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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / War is over if you want it

War is over if you want it

by DougJ|  February 17, 201212:08 pm| 94 Comments

This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute

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Sometimes I think there are more things in heaven and earth, Atrios, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, but mostly I think it’s true that official discourse is dominated by the idea that the hippies are always wrong and that real voters want to respect Bishops’ authoriteh, enact belt-tightening austerity measures, use Bayer aspirin as birth control (the way their up-by-the-bootstraps grandparents did), bat balloons endlessly in front of the faces of poor, brain-dead people, etc.

It may be that once upon a time there were enough Real Murkin-type voters to make culture war and eat-your-vegetables type stuff a political winner. It seems increasingly clear that those days are over, but that no one in the Village knows it.

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94Comments

  1. 1.

    dollared

    February 17, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    Doug, couldn’t disagree more. The culture war is the key excuse to the white fools to vote R. They got nothing else left – Obama killed Bin Laden and still supports (overspends) on military, the R’s problems with the economy and taxes cannot be ignored, and just looking at them, the R’s are unlikeable idiots. Even the “R’s will run Gov like a business” argument is gone after the clusterfucks of GWB and people like Rick Scott and Scott Walker.

    So what’s left? (White) Morality. Gets you 40% before the first SuperPAC ad runs.

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    Title reference is a month and a half to two months late, but, like, whatever.

  3. 3.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    the only thing that matters anymore is the demographic timer.

    Demographics is Destiny– Nate Silver.

  4. 4.

    Wee Bey

    February 17, 2012 at 12:17 pm

    Can someone translate the linked post for me?

  5. 5.

    Southern Beale

    February 17, 2012 at 12:20 pm

    Your modern, pro-life Republican Party, the party of “family values”:

    “It is not the role of government to feed people.”

    This from the chair of the Williamson County, TN, Republican Party. A viewpoint seconded by his first vice chair. I’m sure it will shock no one to learn that Williamson County is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, and is the wealthiest county in Tennessee. Lots of good Christian folk there.

    No wonder Jesus said we’d always have the poor with us.

  6. 6.

    Jay C

    February 17, 2012 at 12:20 pm

    “Eat-your-vegetables type stuff”?? No on today’s Right, DougJ:
    Most of the “culture war” stuff in that vein these days is more like “eat your Jumbo McGreaseburger with a supersized side of sugar-fried lard, ‘cuz it’ll piss off the nanny-state hippies who hate America“…

  7. 7.

    Stooleo

    February 17, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    Ha, I thought the tag said “David Brooks Giving a Seminar at the Asprin Institute”.

  8. 8.

    BGinCHI

    February 17, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    No pundit ever got paid by telling everyone not to pay him/her.

  9. 9.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 17, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    The King- Snows only talk to the Roberts-Boggs, and the Roberts-Boggs only talk to George Will. With the exception of the two-plus years after 9/11, I’d say The Village has been grossly out of step with the electorate as a whole at least since the Great Clenis Meltdown. Beltway CW was about six months behind public opinion on the Iraq War, and Bush’s popularity, etc. I remember NOrah O’Donnell looking for all the world personally offended by Cindy Sheehan’s attacks on “a very popular president” when Bush had been in the mid-forties for months. IIRC Terri Schiavo was very dangerous for the Democrats. Etc

    OT: Romney defender on MSNBC is holding up the SLC Olympics as proof Romney is invincible. Am I the one out of step here? Does anyone give a monkey’s fuck about that?

  10. 10.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    February 17, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    It may be that once upon a time there were enough Real Murkin-type voters to make culture war and eat-your-vegetables type stuff a political winner. It seems increasingly clear that those days are over, but that no one in the Village knows it.

    Agree about the Village being out of touch, but I think you are too optimistic about our domestic kulturkampf simmering down anytime soon. It seems to me that the cultural issues we argue about in politics are frequently tribal markers rather than than driving force behind our divisions. When one culture-war issue falls off the map, another will rise to fill its place, albeit these things take time to ripen into full fury. These aren’t battles, they are the battlefields. Battles may be won or lost, and battlefields may be abandoned when they are no longer useful, but the war goes on.

  11. 11.

    Southern Beale

    February 17, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    By the way, today I read that my Democratic state senator, a senile old man who was born in 1926 and sleeps through most meetings these days, signed on to a Republican resolution condemning the birth control mandate. We nearly got rid of him in the last primary and I’m still pissed off that we didn’t. But anyway, I called his office and asked if he even understood the issue. His assistant, who basically runs that office because he’s a senile old man who sleeps through everything, said “he didn’t think it was the government’s role to get into people’s private business.”

    I angrily told her he obviously had no understanding of the issue then because that is the exact OPPOSITE of what the mandate does. It just makes birth control affordable to people who want it.

    Arrgh. And I just found out I got redistricted out of my Democratic district and into a Republican one. I’m SO PISSED OFF I COULD SCREAM.

  12. 12.

    RP

    February 17, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    Is the linked post in english? I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

  13. 13.

    PeakVT

    February 17, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    I’m not sure if you are putting forth a variation of the Great Demographic Shift® argument, or that you think Real ‘Mericans are getting tired of the culture war. I’m not sure if either is upon us yet, though we may be close. No matter what, the Village will be the last to know that the discourse has changed.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 17, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    @Wee Bey: the Villagers think David Brooks and Richard Cohen have the pulse of the Great Unwashed, Atrios says, no, learn to read a poll, dumbfucks.

  15. 15.

    priscianusjr

    February 17, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    @dollared:

    The culture war is the key excuse to the white fools to vote R.

    You are correct, but I think the point is that the terrain on which the culture wars are fought is narrowing.

    @<a

    href=”#comment-3054944″>Jay C:

    “Eat-your-vegetables type stuff”?? No on today’s Right, DougJ:
    Most of the “culture war” stuff in that vein these days is more like “eat your Jumbo McGreaseburger with a supersized side of sugar-fried lard, ‘cuz it’ll piss off the nanny-state hippies who hate America“…

    This is a good example. The type of people that vote to piss off the nanny-state hippies that hate America … well, I don’t think that’s a growing demographic. But maybe I’m wrong. It all depends on how you interpret the 2010 elections.

  16. 16.

    Martin

    February 17, 2012 at 12:30 pm

    Well, admittedly, when my house is on fire I just don’t have the time to check to see if my daughter is sexting up the boys at school.

    Culture wars play best when the economy is good, and people can focus on trivial shit. The economy is always good in the Village, though.

  17. 17.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 12:30 pm

    @PeakVT: hardly matters.
    just do the math.
    the GOP candidate (who-evah that may be) needs 65% of the white vote to beat Obama.
    its impossible.

  18. 18.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2012 at 12:31 pm

    I think the culture war is all the GOP has now, and they’re going for broke.

    The economy is improving, and outside of the 27%, it’s well known that the deserting coward is the guy who ran us into the ditch, and getting us out of the ditch would be a herculean task. I think that most Americans understand this aspect of it, regardless of what the drones of DC have to say about it.

    So, the GOP is left with culture wars. ZOMG, the Kenyan Muslim Socia1ist Atheist is out to destroy freedom of religion and force your daughters to use the pill and spread their legs for every steak eating young buck who hip hops in to the suburbs from the ghetto on the new high speed rail line!

  19. 19.

    makewi

    February 17, 2012 at 12:32 pm

    In a way this post is funny. The “liberal” side won out on all those things you list, so are you really just bitching about the fact that people are allowed to express opinions which are contrary to what you desire?

  20. 20.

    dollared

    February 17, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    @Martin: Nicely put. I don’t believe the demographic time bomb bullshit. If that were true, why do conservatives win in places like Peru and Mexico, where 80% of the population is brown? For that reason, think Democrats should be very wary of counting on hispanics for the next X generations.

    But economy good versus bad? Yup, good times means bored Villagers.

  21. 21.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    @makewi: no makewi.
    the GOP is 99% white christians now.
    that does not reflect the demographic composition of the electorate.

    Demographics is Destiny.

  22. 22.

    kindness

    February 17, 2012 at 12:36 pm

    The Esteemed Serious Elders of the MSM Village only care about the horse race and hope they can sell it to match their views.

    The Esteemed Serious Elders are a bunch of morans, obviously.

  23. 23.

    Birthmarker

    February 17, 2012 at 12:36 pm

    I’ve only followed the birth control kerfuffle by way of the leftie blogs, so I may have missed something. Does anyone else think it’s primarily about money?

    Isn’t the bill to the insurance companies quite large to provide it without cost? Anyone else think this is a bit of a manufactured outrage, in a wag the dog kind of way on the part of the insurance companies, in an effort to cut their own costs? Feel free to flame if I am missing the larger picture.

    Also, is the aspirin debacle going to be Santorum’s metaphysical interview with wife number two?

    I don’t watch cable news so I don’t know if it is even being covered, but I would think constant repeats of the tape would lead to a pretty WTF moment for viewers. Most men no more want unfettered childbirth than women do.

  24. 24.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    @dollared: dumbass, the GOP needs 65% of the white vote to beat Obama.
    how do they get that?

  25. 25.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    @Birthmarker: its kind of gobsmacking to meh that that the GOP seems wholly invested in birthing moar democratic voters.
    rich white women will always get birth control.
    Poor darkskinned women, not so much.

  26. 26.

    Nemesis

    February 17, 2012 at 12:40 pm

    Suffering, especially the self-inflicted type, has a long history. Dontcha know we curry favor with vindictive gawd when we suffer for no reason at all.

    Hence, the gop fascination with suffering. Suffering for the masses, that is. Supply Side gawd made some people immune to suffering because they were chosen by gawd to be wealthy. Or is it the individual chose to be wealthy? Or the individual chooses to be poor?

    Oh gawd, Im so confused.

  27. 27.

    Martin

    February 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Arrgh. And I just found out I got redistricted out of my Democratic district and into a Republican one. I’m SO PISSED OFF I COULD SCREAM.

    Political Jesus is testing your strength of resolve. Fight harder.

    I’ve been moved from one Republican district to another. My old district is going to be all high-income coastal, some of which is pretty blue but should remain a red district, but my new district is inland, lower income and increasingly Latino, and was steadily trending blue and thanks to my slightly blue (but large and wealthy) city we may push it over. So we’re going to redouble our efforts and try and flip at least one more district here. I’m hoping CA can bring three more blue seats to the House. We lost none in 2010, so y’all need to step it up.

    And my new congressman is at least less of a Republican asshole than my last congressman was.

  28. 28.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    February 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    @Martin:

    Culture wars play best when the economy is good

    I don’t agree with this. A bad economy, especially when folks have a sense of long-term economic decline, creates fear and anxiety, which then seek a psychological outlet, which the culture wars are perfectly tailored to supply. When things suck, somebody must be to blame for it all, and so we start hunting for witches. The cultural war aspects of Nixonland took place during a period of economic decline and disruption in the late 60s and early 70s.

    I think people look back at the combination of good economy and culture wars during the 1990s and draw the wrong conclusion, which is that culture wars heat up during good times and voters pay attention to more essential matters when times are tough. But the 1990s were also a time when under Clinton’s leadership the Democratic party moved significantly to the right on a host of economic issues, leaving little policy room between them and the GOP of that era. The GOP has since adjusted to widen the gap again by moving itself much further to the right than it was in the 90s, but this took time. So I think the culture wars in the 90s were an artifact of the narrow policy gap between the two parties rather than the current economic climate.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    @dollared:

    The problem here is that the Hispanics are right now one of the prime targets of the prime GOP demographic, white people afraid of losing privilege.

    The basic hatred of the Messkin (and outside of the Cubans in Florida, they’re all Messkin, regardless of their actual point of origin, be it Guatemala or generations of native Californians, Arizonans, or Texans) overrides the other cultural conservative markers. This is precisely what the deserting coward and Rove were striving to avoid, and what came back with a vengeance in 2008.

    The GOP has also undone the advantage they had with Arab-Americans, be they Christian or Muslim by faith, again pandering to the white demographic. They never had the slightest chance of making major inroads into African Americans, either.

  30. 30.

    Lawnguylander

    February 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    I remember watching the first Obama-McCain debate and being so happy that Obama had kicked his ass and then getting really pissed off when the CNN idiots mostly agreed with each other that, no, McCain had won. Then the polls started coming in which showed that their panel of viewers overwhelmingly agreed with me. John King and friends were stunned and I began realizing that I didn’t really need to care what people like him thought. And that I didn’t need to care about “hippie punching” or other obsessions of the likes of Atrios. Which was good because otherwise I might be sitting here in fear that the Democrats were coming to take my guns Social Security away. Now when I do go over there it takes me a little while to even figure out what the fuck he’s talking about, like RP up there.

  31. 31.

    Chyron HR

    February 17, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    @makewi:

    More words of wisdom from the party that thinks “Cash for Clunkers” was a secret Obama plot to install spyware on people’s computers.

    (Source: Fox News)

  32. 32.

    gex

    February 17, 2012 at 12:43 pm

    I guess I’ll need to see that shit take a couple losses in a row, in particular in a good economy, before I’ll believe it. If Americans don’t subscribe to culture war bullshit right now, it is only because they have concerns that actually affect themselves. Once those problems diminish, they can hate on gays and women and blacks again.

  33. 33.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 12:43 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: no, martin is correct. America only has the luxury of engaging in culture wars when the economy is good.

  34. 34.

    qwerty42

    February 17, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Atrios says, no, learn to read a poll, dumbfucks.
    But math is hard. I mean, if you really want to know, you might want to have a clue about a “survey”. It is really so much easier to ask the people you know, call it a “poll” and move from there. Or imagine what the folks at the (imaginary) Applebee’s salad bar would say/think (not that you’d go there yourself). Or ask some unknown cab driver (sample size: n=1). Cripes, the dumbing down of the States starts with the Village and their illusory grasp of “what is going on”. Why are these people regarded as an “elite” of anything? A good con job?

  35. 35.

    Greg

    February 17, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    @Birthmarker:

    Except that it doesn’t cost insurance companies anything. It saves them money.

    Covering birth control reduces pregnancies, which are (compared to BC) incredibly expensive. The only reason why insurance companies don’t already just give away the pill for free (and provide all other preventative care for free) for economic reasons is because you’re likely to change insurance providers eventually, so some other company will get the benefit of those reduced costs in the future.

    That’s the whole point of the ACA mandating these things being available in all health plans. It saves EVERYBODY money.

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    @Birthmarker:

    Isn’t the bill to the insurance companies quite large to provide it without cost?

    Compared to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, or pregnancy followed through to child birth, it’s much cheaper to provide contraception.

    Planned pregnancies are much preferred over unplanned ones, regardless of whether they’re taken to term or not.

    Preventative care (which is what contraception really is) is always cheaper than dealing with what it’s designed to prevent.

  37. 37.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    February 17, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    For that reason, think Democrats should be very wary of counting on hispanics for the next X generations.

    @dollared: I keep saying this, and my liberal brethren seem to keep sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming “LALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU”.

    The day the GOP stops using Latinos as a punching bag, within ten years you’ll see a majority of Latinos voting Republican.

    Fortunately, so far the GOP seems invested in doubling down on this strategy, but I’m willing to bet that after Obama wipes the floor with them this election, that won’t be the case come 2016.

  38. 38.

    Nemesis

    February 17, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    Our decline from greatness began when boys strated wearing their pants around their knees. I blame Obama.

  39. 39.

    kay

    February 17, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    @makewi:

    We’re just trying to stay ahead of the plan:

    “Something tells me, that if the upcoming election could be decided on social issues, the Republicans could win that in a landslide, because we are on the right side of the culture war,” Limbaugh told listeners on Thursday. “The problem is, we’re scared to death of it. The Republican establishment wants no part of it.”

    I’m bored with conservatives running on social issues out of desperation.

    Perhaps you-all could seat a round table and come up with something else to run on? Make those think-tankers earn those big paychecks.

  40. 40.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    @qwerty42: conservative tendency is correlated with lower IQ. see; climate change denialism, Young Earth Creationism, medieval ensoulment, etc.

  41. 41.

    gex

    February 17, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    @Samara Morgan: The rich white people’s daughters will have access to safe abortions as well.

  42. 42.

    Lawnguylander

    February 17, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    @dollared:

    If that were true, why do conservatives win in places like Peru and Mexico, where 80% of the population is brown?

    I don’t know what will happen here with the “demographic time bomb” but I suggest it’s not the color of people’s skin that makes them vote for one type of politician over another but the circumstances of their lives and that sort of thing.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 17, 2012 at 12:49 pm

    @Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:

    The day the GOP stops using Latinos as a punching bag, within ten years you’ll see a majority of Latinos voting Republican.

    I’m inclined to agree, but one of the surprises of this birth control debate has been reports (I haven’t taken my own advice and looked up the actual numbers) that Hispanic Catholics in the US not only use birth control but supported Obama against the Bishops, even before the compromise. Also, it will be I think a good twenty years before the GOP stops bashing Latinos.

  44. 44.

    Tractarian

    February 17, 2012 at 12:49 pm

    OT, but Sully got up on the wrong side of the bed again this morning.

    What Obama is doing is causing sickness and death.

    Hewitt Award, anyone?

  45. 45.

    Culture of Truth

    February 17, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    The GOP isn’t demanding anyone eat their veggies. They’re promising tax cut and goodies for everyone, as usual.

  46. 46.

    Ed Drone

    February 17, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    @Jay C:

    I see in the intertube nooz that some feller dropped dead of a heart attack while eating one o’ them “triple-bypass” burgers.

    Sure showed them hippies, didn’t he?

    Ed

  47. 47.

    pacified

    February 17, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    I thought this was John Cole’s blog? Where is he.

  48. 48.

    daverave

    February 17, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    I miss the days when the culture wars were dominated by conservative hand-wringing over the depravity of the annual SI swimsuit issue.

  49. 49.

    Marc

    February 17, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    My reading of the linked post: Duncan writes essentially nothing but sarcastic one-liners, and he’s complaining that people are treating his as if he’s politically naive. He’s saying that he’s in tune with polls, realistic about what can be done, and doesn’t necessarily believe that his answers are the most popular ones.

    My reaction:

    Provide more context to your posts if you don’t want to have people getting pissed off at your lazy potshots.

    I also think that he’s full of shit on the merits; as far as I can tell he acts as if he really does believe that the values of online left-wing bloggers do represent the True Will of the People. But maybe I wouldn’t think that if he did something more substantial than sneering.

  50. 50.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    February 17, 2012 at 12:53 pm

    @Samara Morgan:

    America only has the luxury of engaging in culture wars when the economy is good.

    If this were the case then you or somebody else would be able to chart the rise and fall of culture war issues (say by number of published news stories) in synch with the growth or shrinkage of the GDP. Having lived thru and paid attention to politics since the 1972 campaign (aka long before you were born) I don’t think the annecdotal evidence is a good fit for this, albeit I’d be willing to revise my opinion if a Nate Silver-ish person were to assemble some actual data.

    Let me point out an important distinction that has a bearing on how we interpret the way the 2008 general election campaign swung in Obama’s favor in step with the crisis in the credit markets that fall. Which is that voters react differently to what is perceived as an acute crisis, as distinct from a longer-term sense of economic stagnation and decline, e.g. the 1970s. An acute crisis will focus voter attention to fundamentals of economic policy, but only for a short period of time. A long term crisis spawns a thirst for scapegoats.

  51. 51.

    PeakVT

    February 17, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    @Culture of Truth: They’re promising a tax cut for you, and to make everyone else eat their veggies in order to pay for it. The number of people who actually get the tax cut is much smaller than the people who think they will get the tax cut, of course.

  52. 52.

    Steve

    February 17, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    @Greg: I think Kay covered this in another post a few days ago. Prescription drug coverage usually comes from a completely different company than the one which pays for childbirth and the like, so they actually don’t care about keeping you from becoming pregnant. The incentives would be much better aligned with single-payer.

  53. 53.

    makewi

    February 17, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    @kay:

    I think the GOP running on any platform other than Obama has been a disaster is unwise.

  54. 54.

    Marc

    February 17, 2012 at 12:57 pm

    @Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:

    The politics of the first generation of immigrants is not the same as the politics of their children. Politics is also cultural as much as ideological; once there is a cultural bond it take decades to sever it. (Look at how long it took for white southern racists to leave the Democratic party, for instance.)

  55. 55.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    February 17, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    @dollared:

    So what’s left? (White) Morality. Gets you 40% before the first SuperPAC ad runs.

    This…plus guns. A friend of ours in the metro St Louis area has a husband we put up with. White guy, chemical engineer, laid off right at 50 years of age. Typical southern Illinois Republican. Collected unemployment until it ran out. Finally got a job (they weren’t leaving the area) making *half* of what he was making. Classic example of voting against his own economic interests for 30+ years.

    He’ll still vote Repup in the fall. Why? Guns. Despite having bleeding hearts like me and another guy like Cole (although not nearly as formerly wingnutty), this other guy owns about half a dozen guns of various types, telling him Dems gave up on “gun control” years ago, this asshat still thinks that Obama is gonna send Hilary to his house in a black helicopter to TAKE AWAY HIS GUNS.

    The NRA pounds the drums on this constantly as well.

    So, culture and guns and you’ve got 45% of the voting public right there, as you say, before the first SuperPAC ad runs in the fall.

  56. 56.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    February 17, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    one of the surprises of this birth control debate has been reports (I haven’t taken my own advice and looked up the actual numbers) that Hispanic Catholics in the US not only use birth control but supported Obama against the Bishops

    People who are members of the Catholic laity are used to ignoring the bishops when it suits them, which is fairly often. The real political target of the the bishops crying out: “Now we see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” is Protestants who will hear the ruckus without having personal knowledge of how frequently the bishops are full of it, and think “Obama = anti-Christian”.

  57. 57.

    jibeaux

    February 17, 2012 at 1:01 pm

    Romney defender on MSNBC is holding up the SLC Olympics as proof Romney is invincible. Am I the one out of step here? Does anyone give a monkey’s fuck about that?

    Could be just you and me, but smacks of “dammit, see what you can find in the wikipedia, I gotta go on the air soon” to me.

  58. 58.

    Tractarian

    February 17, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    @dollared:

    I don’t believe the demographic time bomb bullshit. If that were true, why do conservatives win in places like Peru and Mexico, where 80% of the population is brown?

    Are you serious? The “conservative” parties in those countries are roughly equivalent ideologically to the Democratic Party. (The “liberal” parties in those countries are far to the left of any mainstream American politician, save maybe Bernie Sanders.)

    The fact is, if the GOP tries in earnest to appeal to black/brown voters, they will repel the resentment-based white voters that are currently their base. They’re in a tough spot.

  59. 59.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    February 17, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    @Marc:

    This. Duncan’s a master of the snarky one-lines but I stopped reading his blog years ago for exactly the reasons you describe. It’s disheartening to see him inflate Left Blogistania to some wider representation of the population. Hardfuckingly.

  60. 60.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    February 17, 2012 at 1:04 pm

    I think the GOP running on any platform other than Obama has been a disaster is unwise.

    @makewi: I agree fully, however, that’s a case that can’t be made.

    Hence, War On Contraception, War On Mexicans, other losing social issues.

    Romney is your John Kerry, minus the compulsive truth-telling and heroism. Good luck with that.

  61. 61.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 1:07 pm

    @pacified: hiding.

  62. 62.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    @Tractarian: correction.
    ressentiment based.

  63. 63.

    Tractarian

    February 17, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    @makewi:

    I think the GOP running on any platform other than Obama has been a disaster is unwise destined to lose.

    Fixed. The problem with this advice is that there’s a yawning gap between “Obama has been a disaster” and the reality Americans experience every day, read about in the newspaper, and see on TV. And that gap is just getting bigger.

  64. 64.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    @Tractarian: still he has multiple links to the Wonder of EDK, just ike John Cole.

  65. 65.

    handsmile

    February 17, 2012 at 1:14 pm

    A signal lesson on American political demographics in the year 2012:

    Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles, will be the chairman of the Democratic National Convention this September in Charlotte. A position that will provide him with incalculable national exposure.

    The Tampa Bay convention, on the other hand, will be filled with party leaders and apparatchiks who advocate throwing someone like Villaraigosa in jail if he’s without ID at a traffic stop.

    So yeah, I’m pretty confident that Mexxkins will be supporting the Democratic Party well into the future.

    And as for the Village being out of touch, I’m waiting to see how long if will take for their hiring practices to recognize this country’s inexorable demographics.

  66. 66.

    Bruce S

    February 17, 2012 at 1:15 pm

    “the Villagers think David Brooks and Richard Cohen have the pulse of the Great Unwashed”

    Brooks has an audience among liberals still looking for that “intelligent conservative” (personally I find poor “black-listed” Pat Buchanan more intelligent, or at least coherent, than David Brooks, because – among other things – he’s not lying to himself or us about the trajectory and implications of his reactionary outlook), but I don’t think anyone reads Richard Cohen other than his editor. In comparison, he makes my gall bladder – which was removed over a decade ago – seem “non-vestigal.”

  67. 67.

    Martin

    February 17, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    @dollared:

    I don’t believe the demographic time bomb bullshit. If that were true, why do conservatives win in places like Peru and Mexico, where 80% of the population is brown?

    Because it’s not ‘brownness’ that correlates to Dem votes, it’s GOP xenophobia that does. Once the GOP knocks that shit off, it’s a whole new ballgame, and the Dems better be prepared. In some ways they are – but barely. The Latino community is very small-business focused, anti-regulation at the local level, and Catholic more in the way you expect Catholics to be and less in the way US Catholics are, so somewhat more socially conservative. Gay marriage works against the Dems, but going after the investor class works for them, and the Dems have at least a veneer of small business support which they’d do well to embrace more fully.

  68. 68.

    Libby

    February 17, 2012 at 1:21 pm

    I’m more or less with Doug. Don’t think it’s over yet, but the strongest voting bloc they have in that demo is elderly people. As in their 70s and 80s.

    Lot of these younger culture warriors bloviate loudly and constantly on the interwebs but don’t always show up to ballot box. Demo going to shrink as the loyal voters age out. But I don’t think it’s going to happen as fast as we’d like. I may not live to see it. You kids probably will.

  69. 69.

    Jay C

    February 17, 2012 at 1:22 pm

    @Ed Drone:

    For those who suspect a publicity stunt, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue confirms that a man with heart attack symptoms was taken from the Heart Attack Grill to the hospital.
    __
    CBS News confirmed that he left without paying for his Triple Bypass Burger.

    Moocher!

  70. 70.

    Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor

    February 17, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    @Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:

    The day the GOP stops using Latinos as a punching bag, within ten years you’ll see a majority of Latinos voting Republican.

    One more gratuitous ‘this’. Short term (next 10-20 years or so), yes, Latinos will stick with the Dems as fellow travelers.

    But there is no end state to American politics. I’m just barely old enough to remember a Democratic party that watched in horror as blue-collar Catholics went over to Reagan in droves, and never came back. There is no reason to smugly assume that Latinos couldn’t follow the same trajectory as they, too, come to prominence.

  71. 71.

    Culture of Truth

    February 17, 2012 at 1:28 pm

    MSNBC is holding up the SLC Olympics as proof Romney is invincible. Am I the one out of step here? Does anyone give a monkey’s fuck about that?

    Well what else are you going to say about him? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans? That he had wisdom??

  72. 72.

    Samara Morgan

    February 17, 2012 at 1:29 pm

    aww.
    sooner doesnt liek what im saying.
    he totes supported regime change in Iraq an A-stan.
    but he doesnt want you to remember that.

  73. 73.

    Wee Bey

    February 17, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Thank you.

  74. 74.

    GVG

    February 17, 2012 at 1:32 pm

    37. Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    The day the GOP stops using Latinos as a punching bag, within ten years you’ll see a majority of Latinos voting Republican.

    The GOP is unable to keep from Hispanic bashing because that’s what many of them actually believe. The demographic stupidity of it has been obvious and pointed out for years but they keep doing it. Nothing lasts for ever but losing elections hasn’t stopped them before. I think some districts of GOP elected officials select for non bigot’s but the rest of the party keeps inserting foot over and over. Their voters are the source so the party thinkers can’t really prevent this.
    Even in areas with a lot of actual Hispanic voters where it seems like it would be silly to speak and act out prejudice, their are 2 strains of GOP. Sometimes being surrounded and close to some “other” actually makes prejudice get worse. Thus Texas produced Bush who was nice to Hispanics and Perry who said things I thought were insulting. I’ve heard California is also like this w pockets of anti hispanic feeling and sure GOP seats contrasted with other areas that were /democratic or at least anti GOP.
    When Bush screwed things up so badly that many voters became former GOP, the anti other kinds of people part became less diluted and gained more control of the smaller party.

  75. 75.

    huckster

    February 17, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    @Martin: They will never be able to do this as long as they need their base, which will never go for it. Their die is cast.

  76. 76.

    dollared

    February 17, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    @Samara Morgan: Not only do you need communication skills training, you need a bit of study on the fastest growing segments of the US population, Asian-Americans and Hispanic Americans. They can easily shift to Republicanism because they either believe in the Gospel of Wealth or the Rule of the Bishops. BTW, the R’s aren’t dumb. They will make the shift in the next 8-12 years.

  77. 77.

    dollared

    February 17, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    @Martin: Yup, I agree. Add in the Gospel of Wealth for Asian Americans, and the time bomb merely means a messaging shift for the Rs. It will happen.

  78. 78.

    dollared

    February 17, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    @Tractarian: Actually, no. The Conservative Parties in some Latin American countries are the equivalent of the 1950s Falangists in Spain. And they have real, live death squads. And yet they win elections, because they own the Church and the Army. Oh, and what’s happening with the Church and the Army in the US?

  79. 79.

    joeyess

    February 17, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    It may be that once upon a time there were enough Real Murkin-type voters to make culture war and eat-your-vegetables type stuff a political winner. It seems increasingly clear that those days are over, but that no one in the Village knows it.

    Thank you. There is certainly an intellectual disconnect between the Villagers and the proles, and this needed to be said.

    Now if we could only get someone on the teevee machine to say it to their faces.

  80. 80.

    joeyess

    February 17, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    @jibeaux: Weren’t the SLC games rife with corruption and bid rigging scandals?

  81. 81.

    chrome agnomen

    February 17, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    i would even disagree about the two years after 9/11, since the village was driving the narrative there to a significant extent. they certainly weren’t out front of it.

  82. 82.

    Marc

    February 17, 2012 at 2:17 pm

    @dollared:

    People have a tendency to remember folks who treated then like dirt. Conversely, it’s difficult for people to abandon tribal loyalties. Look at how long it took for New England and the deep South to switch partisan allegiances, for example; in both cases there was a disconnect between the former party and the ideology of the region.

    A deeper problem for Republicans is that a very large fraction of their current membership is heavily invested in bigotry. People like the Bush brothers were trying to reach out to conservative Hispanics, and it’s pretty clear that they lost the argument within their party.

  83. 83.

    Tractarian

    February 17, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    @Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:

    There is no reason to smugly assume that Latinos couldn’t follow the same trajectory as they, too, come to prominence.

    Sure there is. You see, as GVG points out, it’s not a coincidence that the GOP is the xenophobic, anti-immigration party as much as it is the social-conservative, Christian party. Republican pols are not advocating border walls and self-deportation and the rest because they just hate brown people (although some of them surely do). They advocate those things because it wins them votes. And, although many of those votes come from the nursing home set, a lot also come from young, uneducated whites, and those people aren’t going anywhere for a while.

    What I’m saying is, a GOP that throws anti-immigrant hysteria to the dustbin of history (where it belongs) would not be the same GOP that you and I know – i.e., the party that poor uneducated whites flock to because of cultural identity and bitterness (as someone once said).

    So I wouldn’t hold my breath on the GOP giving up that particular ghost.

  84. 84.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    February 17, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    @Tractarian:

    What I’m saying is, a GOP that throws anti-immigrant hysteria to the dustbin of history (where it belongs) would not be the same GOP that you and I know – i.e., the party that poor uneducated whites flock to because of cultural identity and bitterness (as someone once said).

    The national Democratic party was once stuck in a similar trap. The Dems broke out of it thru a combination of events: in the 1912 presidential election the GOP split into 2 factions, along progressive vs conservative lines, aided by the personality conflict between TR and Taft, which allowed Wilson to win the WH for the Dems for only the 3rd time since the Civil War. And then during the 1932 election the GOP was left holding the bag for a massive economic failure which swamped all other considerations.

    This sort of thing could happen again. The current Democratic party resembles the GOP of TR’s era in multiple ways, including a sometimes bitter split between a progressive wing and a conservative and corporatist wing of the party.

  85. 85.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2012 at 2:56 pm

    @dollared:

    They could very well shift to Republicans, but the problem is you’re assuming that Republicans (like Bush and Rove) are running the show, and will act rationally.

    That’s the real issue here, because the racist assholes are the base now, just as planned by Nixon, and they call the shots, not Bush or Rove. When Rove tried to point this out, that a potential huge voting bloc for the GOP was being alienated by all the nativism, he was quickly brought to heel for his failure to adhere to the new Partei line.

  86. 86.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    February 17, 2012 at 3:01 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    That’s the real issue here, because the racist assholes are the base now, just as planned by Nixon

    I don’t think Tricky Dick meant for it to go this far. He thought the racist yahoos were useful idiots, but I very much doubt that he ever intended to turn over the keys to the kingdom to them.

  87. 87.

    geg6

    February 17, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    @Lawnguylander:

    I remember watching the first Obama-McCain debate and being so happy that Obama had kicked his ass and then getting really pissed off when the CNN idiots mostly agreed with each other that, no, McCain had won. Then the polls started coming in which showed that their panel of viewers overwhelmingly agreed with me. John King and friends were stunned and I began realizing that I didn’t really need to care what people like him thought. And that I didn’t need to care about “hippie punching” or other obsessions of the likes of Atrios. Which was good because otherwise I might be sitting here in fear that the Democrats were coming to take my guns Social Security away. Now when I do go over there it takes me a little while to even figure out what the fuck he’s talking about, like RP up there. And that’s why I never read people like Atrios and Digby anymore.

    Now that it’s fixt, I couldn’t agree more.

  88. 88.

    Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor

    February 17, 2012 at 3:42 pm

    @Tractarian:

    Sure there is. You see, as GVG points out, it’s not a coincidence that the GOP is the xenophobic, anti-immigration party as much as it is the social-conservative, Christian party. Republican pols are not advocating border walls and self-deportation and the rest because they just hate brown people (although some of them surely do). They advocate those things because it wins them votes.

    All true.

    And in the late 19th century until the mid 1920s or so, the GOP was anti-Catholic party (back when Catholic meant ‘immigrant’).

    By 1980? Not so much. And now, here’s the GOP going to bat for Catholic Bishops with positions so radical, that most of their parishoners don’t agree with them, much less non-Catholics.

    Parties change over time. And no one can say with any certainty what will happen decades out, because you can’t know the future with any certainty.

    I’m not claiming any particular trajectory, as I have no way of knowing either. I’m just pointing out that you don’t know, either.

    Why is this so fucking controversial?

    You might as well argue with me about gravity, or about whether water is wet or not.

  89. 89.

    Groucho48

    February 17, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    @Culture of Truth:

    The horror! The horror!

  90. 90.

    les

    February 17, 2012 at 4:39 pm

    @dollared:

    why do conservatives win in places like Peru and Mexico, where 80% of the population is brown?

    Uh, because their conservatives are well to the left of our Democrats. I’d almost forgotten how unbelievably stupid you are.

  91. 91.

    les

    February 17, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    @joeyess:

    Weren’t the SLC games rife with corruption and bid rigging scandals?

    Yes, among others, including bribing IOC members to get the site chosen. You say that as if it would hurt a Repub nominee to be involved–I don’t think so.

  92. 92.

    Marc

    February 17, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    @les:

    I’d agree with you if we were talking about Europe. But central and south america are a different kettle of fish. Abortion is illegal across much of Latin America:

    http://reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/AbortionMap_2011.pdf

    They throw women in prison for abortions in many countries in the region, not just doctors for performing them.

    On economic matters the right wing in Latin America is pretty far right even by US standards – e.g. the equivalent of Social Security was privatized in Chile.

  93. 93.

    Dollared

    February 17, 2012 at 11:34 pm

    @les: And that was before Mitt was brought in, ignoramus. He fixed that, that’s his big claim to leadership skills.

  94. 94.

    Dollared

    February 17, 2012 at 11:38 pm

    @les:

    Uh, because their conservatives are well to the left of our Democrats. I’d almost forgotten how unbelievably stupid you are.

    Thanks! Tell me about your years in central and south america. Quick! Who is Rios Montt? Can you describe the social security system in Ecuador? Can you tell me when the US Democratic party had death squads?

    Amazing that you can call someone “unbelievably stupid” at the precise moment you are displaying complete ignorance on a subject.

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