Posted on 02/03/2005 9:04:20 AM PST by Publius
Ping to self.
Great Article Publius, thanks for the heads-up.
LOL!
truth bump
I suspect one of three remnants of the Democratic Party will contain the seeds of the next political party on the left. We'll have to see what the coalescing issue will be.
BTTT Nice to see our Publius in print once again! :)
Nice recent history lesson. Good job.
Bump for distress in the Socialist Party posing as democrats.
bttt
The Democratic party has always been fissiparous but bound together somewhat artificially by the conviction that whatever their opponents hold must be wrong. That has devolved somewhat into the politics of reflex opposition that is the hallmark of the perennial loser, curious because for eight interminable Clinton years they weren't, at least in the executive. They are now.
I could easily envision either party or both breaking up. The Republican/Democratic party dichotomy these days cuts across several watershed issues - gun control, abortion, national defense, national sovereignty, nationalism/internationalism - that would normally represent the real dichotomy within the American body politic. It is a healthy thing that members of one party lean toward the positions of the other party on some of these but it isn't necessarily a stable one. Whatever - stability here may not be a virtue. God bless America and hang on for the ride, my friend!
I'm occasionally tempted to write an essay about the coming splintering of the Republican Party, particularly right now when the Miers appointment exposes the major fault lines in the party. And I suspect that split will occur, but not until the Democrats crack up first.
I could see an unstable world with five significant political parties.
Ironically, this is what Madison had in mind with the Constitution. Neither he nor Hamilton envisioned British-style political parties taking root here, and Washington opposed the establishment of parties with every fiber of his being. (The various factions in the cabinet and Congress waited until Washington's body was cold at least a few hours before they openly formed parties.) Madison's construct was designed to handle a large group of factions, and the more factions the merrier. This could be where we're heading.
At least Madison gave us the tools to handle this scernario.
This is a very thoughtful article, but respectfully I disagree here. I do not believe that any evidence exists that having sexual relations with an intern and then lying about it under oath is in the mainstream of American behavior. I have not seen any data that supports the idea that most people do this, or approve of such behavior. Democrats were forced to acknowledge the depraved nature of Bill Clinton when they mounted their defense of him.
Secondly, in my memory the elections of 1998 were about anything other than impeachment. In fact, I remember very clearly conservatives growing increasingly impatient with Gingrich as he spoke about Social Security to Republican voters that wanted to here what he would do with a law breaking President. Gingrich would not attack Bill Clinton (he had his own girl on the side at the time as I recall), would not defend Ken Starr as he was brutally savaged by Democrats, and as a result Republicans did not turn out. I think the 1998 election was one of the worst run campaigns I've ever seen, but because Republicans would not go on the attack against Bill Clinton.
I agree with you here to a degree. Senator Clinton in my opinion is not a particularly good politician. She is an average public speaker at best. She might find it difficult to relate to ordinary people because she is, first and foremost, an ideologue.
But that is where her husband comes in. The former President has a first-rate political antennae, and can tell Senator Clinton what to say and how to say it. It probably grates on her but she'll say what she has to say.
Infidelity is definitely mainstream behavior, and I can give anecdotal evidence of that firsthand.
In the early Eighties, older Baby Boomers who had married young began having affairs with coworkers. There was a new openness about this that I found disturbing. Married men were taking their mistresses out to parties and openly introducing these women as their girlfriends. The women had no shame about it, no doubt believing that the man would honor his promise to leave the wife who "didn't understand" him. (It didn't occur to them that they were merely inheriting men who cheated on their wives.)
I saw people and families destroyed by this behavior, and while it slowed down as the Eighties progressed, men of power, always seen as sexually attractive by women, continued to act this way.
Keep in mind that long before Monica showed up, there were rumors that Clinton had been a horndog in Arkansas, was still a horndog as president, and was partial to oral sex. Bill Maher on ABC's "Politically Incorrect" make a joke right after Clinton's 1996 re-election about Clinton being so confident now that he had started dating again. People pretty much knew what he was, and few were disturbed -- even after Monica showed up. More people were titillated than outraged. As an original FReeper, I watched the anger and disdain focused on Clinton at this forum, but I knew, like Mr. Limbaugh, that Clinton was simply behaving like so many alpha males I had worked for and with. It was just another manifestation of the breakdown of the family and the institution of marriage in this country.
Now if you had asked any of these mainstream philandering alpha males if they would have lied under Clinton's circumstances, they would have said, "Hell, yes!"
Regrettably, Bill Clinton was not that far out of the mainstream.
Probably, but remember, the republicans were still in disarray over Nixon when Jimmuh Cawtuh was elected, so they didn't really put up much of a fight. Also, Bush Sr. totally wimped out on his campaign and let the bulls****er from Hope have it.
Excellent essay, by the way and I hope you are right. I am uneasy, however, at how close Gore and Kerry came to be elected. I would have thought they should have been defeated the same way Mondale was in 1984.
Then we can try for zero.
This has led to the beginnings of an exodus from the party by Hispanics and blacks.
___________
maybe hispanics.....
When the MOVE incident occurred in 1985, one of the Philadelphia newspapers had a sidebar article about the long history of that neighborhood as a black enclave, even in the 19th Century. That sidebar article mentioned the Cobbs Creek riots of 1839.
outstanding
Bump. Stuff like this I like to print and read while I fall to sleep.. content and happy. Thank you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.