations, etc. (They seem to have given up on Gitmo, the rise of the oceans, a face-to-face with Kim Jong-il, and other pet issues.)
And yet I’m sure these actions and inactions of Obama’s have nothing to do with his ideology. I think these things are just too hard and Obama doesn’t want to bother. It’s his psychology, man. Will he adapt? That depends on whether it gets so hard to fight the conservative tide that his anti-Americanism has to take a back seat to the red carpet treatment, the endless campaign, flyin’ Oprah around on Air Force One, and the other cool stuff he signed on for when he won the White House.
Dear Liar is going to double down. Season opener of SNL tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if they do a skit on The Whine and whether they make fun of him. If it’s a hard hitting piece, that’ll tell me He’s lost the liberal media and it will be open season on Him.
The Tea Party movement is many things to many people. To those in power, it is a threat. To those who believe in the hard core Marxist principles being espoused by this administration, it is a threat! For those who believe our country needs to subvert itself to the whims of Islamic Fanatics, or Euro Socialism or whatever else, it is a threat!
As such, there are way too many people who do not remotely understand what is happening here. Our fighting men and women, our forefathers who gave their blood and lives for this country, they understand! Unfortunately, the folks that have either had everything handed to them or instead have chosen to ride on the back of others instead of being responsible for themselves combined with the elected morons who realize keeping people reliant on government insures their power, they do not understand!
The Tea Party movement is not a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican party! A co-opted media led by a hard core left wing wanna be dictatorship government would want you to believe that it is in fact all about the Republicans. And they would be dead wrong! The Tea Party movement is a fight for the heart and soul of our country! It is a fight to return us to what made us the greatest country in the world! How sad that entrenched politicians on the right along with the garbage on the left cannot or refuse to understand such a basic tenet!