Posted on 02/03/2005 9:04:20 AM PST by Publius
ping to self
If the GOP is entering majority status, why have they allowed the (essentially) unoppposed reelection of Democrat senators in states where the President is strong?
Arkansas (Lincoln), Nevada (Reid), Montana (Baucus), North Dakota (Dorgan), soon to be North Dakota again (Conrad).
This is not the mark of a strong, national party.
In 1980, there were thirteen Republican Senators from states that Al Gore won in 2000 by 54% or more. By 2000, that number was down to two.
The Democrats have cleared GOP Senators out of the blue states. The Republicans have failed again and again to clear Democrat Senators from the red states.
If the Bush states had the same tendency to "Republicanism" in the Senate as the Kerry states have to elect democrats, we would have 60+ GOP senators right now.
Can you imagine the Democrats allowing a Republican to run unopposed for the Senate from Massachusetts? That is in essence what happened in Nevada, and Montana, and North Dakota.
The GOP may not be as strong as you suppose.
One of Gore's henchmen actually made the General Will argument in November 2000 (If I could search FR by date, we discussed it all then).
This is what they now believe-that the "actual votes" don't really reflect the will of the people, because of late capitalism, false consciousness, and "vote suppression".
Since they should "really win" every election, cheating is just a tool to fulfill the general will.
This, of course, leads directly to war if it is not stopped.
Good piece that highlights many of the reasons for the death spiral of the Democratic Party. Thanks.
Another contributing factor to the Democrats' self destruction, IMO, is the mainstream media's longstanding support for all things liberal. With the press unquestionably championing their agenda (and at the same time being complicit with their attacks against conservatives) Democrats have had little reason to moderate their positions secure in the knowledge that they would always be supported by the media. In effect, there was no governor on them to control their excesses.
Ping.
During the New Deal when the Republicans were on the ropes and in danger of extinction, they were restricted to New England, where they evolved their Rockefeller Republican strain as a defense.
Are you sure we didn't?
I suspect we did win at least some of those states. In fact I'm beginning to wonder how many Democrats have served out terms that were never theirs to serve. Finally we're starting to fight back publically on vote fraud, but we better hurry up.
Outstanding essay and right on the mark!
Bush gained no votes over Iraq. He in fact lost enough votes to nearly lose the election.
Trivia question: The Republicans use the elephant as the mascot and the Democrats the donkey. What was the mascot of the Whigs?
Answer: A bulldog guarding a strongbox.
The Republicans stole the Whigs' thunder on the importance of commerce and were willing to take a stand on slavery. This was something the Whigs tried to dodge.
Before the 1850's the slavery issue could be discussed dispassionately by the Great Middle, even though discussion on the extremes always led to violence. By the time of the Kansas-Nebraska unpleasantness, and the unwillingness of the Pierce Administration to maintain law and order in the two territories, there was no longer any middle ground.
The Whigs bailed on the major issue of the day, and there was no way they could have survived the upheaval of the Civil War.
Tormenting spokespeople of the other side is the part of political guerilla warfare that happens just before one side takes up arms and drives the conflict to the next level. We have to go back to the period just before the Civil War to see that behavior in our history.
The more radical elements of the Democratic Party, i.e. the "Deaniacs", are pushing events to the edge of violence. What they've forgotten is that it's their adversaries who have all the guns.
And the Deaniacs are going to be the face of the party. I keep asking the question, "If they are certain to lose a countrywide violent confrontation, why do they keep pushing it? What are they counting on?"
My own opinion is that they're expecting outside help. Progressive has always been the code word for Communist and Communism is a religion in that its followers never lose the faith no matter how often and how many places it's proved a failure and an atrocity. It is the cause in their lives that is bigger than themselves.
Most of us thought that Reagan had broken Communism when the wall came down, but religions don't evaporate because they've been rejected by the majority--sometimes they redouble their efforts and the intensity of their fanaticism. The Islamists are just one example.
Communism is still alive and growing again in South and Central America, Russia under Putin, China (hardliners are ascendent), and in a weaker form in Europe, etc. Our "Progressives" can reasonably expect foreign allies if it comes to that.
Our domestic Progressives are now faced with their own local version of the wall coming down and they don't seem able to fight in any way other than verbal violence that is more and more becoming physical as you have shown.
I agree that Hillary intends to win their power back through deceit, but the bottom line is always violent thuggery in the background. If the deceit fails, and I think it will, I think they will resort to civil war which they cannot win unless they have foreign help...
The more radical elements of the Democratic Party, i.e. the "Deaniacs", are pushing events to the edge of violence. What they've forgotten is that it's their adversaries who have all the guns.
Amen.
The so-called "blue states" secede, announcing that they are entering Canada as new provinces. Both the UN and the EU grant diplomatic recognition to this new Canadian federation, arguing that the US has become such a threat to world peace that its breakup is the only thing that can save the planet. The EU and UN move French, German and other foreign troops to the new Canadian provinces to prevent any move to recover them for the US.
But most "blue states" are really heavily-populated blue counties surrounded by red counties, and the inhabitants of the red counties will take umbrage at this decision by the cities to secede in their name. Unlike the last American civil war which was fought in the south, this one will be fought in the north with patriots being forced to take on foreign troops along with their liberal collaborators.
I got a laugh at a recent FReeper Meet when I imitated the voices of the two sides when they meet at a roadblock.
RED: Freeze! Keep your hands up! Is the Constitution a rock or a tree?
BLUE: A tree!
(sound of machine gun going off)
While I got a laugh at the FReeper Meet, no one reacted to my entry on that particular thread, except for one FReeper who said he had imagined the same thing, and it was his worst nightmare.
Food for thought -- but I don't want to turn this into a secession thread.
The effect of Iraq was much more immediate than the broader foreign policy question. It's possible to ask what would have happened had Iraq gone better, while to ask who would have won had there been no 9/11 is to get deep into counterfactual history and fantasy. But if we're asking about longer term trends, Bush's security uptick may not be a more lasting gain to the party than his losses of votes over problems in Iraq. Some of those who went with Bush because of concerns over terrorism aren't going to be convinced Republicans in later elections, while some of those who voted against him because of the war may be lost to the party.
But I don't have a crystal ball and can't predict that. The net effects of the war will depend on what happens over the next four years and how Americans react to it. One thing, though: it's hard to tell how many people swung to Bush because it looked to them like the Iraq war meant that he was serious about terrorism. Doubtless he lost some votes because of the problems on the ground there, but I don't think that's the whole story.
One reason why the GOP is more liberal in those states may have been because the party was so strongly rooted there in earlier years. You could build a Mississippi or Florida or Oklahoma GOP pretty much up from scratch in the 1960s, because Republicans had been rare in those states earlier. The Republicans were also trapped by the ethnic conflicts of the East Coast, and identified with the old oppressors.
For years in New England the Republicans had been the Protestant party and the Democrats the Catholic party, and as the composition of the population changed the Republicans lost strength. They are still a pronounced minority even though the WASP Establishment is now at least as favorable to the Democrats. What's interesting -- and alarming -- is that states where this Southern New England dynamic wasn't a major factor in past elections, like Delaware or New Jersey or New Hampshire have become more Democratic in presidential elections as the Republicans have become the evangelical party.
There's a 19th century parallel to this. The Federalists and Whigs were tied into New England's Congregational establishment. And the rest of the country wasn't interested. They might be Calvinist, but they didn't want their way of life bound up in old Puritan forms and subject to Puritan deference to authority. So the New England states were left holding on to something the rest of the country wasn't buying.
Another reason for the Democrat tilt is that older cities and industrial towns want resources from the federal government. They may not get more than other Americans, but they embrace an ideology that they think will get them what they want. Also, there's not as much cheap land for wide open development in the East, so there's less enthusiasm for economic growth.
New England's great problem was that it didn't have a large hinterland. Virginia and South Carolina were able to stamp Arkansas and Alabama with a Southern identity and to draw on their human resources to promote their interests. The Tidewater and Charleston were backwaters indeed for long decades, but they spoke for a larger region or convinced the region to speak for them. New York was able to do draw people in from all over the country to promote the idea and the interests of New York.
But New Englanders who went West didn't look back or contribute to any New England idea or way of life. Tennesseans and Texans might be as Southern as Virginians, but when Vermonters and Massachusans moved to Wisconsin or Oregon they ceased to be New Englanders in any way. And as the population and the economy changed in New England, becoming less Protestant and less rural, so did New England's politics and culture.
Consequently the region had trouble in the material and cultural competition. What it had to offer didn't "sell" on the national market, and in time, what didn't have appeal elsewhere took root in New England.
There may be more sense than we suppose in New England's choices, though. Steve Sailer wrote an interesting article contrasting the Red Republican states, where people still marry and have children, and the Blue Democrat states which are increasingly populated with the unmarried and the childness. He compares San Francisco's and Los Angeles's responses to growth in recent years. Northern California embraced a low growth Democrat point of view. Los Angeles went in for high growth and rapid development. Both cities have changed a lot in recent decades, but Sailer's idea is that change got more out of control in Los Angeles.
That doesn't mean that San Francisco made the right choice in going left, but Republicans in LA and elsewhere have sometimes overestimated the degree to which they can combine rapid change and conservative politics. Northern California or Vermont choose greater political control over greater economic freedom, but they may simply have chosen a more direct path to where other parts of the country will end up in the future.
Actually the Yankee diaspora still has echoes. Bush ran relatively poorly in most places where Yankees are a significant force. Of course, now it is a reflection of values. Yankees tend to be secular. Kevin Phillips picked this up in his seminal book, The Emerging Republican Majority. On this matter, his thesis continues to have traction.
Your analysis is impeccable, as usual. Thanks.
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It looks a little like Phillips's Irish revenge on the old WASP overlords. The real punchline may be that, as a blue state guy, Phillips now feels more comfortable with the old Yankees than with the today's Republican party.
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