The Republicans are able to overtly promise to do things the corporate jackals want, and just spin it a bit so the voters will think it’s for them. They can promise to cut taxes (and not mention that that’s just taxes for the rich) or promise to downsize government (and not mention that they’re just going to eliminate regulations to which corporations and rich people don’t want to be subject), and so on.
The Democrats are in a much trickier position, since there’s no way to spin their intention of working for the benefit of the corporate jackals as representing the will of their supporters, and they can’t sincerely promise to do the things their supporters expect without alienating the jackals and cutting into the flow of that sweet, sweet soft money. So they’re stuck either making vague, wishy-washy promises that they then don’t keep, or just being overtly moderate-at-best and trying to shame leftists into supporting them anyway.
The last one is the current situation. I just hope that maybe with the death of the Boomers and Trump turning the RNC into a circus that is very much a minority with younger people that the republican party as we know it is not long for this world. Maybe the current democrats move into that spot, and someone a little further left will emerge. I feel like current politics has gone too far to the right. Hopefully there is some symbolance of functionality and things right itself. But, I am silly if I think that happens in my lifetime.
I just hope that maybe with the death of the Boomers and Trump turning the RNC into a circus that is very much a minority with younger people that the republican party as we know it is not long for this world. Maybe the current democrats move into that spot, and someone a little further left will emerge.
If ours was a reasonably healthy system, I think that’s exactly what would happen. And it wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.
The problem though is that the Republicans - or more precisely their think tank advisers - recognize that that’s the way things are headed, and the party is determined to stop it by any means possible, which basically boils down to undermining education and access to information to keep as much of the public as ignorant and misinformed as possible, and to destroy democratic institutions, discourage voting, gerrymander and expand the police state in order to counter those who will stubbornly end up opposing them anyway.
Broadly, there are three possible paths a party that’s gotten to the point that it no longer represents the will of enough people to be a contender can follow. It can reform itself, it can allow itself to be eliminated and replaced, or it can arrange things so that people are conned or forced into supporting it anyway, in spite of the fact that it’s really in almost nobody’s interests to do that. And the Republicans have very obviously chosen the third path.
And our system is so broken that they might just succeed.
or just being overtly moderate-at-best and trying to shame leftists into supporting them anyway.
i never understood this logic; what do they expect will happen with shaming? that the shame will get you to relinquish your beliefs somehow like it does with religious people?
I think that for many of them, it’s actually sincere. It’s not a cynical strategy to continue failing to actually represent their constituency and get elected anyway - they actually believe that those on the left who oppose them should be ashamed of doing so.
As a general rule, people aren’t consciously evil and destructive. Some certainly are, but many (most?) live in a sort of fantasy world in which they’ve framed their evil such that it’s at least justified if not actually good. They rationalize and excuse all of the concessions they make and build up this whole framework in which what they’re doing is right.
And then when they look out at other people from within that (warped) framework, it really does appear to them that those who have not chosen to do as they do are wrong for having done so, and thus justifiably shamed.
And they never stop and pull back and try to analyze things from another perspective, since to do so would risk destroying this whole fantasy world they’ve built - all of their rationalizations and excuses and comforting misconceptions would come crashing down. And they can’t allow that. So they just cling to the fantasy, which means, among other things, charging ahead with the (mis)perception that their critics are shamefully wrong.
Pretty much, yeah.
The Republicans are able to overtly promise to do things the corporate jackals want, and just spin it a bit so the voters will think it’s for them. They can promise to cut taxes (and not mention that that’s just taxes for the rich) or promise to downsize government (and not mention that they’re just going to eliminate regulations to which corporations and rich people don’t want to be subject), and so on.
The Democrats are in a much trickier position, since there’s no way to spin their intention of working for the benefit of the corporate jackals as representing the will of their supporters, and they can’t sincerely promise to do the things their supporters expect without alienating the jackals and cutting into the flow of that sweet, sweet soft money. So they’re stuck either making vague, wishy-washy promises that they then don’t keep, or just being overtly moderate-at-best and trying to shame leftists into supporting them anyway.
The last one is the current situation. I just hope that maybe with the death of the Boomers and Trump turning the RNC into a circus that is very much a minority with younger people that the republican party as we know it is not long for this world. Maybe the current democrats move into that spot, and someone a little further left will emerge. I feel like current politics has gone too far to the right. Hopefully there is some symbolance of functionality and things right itself. But, I am silly if I think that happens in my lifetime.
If ours was a reasonably healthy system, I think that’s exactly what would happen. And it wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.
The problem though is that the Republicans - or more precisely their think tank advisers - recognize that that’s the way things are headed, and the party is determined to stop it by any means possible, which basically boils down to undermining education and access to information to keep as much of the public as ignorant and misinformed as possible, and to destroy democratic institutions, discourage voting, gerrymander and expand the police state in order to counter those who will stubbornly end up opposing them anyway.
Broadly, there are three possible paths a party that’s gotten to the point that it no longer represents the will of enough people to be a contender can follow. It can reform itself, it can allow itself to be eliminated and replaced, or it can arrange things so that people are conned or forced into supporting it anyway, in spite of the fact that it’s really in almost nobody’s interests to do that. And the Republicans have very obviously chosen the third path.
And our system is so broken that they might just succeed.
i never understood this logic; what do they expect will happen with shaming? that the shame will get you to relinquish your beliefs somehow like it does with religious people?
I think that for many of them, it’s actually sincere. It’s not a cynical strategy to continue failing to actually represent their constituency and get elected anyway - they actually believe that those on the left who oppose them should be ashamed of doing so.
As a general rule, people aren’t consciously evil and destructive. Some certainly are, but many (most?) live in a sort of fantasy world in which they’ve framed their evil such that it’s at least justified if not actually good. They rationalize and excuse all of the concessions they make and build up this whole framework in which what they’re doing is right.
And then when they look out at other people from within that (warped) framework, it really does appear to them that those who have not chosen to do as they do are wrong for having done so, and thus justifiably shamed.
And they never stop and pull back and try to analyze things from another perspective, since to do so would risk destroying this whole fantasy world they’ve built - all of their rationalizations and excuses and comforting misconceptions would come crashing down. And they can’t allow that. So they just cling to the fantasy, which means, among other things, charging ahead with the (mis)perception that their critics are shamefully wrong.