Yesterday, I said that the election was, by and large, a status quo election. I did note the expansion of marriage equality in three more states (and should mention that Minnesota voted down measures to deny marriage equality and create barriers for voting). Weed use has been decriminalized in two more states. Several prominent politicians elected on Tuesday will be significantly further to the left than the average. So, while our overall status quo remains, there are now signs that status is not quite what it was.
Which, well - isn't that what elections are for? Even status quo elections?
Anyway, I was hoping to find some evidence of folks on the right whose worlds were crumbling beneath them. I found some. Eric Dondero subtitles his post "Time to tell any Democrats you know to fuck off and die."
John Hinderaker bemoans the reality that is America.
One final example, this time from The American Spectator, to American journalism what Gigli was to American cinema, and writer Robert Stacy McCain.
Let me confess something. The morning after the 2004 election, Lisa and I were chatting on the cell phone (I was an OTR driver at the time, somewhere, I think, in Minnesota). She asked me what I thought. I remember, very distinctly, saying, "Well, maybe things have to get worse before people realize their mistakes." Two years later, W's poll numbers sunk to less than 40% approval, where they sat for two years; later that same year of 2006, the Democrats cleaned the Republican's clocks. While I do not have documentary evidence to prove the conversation accurate, I rest easy in the reality that I was correct. Because "worse" things did indeed get, and those candidates who most remind most voters just how bad "worse" can be lost.
Does 2012 mean we are "no longer" a conservative nation? I don't think we've been either very conservative or very liberal for a very long time. Culturally and socially we trend schizophrenic. The gentle spread of marriage equality does warm my heart, but it hardly means much more than folks recognize discrimination and wish to end it. The election of more progressives, and more prominent progressives, to positions of power should gently nudge the Democratic Party in the direction of being, yet again, almost as liberal as it was when Lyndon Johnson ran the show, and folks like Frank Church and George McGovern stalked the US Senate.
I'd feel bad for these folks, and others like them but, honestly, I find their ennui in the face of electoral defeat hilarious. My 15 year old doesn't do drama this well.
Which, well - isn't that what elections are for? Even status quo elections?
Anyway, I was hoping to find some evidence of folks on the right whose worlds were crumbling beneath them. I found some. Eric Dondero subtitles his post "Time to tell any Democrats you know to fuck off and die."
I've soured on electoral politics given what happened last night. I believe now the best course of action is outright revolt. What do I mean by that?Some folks don't take political loss well at all.
Well, to each his own. Some may choose to push secession in their state legislatures. Others may choose to leave the U.S. for good (Costa Rica, Switzerland, Italy, Argentina, Hong Kong, Israel). Still others may want to personally separate themselves from the United States here in North America while still living under communist rule' the Glenn Beck, grab your guns, food storage, build bunkers, survivalist route. I heartily endorse all these efforts.
Starting early this morning, I am going to un-friend every single individual on Facebook who voted for Obama, or I even suspect may have Democrat leanings. I will do the same in person. All family and friends, even close family and friends, who I know to be Democrats are hereby dead to me. I vow never to speak to them again for the rest of my life, or have any communications with them. They are in short, the enemies of liberty. They deserve nothing less than hatred and utter contempt
I strongly urge all other libertarians to do the same. Are you married to someone who voted for Obama, have a girlfriend who voted 'O'. Divorce them. Break up with them without haste. Vow not to attend family functions, Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas for example, if there will be any family members in attendance who are Democrats.Do you work for someone who voted for Obama? Quit your job. Co-workers who voted for Obama. Simply don't talk to them in the workplace, unless your boss instructs you too for work-related only purposes. Have clients who voted Democrat? Call them up this morning and tell them to take their business elsewhere's.Have a neighbor who votes for Obama? You could take a crap on their lawn. Then again, probably not a good idea since it would be technically illegal to do this. But you could have your dog take care of business. Not your fault if he just happens to choose that particular spot.And start your boycott of your Democrat friends and family today. Like this morning. First thing you can do, very easy, is to un-friend all Democrats from your Facebook account.Had Romney won, I'm trying to imagine any left-wing bloggers advising people to become anti-social out of spite.
John Hinderaker bemoans the reality that is America.
But there is a much more important proposition that, I think, was proved false last night: that America is a center-right country. This belief is one that we conservatives have cherished for a long time, but as of today, I think we have to admit that it is false. America is a deeply divided country with a center-left plurality.Actually, that's an astute observation. Then, alas, Hinderaker goes off the rails on the crazy train.
Put bluntly, the takers outnumber the makers. The polls in this election cycle diverged in a number of ways, but in one respect they were remarkably consistent: every poll I saw, including those that forecast an Obama victory, found that most people believed Mitt Romney would do a better job than Barack Obama on the economy. So with the economy the dominant issue in the campaign, why did that consensus not assure a Romney victory? Because a great many people live outside the real, competitive economy. Over 100 million receive means tested benefits from the federal government, many more from the states. And, of course, a great many more are public employees. To many millions of Americans, the economy is mostly an abstraction.
Then there is the fact that relatively few Americans actually pay for the government they consume. To a greater extent than any other developed nation, we rely on upper-income people to finance our federal government. When that is combined with the fact that around 40% of our federal spending isn’t paid for at all–it is borrowed–it is small wonder that many self-interested voters are happy to vote themselves more government. Mitt Romney proclaimed that Barack Obama was the candidate of “free stuff,” and voters took him at his word"The takers outnumber the makers". . . . From a guy for whom a significant income is what is generously referred to as "wingnut welfare" - folks on the right paying other folks on the right to say stuff folks on the right want to hear; stuff that is, by and large as fanciful as American Psycho without Bret Easton Ellis's sense of whimsy.
One final example, this time from The American Spectator, to American journalism what Gigli was to American cinema, and writer Robert Stacy McCain.
I don't think Eric Sevareid's reputation is in danger.[I]t's been a long time since any intelligent person believed anything a Democrat said. The cretins and dimwits have become an effective governing majority, and the question for conservatives at this point is perhaps not, "What does it mean?" but rather, "Why should we bother ourselves resisting it any longer?"Alas, as always, the duty of the Right is to manfully endure, to survive the defeat and stubbornly oppose the vaunting foe, and so this brutal shock, this electoral catastrophe, must be absorbed and digested. At some point next week or next month or next year, then, we shall recover our morale and plot some new stratagem for the future. In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's debacle, however, it is difficult to see any glimmer of light amid the encroaching gloom. Surely, there are many Americans who now sympathize with that New York infantryman who, in the bleak winter of 1862, when the Union's Army of the Potomac was under the incompetent command of Gen. Ambrose Burnside, wrote home in forlorn complaint: "Mother, do not wonder that my loyalty is growing weak.… I am sick and tired of the disaster and the fools that bring disaster upon us."
What is left to hope for? That the American people will soon regret their choice? That another four years of economic stagnation and escalating debt will cure them of their insane appetite for charismatic liberals? If four years of endless failure have not rid them of this madness, the disease may well be terminal. Perhaps others will still see some cause for hope, and in another few weeks my friends may persuade me to see it, too. But today I will hear no such talk, and I doubt I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. At the moment, I am convinced America is doomed beyond all hope of redemption, and any talk of the future fills me with dread and horror.Wow. Dude, pot's legal out west now. Go enjoy some. Lighten up a bit.
Let me confess something. The morning after the 2004 election, Lisa and I were chatting on the cell phone (I was an OTR driver at the time, somewhere, I think, in Minnesota). She asked me what I thought. I remember, very distinctly, saying, "Well, maybe things have to get worse before people realize their mistakes." Two years later, W's poll numbers sunk to less than 40% approval, where they sat for two years; later that same year of 2006, the Democrats cleaned the Republican's clocks. While I do not have documentary evidence to prove the conversation accurate, I rest easy in the reality that I was correct. Because "worse" things did indeed get, and those candidates who most remind most voters just how bad "worse" can be lost.
Does 2012 mean we are "no longer" a conservative nation? I don't think we've been either very conservative or very liberal for a very long time. Culturally and socially we trend schizophrenic. The gentle spread of marriage equality does warm my heart, but it hardly means much more than folks recognize discrimination and wish to end it. The election of more progressives, and more prominent progressives, to positions of power should gently nudge the Democratic Party in the direction of being, yet again, almost as liberal as it was when Lyndon Johnson ran the show, and folks like Frank Church and George McGovern stalked the US Senate.
I'd feel bad for these folks, and others like them but, honestly, I find their ennui in the face of electoral defeat hilarious. My 15 year old doesn't do drama this well.
