As a newly minted left-wing America hating dhimmi, I think one of the things that amazes me is the visceral anger of the right wing blogosphere. Last night, incredulous, I watched as Dana Milbank, Chris Matthews, and some ad exec basically decided that ‘Bush’ had won the debate over Iraq this week:
MATTHEWS: I agree with that, he didn’t know. But if he believed that this war was making America safer, wouldn’t he have said so?
DELLA FEMINA: I think that he just won people over by saying, I haven’t got an answer. Sometimes coming up with a fast answer will—there are people who are looking at him and saying, I know we should get out, the surge isn’t working. They now believe that they’re right and the surge isn’t working. There are other people saying, I’m telling you, the surge seems to be working. They believe—so he didn’t change anyone.
What they wanted was status quo. They wanted everyone to say, Well, gee, this guy is—he’s very impressive. He’s a war hero.
I think the biggest mistake that was made was the anti—the “Petraeus Betray us” that ran just before that. I mean, what a setup that was. Snow could get up and say, Gee, this is a hero. How could we treat this man this way?
***MILBANK: Well, as a tactical matter, Bush has won this round. But this actually, purely politically, makes it much more difficult for him and his party next year. This means there won’t be a massive reduction of troops before the election. This is going to be going on next summer now. So they’ve kicked the can down the road. They’ll be able to do that until March. But this is exactly what the Republicans didn’t want.
General Petraeus came to DC, offered what is essentially fact-free testimony, and admitted in a fleeting moment of candor that he, like the rest of us, doesn’t think this war is making us any safer, the Democrats are pre-emptively rolling over and playing dead, the “surge” will continue on until it is physically impossible, and if you survey the blogosphere, it is the right that is angry- about an ad in a newspaper none of them fucking read anyway.
And I just don’t get it. What the hell do they have to be angry about? Other than immigration and social security, hasn’t Bush given them everything they wanted and demanded? What, exactly, have the defeatocrats stopped? Name one thing that has been denied Bush in his prosecution of this war. One dollar that wasn’t budgeted. Even today, at the height of the Democratic opposition, and the Bush administration is adhering consistently to the doctrine of “Doing Whatever the Fuck We Want.” The troops aren’t going anywhere until we don’t have enough troops. That isn’t a Democrat forced drawdown/withdrawal, it is a shortage of troops.
And so it is for everything, tax cuts, domestic policy, torture, surveillance, judicial picks- you name it. Bush has done whatever he wants, the right has supported him the whole way, and the opposition from ‘teh left’ can charitably be called inconsequential. Christ on a crutch, it took a beating at the polls (the only ones that count) to force Bush to accept Rumsfeld’s resignation, and Gonzales stayed on until he was literally the laughingstock of the legal world, both domestic and abroad. And does anyone want to place a bet that there will be little more than token opposition to Ted Olson as the next AG? Anyone?
So again- what are they so damned angry about? I don’t get it. I used to throw around the term the “angry left” myself, but watching this administration do whatever it wants to the cheerleading of imbeciles and first rate hacks, I am surprised the left is not angrier. Bush, the worst President of my lifetime and possible the last century, turned a 51% tightly fought election into a mandate, while the Democrats can’t figure out how to remove one god damned troop from Iraq with 60+% of the public furious about the war.
Again, I don’t get it. What are they so damned mad about? If they had to put up with the crap the left is putting up with, they would be burning cars in the street. If the roles were reversed, the right wouldn’t be pooling their money for an ad in the NY Times- they would burn the god damned building down after stoning the editorial board to death. And that is putting it mildly.
And why are the Democrats so damned hopeless?
Bubblegum Tate
Outrage is what fuels “the movement” (and remember, to the wingnuts, conservatism is not a set of social/political/fiscal ideas, it is a movement). That’s why they were so listless after communism fell–they had lost their raison d’etre and had nothing to rage against. Clinton was basically their salvation: At last, something to be uber-pissed about! A Democratic president!
Now, as you point out, for the past 6 years, Bush has gotten everything he’s asked for. He’s been given free reign to do whateer the fuck he wants, and nobody has been able to stop him on anything (well, except the destruction of Social Security–I don’t think anybody’s gonna be able to pull that one off). This is why the wingnuts have taken to releasing Outrage Jackalopes. All their pathetic little temper tantrums–Liberals hate America! Judicial activists! Terri Schiavo could’ve walked if she hadn’t been murdered! Evolution is a farce! Nobody suffers more persecution in America than Christians! The “Betrayus” ad is treason!–are because, well, they gotta be mad about something, right?
As to why outrage is what fuels the movement…well, that’s anybody’s guess. It’s certainly a psychological clusterfuck. Maybe it’s somehow related to the whole right-wing authoritarian thing. I dunno.
Billy K
They hate “The Left.” Doesn’t even matter which left or what parts, or if it even exists. They hate it. They’re mad at it. If it didn’t exist, they would invent it (and indeed they have many times) so they could hate it.
I know that doesn’t answer your question, but I can’t tell you what they’re mab ABOUT, only tell you what they’re mad AT. It’s “The Left.” It’s a Bogeyman. A snipe. And their entire movement – their entire existence – is built around this hatred for a nebulous concept. It may have, at one time had a tenuous connection to something about the 60s and radicals and hippies and such, but really, even that’s always been a McGuffin.
They just hate. Period. Somehow that got them into power.
Edmund Dantes
I don’t know. I think Orwell covered it pretty well in Animal Farm and 1984.
capelza
Well, it’s official. John, expect your complimentary set of hand thrown pottery wine goblets in the mail anyday now.
We also give out holistic herbal remedies for the syndrome caused by 15 or 20 years of our collective jaw being dropped, over and over.
r4d20
Don’t forget that there is a vast rightwing alternative-media which allows people to insulate themselves from alternative viewpoints, except insofar as they are strawmen only setup to be knocked down.
If you are told everyday that “political correctness” is oppressing people like you, you may come to believe it even when the evidence to the contrary is right in front of your face.
Rick Taylor
Social secuity is the only thing Democrats decisively one on, but I don’t think the right wing every cared much about that anyway. That’s the only thing I can think of.
I think they’re angry because they’re fantasy isn’t working out the way it’s supposed to. I’d assume that if Iraq had turned into a shining example of Democracy like they said it would (I still can’t believe anyone important took that seriously), if there’d been wmd’s, if Katrina hadn’t happened, etc, they’d be a lot more magnanimous to us poor deluded lefties. As so few of them are interested in admitting they were wrong, there’s nothing to do but clap louder, and to shout down anyone who doesn’t clap. Plus they need someone to blame besides themselves for what went wrong, and all they’ve got are Iran and us lefites. If only we didn’t exist, Al Queda in Iraq would realize it was hopeless because the Americans would never quit and they would turn themselves in overnight, I guess. At least that’s the only explanation I can come up with.
Sometimes I try to imagine what I’d feel like if my assumptions about what would happen after the invastion were as wild wrong as there’s were. What if we’d invaded, we’d discoverd an active weapons program which they were going to share with Al Queada, and the Iraqi people sponaneously formed a secular democracy that had all the despots in that area of the world were shaking in their boots, and the Israel and the Palestinians were well on their way to reconcilliation as result. (I have to remind myself this was what they said would really happen).
What would my reaction have been? Well, I guess I’d be pretty happy. But I’d also be disturbed at how out of touch with reality I was. I’d probably give up pontificating about foreign affairs, at least until I’d reassessed the ideas that had caused my mistakes. And if I were in a position of power or a leading opinionater, i’d be be deeply troubled at the harm my ideas might have cause had they been taken seriously.
I actually did discover I was out of contact with reality on one front. In 2000, I was convinced Bush couldn’t win the elections, because during the first debate it was so frighteningly obvious how incompetent he was to lead. During the 2004 election, I was even more convinced; it was inconceivable a President could start a botched war under false pretenses that was rapidly turning into a catastrophic failure and a quagmire, and as if that wasn’t enough, presided over the rejection of the Geneva conventions and the identification of the US with new forms of torture involving sexual humiliation. I didn’t care what the polls said, it was impossible. And of course I was wildly wrong, he even managed to win the popular vote.
So I’m shaken, and at this point, I confess I don’t understand a damn thing about politics. If Bush could win in 2004, then I have no idea who’s electable and who isn’t and I don’t try to figure it out. It’s a complete mystery to me.
jenniebee
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul… They don’t just want their own way, John. They want your buy-in. And they want what they’ve insisted on doing to have the effect that they insisted it would have, and they haven’t gotten that. What to do except to blame the part of the audience that didn’t clap hard enough to save Tink?
Doubting Thomas
Now can you understand why MoveOn placed that ad?
Andrew J. Lazarus
Because Tinkerbell lives only if everyone believes. As long a the Democrats (or even their leftist edge, like the Dixie Chicks) aren’t down with the war, it can’t possibly work.
So shut up and clap louder!
salvage
Democrats suck, they truly do. The only way this war is going to end is
a) horrible disaster in Iraq, like the whole country explodes into riots and bloody mayhem like Somalia did.
b) Army busted, nothing to do but bring it home to get it fixed
c) New President is Canadian.
Bibblesnæð
You got it right about righties burning cars in the street if things were spun round about. Look how they behaved in Florida in 2000. They’re angry, angry people.
My theory is that they have this magical idea in their heads about what this country should look like. It isn’t a good place to live for most of us; it isn’t a realistic place; it’s nothing that (I hope) they could ever actually bring off; but in their mind, if only, if only, we’d do things their way, everything would eb hunky dory.
Well, they’ve gotten an awful lot of what they wanted under this president, and under the Congress until a year ago, but THINGS HAVEN’T TURNED OUT AS THEY’D HOPED!!!
Clearly it’s a conspiracy, and clearly, the left is to blame. They are authoritarians. That’s how they think. They believe what they believe, and they believe it absolutely. Having had Bush and the Republicans in power for 6 years, obviously things should be the way they want them, the last year notwithstanding. But they aren’t. So it must be that the left is really this allmighty and pernicious conspiracy, bent on destroying all they hold good.
Look at the Soviet Union in the 30’s as a comparison. Those guys were authoritarian fundamentalists, too. And they believed utterly in communism, that it would make the world over into what it should be, and that there was no way it could fail–unless somebody betrayed the movement and stabbed them all in the back.
Well, when communism DIDN’T work–big surprise–it couldn’t have been that it couldn’t work; it had to be that there were spies and “wreckers” screwing everything up. So they went looking for the wreckers, and when they looked hard enough, they found them, even though there were no wreckers, only a system that didn’t work. So they ratted each other out, before somerbody ratted them out, and had show trials, and the only thing that stopped it from eating everybody alive was World War II.
It’s just like this now. If only we didn’t have all these scheming liberals, there would be no abortions, and we’d have shut down al qaueda, and they really would be throwing flowers in front of our troops every day in Iraq, and it would be raining lollipops every day, and the seas would have turned into lemonade, and on and on.
But clearly, these things haven’t happened, so it must be–MUST be–the liberals’ fault.
As Digby once said, conservatism can never fail; it can only be failed.
Randolph Fritz
The Democrats aren’t the left, John; the blogosphere, the academics, NGOs are the left. And we’re plenty angry–we’re just not throwing temper tantrums. As for what the right is angry about I think the following, which I wrote to a neo-con in 2002, covers the ground:
jenniebee
Actually, the WH wanted that badly – it was one of Rove’s five cornerstones of a political shift in the country that would guarantee R’s a permanent majority – and it wasn’t the Dems who stopped them. Remember, this was in 2004, at the Dems’ lowest ebb, when Bush had just won re-election in spite of forecasts of a Kerry landslide (makes you go “hmmmm…”) The problem was, it was horribly unpopular, Americans never bought into it that Social Security would really just evaporate, and there weren’t any Democrats who would give congressional Republicans political cover by voting with them for privatization. The really unpopular stuff usually goes through when both sides agree to cover each other by voting for it.
DragonScholar
As a newly minted left-wing America hating dhimmi – eh, I think of you as an American. Go figure.
Why is the right angry? I’d say the big reason is that simply, they have nothing else left.
If they slow down, think, calm down – like any rational adult – then they’d have to admit they’re a group of screw-ups at best, and murderous pirates at worse. They’d have to look at the utter mess they’ve got of a country, the utter hypocracy of their leadership, and how they’ve been consistently and utterly wrong.
If a rational person did this, they’d be appalled, horrified, and work to make amends of some kind. They’d fix things.
These people don’t have that level of maturity or security. So they lash out – because to not lash out means they’re in danger of thinking. And they lash out because, I think, down deep, too many know just what horrible things they support, and lashing out is easier.
Me, I wonder how long they can support this near-constant rage of the last six years. At some point you either have to burn out, snap, or both.
Bubblegum Tate
I’m right there with you on that. I saw that debate and pretty much laughed that the GOP had nominated that jabbering idiot behind the podium.
I think my first clue of what was to come was the news coverage of the debate the next day: “That Al Gore is such a meanie! Did you hear him sighing during the debate?” No mention of, you know, the actual debate. Just that Gore was “mean” to Bush. Christ.
The Other Steve
It’s actually pretty simple. They’re angry that people don’t like them, and don’t hold them on a pedestal as idols of worship.
Same reason why they bash on movie stars and other celebrities who endorse Democrats. In a few months here, they’re going to be trashing Oprah left and right, especially as she’s come out so strongly in support of Obama. Failing to realize that this is unique for Oprah. Not only is Obama the first credible black candidate, he’s from Oprah’s home turf of Chicago. None of that matters. Oprah is now an enemy of the state, and shall be treated in the same manner as Gregory Peck, Barbara Streisand, Ted Danson, Martin Sheen, or any other celebrity who says they don’t worship Republicans.
Look at their history on this. Look at the actors and celebrities they love. From Arnold, to that idiot from the West Wing, or Dennis Miller, Ted Nugent, etc. It’s not that they are talented, or moral… but they worship Republicans. That’s the only criteria.
Rick Taylor
Just to add to your questions, why the hell do they hate the press? All the major papers, including the New York times, rolled over for the propoganda on weapons of mass destruction. If you read blogs that linked you to Knight Ridder articles or an interview with a former Iraqi scientist you could see it was all a lie; all the papers had to do was some genuine investigative reporting, but they were content to simply be stenographers for the administration, allowing themselves to be used, putting the whole purpose of protected sources on its head. Oh, and they helped Bush get elected in the first place, literally making stuff up about what a fibber Gore was, the Internet, Love Canal, etc etc, while Bush was a given a free pass to misrepresent the effects of his own tax cut plans.
But you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If they admitted they were happy with newspaper coverage, maybe the papers wouldn’t feel they had to bend over backward to accomodate them or risk their righteous wrath (witness the Move On fiasco).
As for why liberals aren’t angrier, well, you may find it gets hard to keep up that level of white hot anger, year after year, with nothing changing. I think mine peaked after the discovery of what we’re doing in Guantanomo, and hearing the Canadian we sent off to Syria to be tortured. Eventually you get jaded, you just run out of steam.
The Other Steve
70% of Americans are enemies of the state for not worshiping Dear Leader.
They will be purged when the red army comes.
BIRDZILLA
The MINDLESS LEFT the most evil bunch of radicals in the world
Rex
Watching Chris Matthews basically asking Laura Ingraham if he could eat the corn out of her poop last night really cinched for me what a sycophantic douchebag he has become. To reciprocate, she kindly assured him that he wasn’t like the rest of the liberals.
OxyCon
I was spending my time in the doldrums
I was caught in the cauldron of hate
I felt persecuted and paralyzed
I thought that everything else would just wait
While you are wasting your time on your enemies
Engulfed in a fever of spite
Beyond your tunnel vision reality fades
Like shadows into the night
To martyr yourself to caution
Is not going to help at all
Because there’ll be no safety in numbers
When the Right One walks out of the door
Can you see your eyes blighted by darkness?
Is it true you beat your fists on the floor?
Stuck in a world of isolation
While ivy grows over the door
So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean
But they tell me to please go fuck myself
You know you just can’t win
pharniel
the angry right reminds me of my step brother whenver the world didn’t recognise his genious.
in short they’re sociopathic bullies bent on getting pissed off when thier ‘toys’ (that’d be the rest of us) don’t line up and march the way tehy are supposed to.
Most little boys grow out of this around mid twenties, but some assclows stay like it forever (see most of the ‘don’t question thier patriotism’ commentors at ace and teh captian)
the inability to see fairness in any shape or form, or understand nuance in any way other than a ‘he did it too’ juvinile bullshit way shows through.
my brotehr grew out of it, my father may never because the world is so much easier when it’s black and white, and the conspiracy du jour is wrong.
because facts and real problems are hard, straw men go down easy.
The Other Steve
5% of the time they report the truth, which contradicts right-wing mythology.
That makes them enemies of the state.
What we really need in this country is a news source that only reports the Truth, as the party sees it. We shall call it Pravda.
Face
The drug metaphor again. It’s easier to keep injecting and inhaling than it is to quit, realize how much $$ you’ve blown, how many friends you’ve lost, comprehend that you have yellow teeth, illegitimate kids, weak job, and no future.
There’s a few that go thru this painful introspection, but they’re the strong ones (Sully, Cole, etc). The weak would rather don cheerleading costumes and accent their lips with bright red lipstick and earn millions spewing bullshit.
The Other Steve
EXACTLY!
The Other Steve
Is it really fair to bring AtlasShrugs and Malkin into this debate?
Rick Taylor
I’ll tell you what really gets me mad about the Democrats. They haven’t even lifted a finger to stop a potential invasion of Iran. I can hardly believe that. They haven’t rescinded the 2001 or 2002 AUMF, they haven’t passed a token bill saying you know you really can’t start a new war without congressional authorization, and they even passed unanimously a bill saying Iran was responsible for murdering American troops.
Now I have some small sympathy with the Democrats on Iraq. The easy decision was not to invade in the first place; that no longer being possible there are no easy decisions left regarding Iraq; all options are bad. But not invading Iran should be a no-brainer! And yet they can’t even get behind that! That just boggles my mind. Now I’m reduced to hoping that this administration, as frighteningly destructive and incompetent as they are, won’t start a war with Iran. I don’t think they will, I don’t think they’re that crazy, I don’t think the military would play along, but I really wish I didn’t have to depend entirely on that! Couldn’t my party help out a little?
We’ve lost on Iraq. Even capturing both houses and a majority of opinion on our side, we’ve lost. The best we can hope for is not starting another war that, and I mean this seriously, could be the beginning of the end of civilization as we’ve known it.
DragonScholar
Face,
Agreed. It is like a drug in that regards that one doesn’t have to look back.
Another thought to is that I bet the hate is a rush. Everything is clear, the adrenaline is high and nothing’s your fault. But the rush fades – so you need new enemies.
Really, these people have got to be burning out by now.
neil
If they stopped being so angry they’d become Democrats.
Jay
I’d assume that if Iraq had turned into a shining example of Democracy like they said it would (I still can’t believe anyone important took that seriously), if there’d been wmd’s, if Katrina hadn’t happened, etc, they’d be a lot more magnanimous to us poor deluded lefties.
Are you kidding? If they got everything their way, they’d hate us even more, because not only would we be “ze evil leftists”, but we’d be losers.
And the main thing they care about is being on the winning team.
Jake
Pretty much what Pharinel says. People who’ve been in abusive relationships regularly report that any sign or gesture, that the abuser interprets as resistance, even an instinctive step back or rasing of an arm in defense, will trigger a more violent attack.
It isn’t enough that the Democratic legislators eventually shut up and rolled over, they’ll always and forever be guilty of daring to bark first. As for the evil Libruls who can’t seem to change anything with their votes but still refuse to shut up, as well as the media when it reports something that isn’t rosy, We (heart) Bush happy talk… Well, as you’ve said several times:
Welcome to infinite war, bitches!
Pb
Rick Taylor,
Take a look at what passes for a foreign policy establishment in the US, and thus, who the Democrats are getting their advice from.
The Other Steve
The behaviors of the people often do seem like those of an abusive relationship. I’ve noticed this before.
montysano
And a vast leftwing alternative media as well, which is why I’ve started hanging around here instead of Firedoglake all the time. I want a civil discussion; I want a rational debate.
At this point, I’d prefer to think that the Dems are pathetic because they’re…… well, pathetic. Instead, I’m being forced to think (and I’m paraphrasing Arthur Silber here) that the Dems don’t object because……… they don’t object. They don’t object. At the end of the day, they’re on board with BushCo, and all of their sad attempts at impeding Bush are just political theater. Not a nice thought, eh?
KCinDC
John, when Olson was nominated for solicitor general, a grand total of 2 Democrats voted for him. That was in May 2001. Do you really think he’s going to breeze through the Senate now, especially after Harry Reid has publicly stated that the nomination would go nowhere? I agree that the Democrats are disappointing, but let’s not get carried away.
montysano
BTW: Chris Floyd over at Empire Burlesque has a nice companion piece to this post entitled “Post-Mortem America: Bush’s Year of Triumph and the Hard Way Ahead”.
Tsulagi
Amazement factor for me is zero. The Sisters of Perpetual Victimhood will NEVER, EVER pass up the slightest possible opportunity to cry their crocodile tears amid thumping their chests in indignant outrage for all their fellow sisters to admire.
They do it because it works. They’ve been rewarded for it. If Dems in Congress think the other guys might get mad at them and call them names, they roll over. Dems just don’t seem to get that even when they do roll over, the other guys will still be mad at them and call them names.
chopper
well, first off the right wing’s stances are in general rooted in the negative, not the positive. it’s ‘what we’re against’ rather than ‘what we’re for’. against social security. against gay rights. against taxes. against public services, against public schools, against welfare and food stamps. against regulation. about the only things they couch in the positive are being for school prayer and a ‘strong national defense’.
Keith
Problem with doing all those things is that they all require veto-proof legislation. The GOP has successfully maneuvered the arguments into ending things with creating legislation rather than by rejecting legislation. The AUMF was created when only 51% of votes would have been necessary, but rather than the argument being “How can Bush possibly get another AUMF passed in a Democratic Congress”, it’s instead “How can the Democratic Congress possibly pass a veto/filibuster-proof bill to stop the original AUMF?”
stickler
Yeah, but …
here’s what I don’t get about Reid’s reaction to Ted Olson. Reid said he’d filibuster the nomination himself. But he’s the freaking Majority Leader! He could have said that Ted Olson’s nomination won’t get a hearing, period. But he didn’t say that. Or he could have demanded the White House cooperate with Congressional investigations before even considering a nominee. But he didn’t say that, either.
Is Harry Reid just as weak as he looks? Someone tell me there’s really a clever plan behind all this rolling over for Bush.
Davis X. Machina
What are they so angry about?
Lincoln nailed it in the Cooper Union address:
For ‘let them alone’ read ‘roll over and play dead’, and it’s as true today of the GOP as it was then of the slave power.
Gus
It’s an act. Pretending they’re angry takes the focus off things that matter. Anger at the MoveOn ad distracts from the actual issues raised by Petraeus’ testimony.
rawshark
Leo Strauss.
rococo
I’ve long wondered about this. Republicans have long had the Angry under their tent – but they also had the Main Street business owners, the fiscal conservatives, the Rockerfellers and so on. All those other guys have cleared out or are pretty quiet, now. Now they’re just the Angry Party.
And they’re not angry because they’re the Right and things aren’t going their way. I think that most of the 28% are Right because they’re angry or are married to a guy who is.
Some of them are just congenitally angry jerks for whom anger is a hobby.
Others seem to feel that minorities or women or gays have robbed them of their birthright, somehow, and the best way to get even is to be angry.
There’s the religious who are angry at you because if only you prayed harder, all these homosexuals would stop sucking their dicks. Similar types are scared, puny little men; they know it and they’re afraid you do, too. They’re angry about it, plus they think that getting shouty makes them seem less puny.
The last group used to be not-angry but became angry as they grew old. While they think they are angry at Dhimmicrats and loud music, the real source of their anger is their disobedient, sluggish bowels.
I think that about covers the waterfront.
LITBMueller
Its not about that. Its about the fact that every politician in DC KNOWS that if they stopped the war tomorrow, absolutely every dollar of political donations from the defense and related industries would immediately stop flowing to their party.
Pure and simple. Its about the Dollars. As for the rest us, they don’t give a shit.
r4d20
Exactly.
I have been consistently disgusted at how eerily the modern American right thinks and acts just like the hard-line commies they claim to oppose.
When I was a kid the “right” used to mock the left for its perpetual sense of being “offended” and feeling “victimized”. They still do, but now they do it while acting the same way when they are “offended”.
Its not surprising that the neocons are largely former radical communists – they switched teams but kept the habits of thought.
dingo
Anger is to be expected when you have ALL of the answers to everything, and a lot of people refuse to go along with your answers. And you can’t understand why you not in charge of everything, as your absolute correctness entitles you to be. Wouldn’t you be mad too?
Oh, wait! Are we discussing Republicans or Islamic radicals?
ThymeZone
I think we have it all backward.
Republicans are angry because angry people, people who don’t “get” things and don’t really understand how the world of critical-thinking and reality work, become Republicans. The party is the coalition, carefully crafted, of people who feel powerless and victimized.
Phony “christians” and people who think that they’d be rich if it weren’t for the Social Security tax, and people who don’t get science or the processes of law, people who distrust all government until it comes time to impose authority and then reach for big government and NEVER GET THE CONTRADICTION …. those people become Republicans.
The party rounded them up and harnessed them for votes. And now …. they are stuck with them. And they are going to sink below the waves for a long time. They have no original ideas or solutions to anything. “Reform” social security (remember Bush’s ambitiousplan to spend his “capital” after the 2004 election?) That was a scheme invented 30 years ago by radicals aimed at getting rid of the Social Security System. There wasn’t a new idea within a mile of it. And in case you missed it, the scheme bombed so badly that it disappeared off your radar in six months. Gone. As if it never happened. That’s what you get when you sell your party to the angry stupid people.
Democrats? They are the rest of us, and party discipline is not a strong suit among us at the present time. But it will change. Next year we’ll gain more seats in congress. That is the key.
wasabi gasp
To cloak the stoopid.
r4d20
And a vast leftwing alternative media as well, which is why I’ve started hanging around here instead of Firedoglake all the time.
Also why I dont regularly read DailyKos or HuffPo – too many likeminded people in one place.
canuckistani
After the 2004 election, I was baffled by the results since the lefty web sites I frequented gave me no hint of Bush support lurking anywhere. I decided to follow some right wing web sites just to get a handle on what the conservative people were thinking. I chose BJ, Sullivan and the Commissar on the grounds that they all came down on the right side of the Intelligent Design argument, and I figured that anyone who could at least be rational about science wouldn’t end up being one of the barking women/gay/muslim hating nuts I’d seen on other right wing sites. That way I might be able to learn something, maybe even have some of my irrational assumptions poked.
Well, I picked so rationally that my insights into Bush support vanished when all three gave up on Bush, and now I still have no idea how Bush supporters think.
Bibblesnæð
By the way, I think “Stalinist” is about the best description of these so-called conservatives these days. Has anybody here ever heard of Adam Yoshida? A year or so ago, he wrote about how saddened he was that some Stalinist Central Asian dictator had just died; he said he was a big fan of the dead dictator, who had been a holdover from–wait for it–the days of the USSR! This from a guy who calls himself the most right wing person in all of Canada. Today’s conservatives. Yesterday’s Stalinists. They’re pretty much all the same.
ThymeZone
Thinking is in one part of the brain, being a Republican and supporting Bush is more of a brain stem activity.
It’s a visceral stimulus-response thing more akin to a reflex action than actual thought.
Thought presupposes the ability to connect dots appropriately and question cognitive variances. When was the last time you saw a Republican challenge the idea that their party recruits people who think the Earth is 6000 years old?
If you get my drift.
Bibblesnæð
I found out the dictator’s name:
Saparmurat Niyazov, of Turkmenistan. Check out his entry in wikipedia…
And he’s one of “conservative” Adam Yoshida’s heroes.
Gus
As for Adam Yoshida, I’m tempted to call him a nut, but I think he’s really just incredibly immature and sexually frustrated. He lacks the social skills necessary to have friends or get laid.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
So is the point of this post that wartime politics makes some people angry? Can’t wait for that film at 11.
Sorry to contradict your (fact-free) crystal ball, but if recent history has shown us nothing else, it has shown us that riots and destruction of property are owned lockstockbarrel by the lefties. The right had Clinton for eight years, a Democratic Congress for much of 40 years, and a hard-left press for 40 years and still managed not to have even one meaningful march, much less stonings or riots. Hell, they didn’t even muster a march during the Carter/Tip O’Neill regime of endless sorrow. So maybe you are projecting your anger a little there when rambling about stoning Pinchy to death.
Bibblesnæð
“…incredibly immature and sexually frustrated.”
Well, to quote John Cleese: You’ve certainly hit the nail on the head with that particular observation!
rilkefan
Gay rights, abortion, health care, expanded govt, the debt, competence – there are plenty of things the Right thinks Bush hasn’t delivered on.
Continuing popular support. Fox-like supineness from all the media. That’s the Left’s fault.
ThymeZone
Yeah, we really missed out on the Anti-Civil Rights March, the Keep Fighting The Vietnam War March, the Repeal Social Security March, the Fuck the Poor March, the Hell NO! Stop Healthcare for the Uninsured March, the God Hates Queers March, the Jail All the Niggers March, the Bomb the Planned Parenthood Clinic March, the Send Mexicans Back to Mexico March, the 6000 Year Old Earth March, the Promote Global Warming March, the Shoot All The Judges March, the Government Sucks March.
See, to have a march, you have to have a respectable set of ideas to march about. You guys don’t fucking have any.
demimondian
Two words, EEEL: Tim McVeigh. Two more words: Operation Rescue. Two more words: Daniel Schlepian.
I know that you like to claim that facts don’t exist, since they really do seem to have a pronounced left-wing bias…but, hey, that’s not the fault of anyone other than you.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
So again- what are they so damned angry about? I don’t get it.
See here:
—-
O’Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.
‘There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?’
‘Yes.’
And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his mind changed. He saw five fingers, and there was no deformity. Then everything was normal again, and the old fear, the hatred, and the bewilderment came crowding back again. But there had been a moment — he did not know how long, thirty seconds, perhaps — of luminous certainty, when each new suggestion of O’Brien’s had filled up a patch of emptiness and become absolute truth, and when two and two could have been three as easily as five, if that were what was needed. It had faded but before O’Brien had dropped his hand; but though he could not recapture it, he could remember it, as one remembers a vivid experience at some period of one’s life when one was in effect a different person.
‘You see now,’ said O’Brien, ‘that it is at any rate possible.’
‘Yes,’ said Winston.
—-
Rome Again
I remember a march for God Hates Queers, it had a name too: Boycott Disney. I wonder how many of those boycotters ever returned with the kiddies. Disney doesn’t seem to be hurting from it so much, they keep rolling in the dough.
Rome Again
I have wondered about this myself many times. They think that we are crazy to be so upset at the way things have turned out, and yet, I wasn’t looking at the demise of our nation as an even fathomable possibility when Clinton was President. They just seem to never get it.
Rick Taylor
canuckistani
I got some insight from talking to conservative relatives of my step-father. They’re actually disillusioned with Bush because of immigration, his one great sin, but they’re certainly with him on the war. They explained to me, as though it were the most obvious thing, that muslims were different from us; they only understood force, and unless we beat them, they’d come on over and attack us on our own shores. I couldn’t believe it; they’re thinking was exactly that simple minded, and I imagine that’s how Bush keeps his support. I did ask them why, if this was a war against muslim fundamentalism, we had started it by smashing a secular dictatorship and empowering a government friendly to Iran. They didn’t know how to answer, one of them asked me if I was sure Saddam’s government had been a secular dictorship. Yes it was, I explained, he cracked down on muslim extremists.
I’m afraid it’s that simple. A bunch of rag heads (they all look alike) hit us on Sep 11, so we had to hit back, and harder. It’s the only thing those people understand. It’s not always put so starkly (although liberal Tom Friedman came pretty close), but at bottom, I think that’s where Bush’s remaining support comes from. No more sophisticated than that.
whippoorwill
Miss Lambchop,
Maybe if you’d done some marching, riots and stonings you wouldn’t be such a knucklehead and we’d have something to talk about.
jnfr
Well that’s sometyhing anyway. Yay us!
Rome Again
Gun toting righties want to destroy much more than property. See, we destroy things that can be replaced, material stuff, things of little value in the entire context of the situation. Righties destroy lives, and defend their right to do so with their membership in the NRA.
The Other Steve
Clearly you are simple-minded and just don’t get what is so obvious to everybody.
John Cole
Bernard Lewis.
Rome Again
Lambchop, is this one of your friends?
Jess
Thanks for this moment of shining empathy, John (no, I’m not being snarky!), but I think while we’re all quite angry, this isn’t the fuel that drives mainstream liberals. Liberals (as distinguished from the radical left) are generally focused more on finding constructive solutions (or what they sincerely think are constructive solutions) than on destroying their enemies. In contrast, I don’t think there are many right-wing goals that DON’T involve the satisfaction of punishing someone for not being one of them. This is why I tend to lean liberal even when I disagree with many of their positions–I like their attitude better.
The perpetual anger on the right comes from fear. Look in their eyes–they’re all terrified, or at least threatened, all the time. The anger makes them feel bigger and more righteous, while the world in all its scary complexities makes them feel small and unsure of themselves. I pity them–even George Bush–more than I’ll ever hate them.
PK
Why are they so angry?
They are angry at any one who is not like them and does not beleve their ideology. They have not got everything that they wanted eg. no ban on abortion, no ban on gay marriage, immigration and most of all they do not have absolute power! This is what they really want-absolute uncontrolled power! They want to be able to do racial profiling, they want an end to affirmitive action, they want the ability to lock people up without trial(only got it for foreigners so far), they want to be able to put muslims in internment camps, they want their prayers in school dammit don’t you know christianity is under threat! They want the ten commandments in the courthouse.
Most of all they want obedience and blind love for their hero Bush. And Bush is not getting any love! The public is being so annoying-it doesn’t realize how heroic and decisive and wonderful Bush is. The surge is working, Bush is saving us from the evil muslims who want to kill us all. Its the left wing and media’s fault which prevents the peolple from seeing Bush’s greatness,
No wonder they are so angry!
Xenos
Bernard Lewis has not always been like that. He was once a serious scholar who covered a tremendous amount of obscure historical ground in order to make it understandable to a non-specialist. He always struck me (when I read a lot of his work back in the ’80s) as pro-muslim but somewhat anti-arab, more a side effect of him identifying a bit with his main specialty, the Ottoman Turks, than any real animus against their colonial subjects.
Since 9/11 he has really gotten unhinged – not in his scholarship, but in his informal statements and by hanging out with the creeps and giving them credibility. He gave a lot of cover to shameless hacks like Victor Davis Hanson and such as a result.
Back to your question: why the anger? Because it works. And it is not so much anger as explosive resentment. Resentment is a critical ingredient in reactionary/revolutionary politics, whether the reactionaries are Wahabis, white nationalists, Chinese counter-revolutionaries, the Khmer Rouge, or the bitter antebellum Southern elites. We have seen this picture before, and if these people get out of hand, the ending is pretty ugly.
Rome Again
Point taken, but I was never so sure of Armageddon as I have been since Bush has taken office. I am starting to believe he is the evildoer, come to fool all those “Christians” and they believe just about everything he says and does. I feel like we’re living prophecy.
MNPundit
Respect for law and order is a bitch.
Personally I’m preparing for the societal collapse at which point I’ll gather the survivors and found my own empire.
Xenos
One word: Anthrax.
cleek
the people who caused 9/11 were religious fundamentalists.
and religious fundamentalism is the fucking cornerstone of conservatism, the world over.
Wilfred
This current nonsense is just to steal thunder from the main story of the day – the murder of Bush’s Sheik of the Week, which in turn makes Bush look like a eunuch. When was the last time an American President had a photo op with a tribal chief only to have said chief turn to chickpea fertilizer the day after his cooperation was being touted as an ‘awakening’? Just another smokescreen of denial.
Rome Again
Yup!
demimondian
No.
Religious fundamentalists led the revolt against the Catholic hierarchs throughout Latin America, for instance. In Haiti, it’s the fundies who lead the (admittedly limited) good government works. Throughout the poor parts of the world, it’s the rabid, American-ideal hating fundamentalists who work for justice and truth, which are, there as everywhere, the stone which pave the path out of slavery.
So, no, you’re just wrong. Here, in the Arab world, yes. In other parts of the world? No.
Xenos
The fundamentalists in the Muslim world come in several different flavours, not all of them easily lumped together. What does link them is a fake traditionalism (more properly ‘anti-modernism’) since the modern international power system is propping up tyrants. If we could manage to disentangle ourselves from the role we have been playing for the last 50 years then the fundamentalism would burn out in important ways. Hell, it is already happening in Iran.
Tim F.
Religious fundamentalism was indispensable for social progress in America, from defeating slavery to temperance (everybody gets a mulligan) to civil rights. It fell to abortion-and-gays conservatism VERY late in our republic.
Xenos
I think you are giving too much credit to the fundamentalists, Tim F. Anti-slavery campaigns were promoted by fundamentalists, but relatively secular types like the Unitarians also played a prominent role. The Quakers did a lot more than campaign, they maintained a lot of the underground railroad at some legal risk to themselves.
And is it correct to describe the Black churches as fundamentalist? The AME? As for Whites who joined in that struggle, very secular Jews put the rest of the non-Black population to shame with their contribution. Fundamentalist Whites were very much on the wrong side of that one.
jake
Fixed.
The people who stand to the right of John Cole are lying hypocritical assholes/opportunistic gadflies/bat shit crazy and/or the biggest pusses of all time.
They screech that there’s a battle on to save civilization and anyone who speaks out against the Epic Fight of All Time or its architects wants to destroy the world as we know it, but where do we find their well-padded asses, day after day after day? Why, we find them sitting at their computers telling us about the evil icky people who are going to get us all killed.
Hmmm.
Maybe I’m just a romantic but if I honestly believed that the war in Iraq would determine the entire fate of the world I’d practice saying “Sir, yes sir!” and run to the nearest recruiting center. Whether or not I’d be signed on is another story, but if I didn’t get in, I could still protest outside of the NYT or The Capitol or something.
I wouldn’t be sitting here whining about how other people are trying to get us all shoved into burquas or decapitated and yet there are plenty of able bodied wingnuts who think the war against evil can be fought from a keyboard.
Hmmmm.
Something’s holding them back from fighting the good fight, either in Iraq or in the streets outside of the NYT and I’m inclined to think it stems from being great big sniveling pusses who talk a good game but crap their pants at the least thought of real trouble.
LITBMueller
Nah. Fleet Admiral Cartwright.
Jinchi
They got everything they wanted and the world is still screwed up. There’s nothing wrong with their plan so there’s only one explanation:
The liberals sabotaged everything!
That’s why they’re so damned angry.
Rome Again
I agree with Xenos. I think there are different types of fundamentalists (would Jesus be a Conservative Republican?) and the ones who try to help people are not conservative, since it’s against the very nature of conservatism.
What we have here in the western world today is psuedo-relgionist fundamentalists who favor making the little guy pull his own bootstraps up so the people at the top can have their bathroom shower curtains made out of pure spun gold. The problem with fundamentalist religions today is the prosperity doctrine. These people also believe that anyone who believes in a God they do not believe in (and even the same God but understand him differently) must be punished.
Rome Again
Perhaps if they had any brains, they would have realized that attitudes about world affairs effect the entire world and they never had enough power to do damage control. I’m sure the closer one anti-Bushite lives to the apex of US Patriotism, the more blame we will get, but the power to change anything after invading Iraq to make up for 9/11 was never truly in their hands at all. Attitudes throughout the world were against them since Shock and Awe and that international attitude was always destined to come out on top since the beginning. Right-wing Americans have been fooling themselves all along, and no one is to blame but themselves.
Rome Again
Correcting my own errors, carry on.
Xanthippas
The right had Clinton for eight years, a Democratic Congress for much of 40 years, and a hard-left press for 40 years and still managed not to have even one meaningful march, much less stonings or riots…
I don’t know why I read this and instantly thought of crowds bearing the confederate flag in Selma, Alabama, a few odd lynchings, and cops clubbing peaceful demonstrators. I’m probably being unfair.
incontrolados
It’s already started. Mike Gallagher (FOX, Townhall, Salem network) at 8:00 a.m. CDT
Ron
John, it’s this simple. The Left does not exist in America in force whatsoever. You are asking great questions, read “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” like yesterday so you can get a cogent picture of just how you, me and many others got sandbagged by the GOP into the movementarian, er, movement.The political discourse in this country has been turned completely upside down. Populist tactics are being used to skinflint normal joes into voting against their own interests.
John, this is class warfare. Write about it. You have the audience and the traffic.
TenguPhule
Does this mean EEEL sanctions the use of hitmen to take out Conservatives as the Right has killed doctors and called for assassinations of judges and newpaper employees?
Please don’t remind us. We all have our inner demons that would love nothing more then to inflict the maximum damage possible to people on the other side. The difference is, the ‘Left’ control that demon, the Right is run by it.
The only reason the bodies aren’t stacked waist deep is the deep respect for law that took well over two hundred years to build. But the Republicans seem damn well intent on knocking it down.
liberal
Rick Taylor wrote,
As The Onion put it: “Nation’s Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue”
liberal
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop wrote,
Right. Must be in some dreamworld that they harass women at abortion clinics, bomb abortion clinics, shoot dead doctors who perform abortions, aid fugitives who murder doctors who perform abortions, bomb Federal buildings in places like Oklahoma city, execute civil rights workers in the South and then either are not arrested or not found guilty by a jury of their peers, …
cleek
&
i don’t think i said conservatism is incapable of generating good results.
Shinobi
I was angry in 2004, but now it seems like there is just no point anymore. No matter how angry I get, how many pissed blog rantings I write, bush and co keep getting away with just about everything but murder.
It’s moved beyond anger to depression.
Wilfred
If the Democratic party doesn’t take a stand against a potential attack against Iran BEFORE Bush gives the green light then we’ll know the fix is in: Government of, by and for AIPAC. The only logical explanation for Democratic party passivity is that they mainly Liebermans themselves, with precious few exceptions. Iran will tell the tale.
demimondian
Just who do you think embodies the conservative movements in those societies, cleek? Hint: it *ain’t* the good government types.
Blue Jean
The ironic thing is, the same cons who are angry about everything, all the time, are usually the same ones who say “When are you libs going to get over 2000?”
Z
Xenos put his finger on the issue. It is, at its core, all about resentment. A bunch of little resentments all added up and fed by wormtongues like Limbaugh.
Social conservatives resent changes in the culture. They want the 40’s & 50’s again. They want to live in a Rockwell painting. They resent being told they’re racist for being suspicious of black people (which they think are mostly criminals who are living off their tax dollars), homophobic for being disgusted at perverts (like me!), insensitive for being loudly religious and believing that everyone should become Christian, sexist for thinking women should stay home with the kids, etc. In fact, women like my mom, who wanted to stay home, are still resentful of the crap they got from feminists for staying home. They want to go to the grocery store and hear their own language and be surrounded by people they aren’t afraid of. They want to believe if they work hard they can do anything and be anyone, even if they aren’t that good at school.
But the world has changed. This is a less white, less Christian country. We have to compete globally, and not graduating from high school is going to seriously cripple you economically. A lot of resentment comes from economic changes, too. Lots of folks aren’t making it anymore. They are seriously in debt, and wages in real terms are stagnant and have been for some time.
Its not just those folks who are resentful either. Many of the much more wealthy look at the large $$ being taking our of their paychecks by taxes, and they think of all the things they could be doing with that money. They don’t think they are benefiting from the things those tax dollars are paying for, because they believe that it is mostly funding programs for poor, lazy people or going to aid countries full of people who hate us anyway.
And all this gets fed by misinformation provided by people who are proffiting from the anger. Let’s face it. They Coulters, Limbaughs, Savages, Republican politicians, etc of this world are making a killing telling these folks that are right to be resentful. They deserve so much more. Its the fault of those damn liberals that they aren’t getting it. And now those awful liberals are putting them and their families in danger by trying to stop them from fighting the terrorists, when it is liberal things like gay marraige that make them hate us.
This is what they are being told. This is how they think. This is why they are mad. And this is why they are only willing to listen to people who say exactly what they want to hear. It is like a crack high to be told that you are right and smart and the world owes you something, instead of having the face that things are complicated, hard, and that every choice we make involves a trade off.
EEEL – There are substantial anti-abortion marches every year. So, you are quite wrong about he Right not having its marches.
MNPundit
But it’s a catch 22 Z, because even when the Democrats are in charge and people start getting better wages and more security etc. then they feel economically secure enough to vote like Republican Mega-Rich.
In addition to preparing to found an Empire after societal collapse, I’m also learning things like survival skills and how to handle a gun properly. Upshot: I think these people are dangerous and that eventually there will be violence. If the righties ever do go on a violent rampage I’m damn well going to take a few them down with me.
r4d20
Social conservatives resent changes in the culture. They want the 40’s & 50’s again. They want to live in a Rockwell painting
True – too true.
the flip side is that they are actually right about the islamic radicals because those guys are the same way. They understand each other very well.
Rick Taylor
Just to amplify on the subject of outrage exhaustion, I remember another blogger saying he enjoyed reading your blog because the outrage you were feeling was still fresh. He was feeling burnt out, but you’d only discovered the perfidy of the current administration, and so there was innocence and a power to your anger.
So in that light, imagine if you had felt the way you do now, confused, appalled, like the country is going off the rails, back in 2003 when the Iraq war started. Imagine if it was as plain as day to you that the talk of firm evidence of wmd by the administration was horse manure, that Saddam had no nuclear weapons program, no significant ties to Al Queda (who’d topple him if they could), and the only chemical weapons he had were old ones left over from before the previous war, possibly not even usable, and of no particular danger, and it was even looking less and less likely he had those. Now suppose it was obvious to you that if we toppled the goverenment of Saddam Hussein, as bad as he was, the people who benefitted from him (ie. the Sunni’s) wouldn’t sit back and say oh well; they’d pick up weapons and fight. And since this was no third world country like Afghanistan, but a country with lots of high powered weapons lying around, we would be getting ourselves into a quagmire, and the government would be telling us we can’t pull out or the people we installed will fall and it will be a mess. And of course with our troops tied down in an endless war for no purpose, we’d see attrocities on the order of Vietnam. Suppose it was obvious to you that even it was possible somehow to thread the eye of the needle and avoid a catastrophe with expert management, our own government was incompetent, and could be counted on to screw it up royally. Suppose you were going crazy, like in one of those dreams where the monster is in the closet and you’re telling your family, don’t open that door, because you know what will happen, but no, there are hundreds of thousands protesting, the UN won’t go along, protests everywhere, none of it matters, we’re kicking out the inspectors and going in to topple Saddam.
Now suppose the invasion happens, and it comes out even worse than you feared. Of course there are no weapons of mass destruction. At first the conservatives are making fun of you how silly you will look when we find them, but eventually even David Kay comes out and declares they were never there. The causus belli for war was a complete lie. At that point, there’s no mea culpa from the conservatives, they just frown and ask you why you’re harping on wmd’s when they were never very important. The President even does a comedy skit, looking for wmd’s under his couch.
Suppose things start out awful in Iraq. There’s looting on an epic scale, simply unimaginable, the complete breakdown of law and order. It’s as bad as you could have feared, but the conservatives are all in la la land, acting like it’s nothing. They’re doing high fives, slapping each other’s backs, playing that video of the statue of Hussein coming down, and pointing at how dumb all the liberals are for predicting disaster. And you want to scream, guys, it was never about the invasion! Of course we can come in and topple their government, of course we have the hugest army in the world by far, that was never the question! The question was what’s going to happen afterwards. But he conservatives don’t get it; they’re all preening like it’s all won, when Iraqi society is coming apart on tv.
And so years go by like this, and it gets worse and worse and worse. And you expected to see atrocities, but you didn’t expect to see bizarre forms of sexual humiliation used as torture. Some of them used by “bad apples”, but some used in Guantanamo. And the conservatives keep crowing like everything’s great, and if there’s anything wrong, it’s the medias (and the liberal’s) fault for harping on the bad. And I hear conservatives telling us liberals we want things to go badly, when I never wanted this to happen at all, and the only way to turn things around (if indeed it’s even possible) is to recognize how bad it is and make big changes. Lincoln didn’t spout happy talk when the civil war started going badly, he changed his general again and again until he found one who knew how to fight. But no, Bush kept Rumsfeld till the end of his first term. We’re only getting a new strategy four years after the war started, when it couldn’t possibly make any difference; and then it’s only because it’s the only Bush found to keep the occupation going.
So everything goes even worse than you expected, but now you discover you were wrong about something. You’ve been right about what you wish you were wrong, and now you’re wrong about what you wish you were right. Because you were certain that the Iraq war was going to destroy the Republicans in the 2004 elections. You were certain there was no way, after declaring a war under false pretenses and after shaming the country by bringing back torture, that Bush could be re-elected. And he is, winning the popular vote. And you get the sickening realization that the majority of your countrymen are just fine with starting an unprovoked war that turns another country into hell on earth. They’re just fine with torture. They’re just fine with it. All that matters is that the conservatives could get some funny pictures of your candidate windsurfing, that they could smear your candidate’s service in Vietnam making fun of his war wounds with funny purple bandages (when they’re candidate didn’t even serve!). That’s all that matters.
And of course the more extreme conservatives are angry at you, because you’re a traitor. It’s all your fault, you wanted this war to go badly. Even though you never wanted it to happen at all. And of course on a personal level, you’re paying thousands of dollars in taxes to support his war that’s doing nothing but destroying another country and making the world more dangerous, and you get to hear conservatives chiding you how liberals love spending other peoples’ money.
Oh, and on top of all this, suppose you’re looking at the bigger picture. There’s a scientific consensus forming that humanity is going to be in deep shit if we don’t start curbing green house gases sharply now! There’s a good change we’re near the peak of world oil production, and we need to discover how we’re going to power civilization in the future now! But the conservatives don’t have any time for this. Many of them are scientific illiterates who don’t even accept evolution, let alone the scientific consensus on climate change, and for the rest, they believe in the magic of the free market. And so they spend hundreds and hundreds of billions for a war against islamofascism, even though it’s hardly an existential threat and the way they’re spending that money is guaranteed to make it worse, and they’re ignoring the very real threats that actually could end civilization by the end of the century.
So in short, just imagine feeling the way you do now, but stretch it back for four years, and I think you can see, it’s hard to sustain that level of outrage.
jenniebee
Can I say, it isn’t the angry ones that scare me. It’s the ones that are all sweetness and light and wanting the best for their kids and recipes for homemade ginger iced tea blends who really aren’t angry at all. They just calmly, methodically, and with beatific assurance, believe that it’s the duty and destiny of the United States to fulfill God’s mission by exterminating all Muslims. They’ll say things like “the question isn’t ‘are all muslims terrorists?’ The question is ‘are all terrorists muslims?’ Clearly, they are. And given that, can we take afford to any chances?”
Those people do exist. And they give me the heebiejeebies.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
John should stream circus music on his comments pages. What a tiny-carload of clowns reside here!
OK, I’ll try and dumb down enough to play along. “Stalin was an atheist, and atheism is the cornerstone of American Liberalism. Ergo, liberals caused 25 million deaths during the purges.” Uggggh — see at least I have the dignity to feel sick at such vapid nonsense.
Z
Rick… AMEN.
Bubblegum Tate
You and me both, Jenniebee. I’m reminded of an old joke:
Q: What’s the difference between Charles Manson and every woman I’ve ever dated?
A: At least Manson had the decency to look like a raving lunatic!
The raving loony wingnuts are one thing, but the ones who are like what you’re talking about are really creepy/scary.
Also: Amen, Rick.
sparky
What Rick said.
I’d add: I couldn’t believe that the US public would reinstall an indisputable incompetent. But we did. So perhaps the moral is: unless you are affected by idiotic decisions, you are free to vote your fantasies.
As for why the Ds are the way they are, I’d go with Gore Vidal’s point that in the US there are only conservatives (D) and people to the right of them. The Ds are demonstrating, daily, the difficulty in carving out a substantively different space within the National Security State.
Richard Bottoms
Which is why I never tire of saying you voted for it, twice and that my sympathy meter towards your regret is set at zero.
Fuck compromise. Republicans will always be looking for the next Reagan and be willing to follow any dumbass, like George Bush, who can pass himself off as the second coming of that senile bastard. They will desert any Democrat they might cross over to vote for in a second.
There are no good Republicans, there are no bad Democrats.
Win in 2008, whatever it takes and work to keep the GOP out of office in every position in government from President to dogcatcher.
Knock them down and them kick them in the face (politically of course) to keep them there. Beat their war criminal asses and send them back to whatever hillbilly trailer park tent revival cornpone southern hell they came from.
PaulB
“Stalin was an atheist, and atheism is the cornerstone of American Liberalism.”
ROFL…. Nice try, dear, but atheism has never been anywhere close to the “cornerstone of American Liberalism.” It’s only mindless partisan idiots like you who associate lack of religion with liberals and Democrats.
“Uggggh—see at least I have the dignity to feel sick at such vapid nonsense.”
That’s because in your case, it was vapid nonsense. In the point you were responding to, it was not.
dong
The right has been playing the victim card for years now. They’ve been decrying how they’ve margnalised, and how everyone is out to get them. It’s amazing they stick to schtick even as they have more control then they have had in decades. The only people who actually have a sense of personal responsibility are moderates.