I have undertaken the odious task of heading over to
Free Republic to see how the other side (the parts not fully represented and expressed by "liberal media" CNN, that is) is taking last night's events. I'm somewhat innoculated - I am the daughter of a Freeper. And here's a dirty little secret: I used to be a Freeper myself. But that was years and years and years ago. A lifetime ago, really. More than half a decade. If the Republicans have done anything in the last six years, it's to make a lot of hard-core, never-look-back Lefties like me.
So I go there, and the first thing I glance at is the News/Activism and Breaking News sidebar to get the lay of the land. What stories do we have there? Let's see...
Pres. Bush will hold 1 pm news conference.
Sunnis threaten to pull out of Iraq govt, take up arms (Dems Win - Result)
Hamas chief: Truce with Israel is over (Dems Win - Terrorist Declare War!)
Hamas urges attacks on U.S. targets
IDF tank shells kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza Strip ("Massacre"?)
Fox: Democrats Take Control of the House
11 p.m. and after: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington
10 p.m.: Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nevada, Utah
LIVE THREAD: ELECTIONS 2006
9 p.m.: New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming
8:30 p.m.: Arkansas; 9:00 p.m: Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska
Ahhhh, I see. You're so embarrased by your sound trouncing that you can barely bear to talk about it. Better to talk about foreign news and to make absurd connections between our races and... Hamas? Oh, right. Because now that the Dems have won, we're going to give candy and flowers to terrorists and the women of the right should start to get fitted for their burqas. (No, really, this is something I've heard repeatedly from my mother. Because the Democrats are "soft on terror," we're going to turn the US into a terrorist state and all the women's rights are going to be denied because of that. Never mind the fact that it's the Republicans who tried to mount the superconservative religious agenda that would strip women of their rights and put them in figurative burqas. Yeah, the Freeper logic, it ain't so sound.)
What else have we got here in Freepistan? Let's drill down beneath the sidebar and see how the other side is living (with themselves).
Hmmm. Republic of Nancystan?
The Evil Empire has taken over welcome to Nancystan.
Hey, you know what? Welcome to Punctuationstan, you ignorant fuck.
It is time to plan our insurgency.
Wait, isn't that the kind of talk that'll get a Democrat thrown in a Halliburton-built detention facility? You know, if I see one thing end, it'll be the rank IOKIYAR attitude. Oh, the attitude will still be there, but when they can't run roughshod over the Constitution and the rest of the country, it's not quite as OK as it has been the last six years.
She hasn't been elected yet. Didn't Jackoff Murtha say he wanted the position? Let's hope that we see a fractured Democratic cockass.
Jackoff Murtha? Now, now, is that any way to talk about our vets, you grand old troop-supporters, you?
Let's move on - the rest is offensive jokes about Nancyboys and other unsavory and unbecoming sexual slurs, nothing worth seeing. What else does FR offer up this morning?
Someone has posted a thread called LAME DUCK BUSH IS LEFT CRIPPLED BY A CRUSHING VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE. Let's see how they deal with a dose of truth, even if it is dealt from the "liberal media." What's that? NY Post isn't as bad as NYT? And yet, they still had a headline like that? What do Freepers make of that?
I say it's time for Bush to do what he promised and go after the axis of evil by using our troops in Iraq to launch an attack on Iran and Syria post haste. The hell with the dem controlled house and probably senate. He still has the power to initiate the attacks and the sooner the better.
Well, now, that's the can-do attitude. And not at all the screw-everybody-else, I'm-doing-what-I-want-and-fuck-all-y'all attitude that yesterday's election was a referendum on. Boy, those Freepers are thick, aren't they? They still don't get what the election means. They still don't get why they lost.
Same brainiac responds to his own overcompensating-aggressiveness post with this followup:
Oh, and I left out vetoing anymore funding for the UN and kicking them out of the U.S. as well as taking out NK as well as Iran and Syria.
Y'know, I don't think he read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Perhaps he should. He'd probably enjoy life a lot more with a few friends.
I am happy to see some "moderate" voices piping up amid the rampant idiocy and posturing, though.
I've voted for Bush twice, even had my picture taken with him ... however, reality is what it is and Bush is by every measure a lame duck president for the remainder of his Presidency. He knows it ...
Here's another realist:
It will now be two years of Democratic investigations, stonewalling Bush's policies, stonewalling winning in iraq, implementation of bad policies to make Bush look bad because, ...
... now the Dems will focus on the White House in 2008.
Everything they do will be in an effort to win the Presidency in 2008.
Damn skippy! And hot damn! And damn, you're right! Damn damn damn damn damn! You lost, we won. Ha ha! /Nelson Muntz
And here's one that starts off good but chokes at the end:
Hey we had two "good" elections in a row. This stuff goes in cycles. On the plus side, I think today's result increases the chance that we'll be able to hold om to the Whitehouse in '08.
All right, I've seen enough in this thread. Let's move on. No, wait! I spy, with my little eye, one last gasp of preposterousness that needs to be highlighted:
We had the Senate and the House, but we didn't use the power and it was taken from us.
Exsqueeze me? I baking powder? The Constitution is in tatters. First Amendment means nothing if you swing to the left. Habeus corpus is now a historical fact, not a current right. Big Brother is watching everyone. The Right didn't use their power? Honey, if they'd used their power any more, it'd be smoking and gasping and you'd have to take it to the shop to get it fixed. But that's OK. We took it to the shop for you, and it looks like everything's gonna be a little bit all right now. And for future reference, look to Spider Man: With great power comes great responsibility. If you use it wisely, you won't lose it. You guys were way unwise. Chumps.
And moving on, we have a vanity post hot off the tubes.
Well, we had a bad night no doubt about it. But what can we take away from it? Some clear lessons for sure. First, we have some lessons for all Freepers. Second, we have some lessons for the Republican Party.
For Freepers, we have a few facts that some have been able to ignore for a while. But now, it appears that we can ignore them no longer.
1- The squishy middle controls national politics in the middle. Neither Free Republic nor Democrats Underground are the "mainstream". "Mainstream" is the milquetoast centrists that only pay attention when the television tells them too. Turning out the "base" is important, but when both sides turn out, it is the politically ignorant that decide our fate. Conservatives alone do not have the numbers it takes to win control of Congress!
2- Political experts are that: experts. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and Dick Morris are twits in my opinion, but ignore their advice at your own peril. Unlike most of us, they live and breathe politics and the nuances and undercurrents are easier for them to pick up on. Are they wrong often? Sure. But politics is a mix between art and science, and they know the science part inside and out.
3- Polls matter. They give a sense of the electorate. They are important when looking at close races and determining specifics in an election. Freepers who completely discounted them were completely shocked last night.
Now for the Republican Party, there are some lessons to learn as well. Want to take back control in two years? Listen up!
1- Stop running "every man for himself" campaigns. Run as a party. Run as a team. Have team goals and team aspirations. Failure to do so results in disaster for members not as well known or in tough individual fights. An example of this is in Missouri. A quick assessment of District 7 shows that Roy Blunt received 14, 357 more votes than Jim Talent. Talent lost by less than 45,000 votes and it is inexcusable that a full third of the votes he needed were dropped in the most conservative district of the State. Live together, die alone.
2- Doing nothing is earning nothing. Not causing harm is not a policy of success. Use local issues and make them national issues. Immigration, tax cuts, national defense, and social issues are all winners when used boldly. Use them!
3- We are against cloning and there is only one George W. Bush. We need to identify and promote more faces of the party. Younger faces. President Bush is 60, Rudy Guiliani is 62, John McCain is 70. Where are the up and coming Republicans? Find them, promote them, and use them.
Hmmm. Surprisingly well-reasoned for a Freeper, and showing a marked lack of froth and spittle, though I'm sure that'll be corrected once a few people start commenting. Couple of notes for the poster, though: calling the people you need to win to your side in order to win elections "milquetoast"? Not a winning tactic, that. You don't insult those you desperately need to woo. Also, it is the grammatically ignorant who make you all look like stupid dolts when you're pontificating about how intelligent you are - it's "to," not "too." Third-grade grammar. Learn it, live it, love it.
Before we leave this thread, let's have just one comment from it:
Yesterday, half of America decided that our troops fighting terrorism can go to hell. It's going to be more important now for our half to support the troops even more.
Uh, poster? Yesterday, half of America decided that our troops fighting terrorism should come back home from hell. Though I won't argue with the second half of your comment - it'd be grand if your half stopped thinking slapping yellow ribbon magnets on your Hummers was "supporting the troops" and actually stepped up to the plate and did something substantive.
Oh, and lookie here! We have one of the The Democrats Will Take Your Guns!!!!1!!!!! threads. Boy, that didn't take long. I'm not even going to bother quoting from this tripe - I'm just gonna say that it's the Republicans who have been knocking out Constitutional Amendments as fast as they can get to them, not Democrats. We like free speech, free press, habeus corpus, and other stand-bys of the Constitution to stay in place, despite what you freaks have tried to do to that sacred document. You needn't worry about our trying to take away the one and only right you overcompensating assholes seem to care about - we'll be too busy trying to restore the rights that you let your faux cowboy strip away from us. You should thank us for that, motherfuckers, but if it makes you feel better, keep singing your tired old song about how the evil Dems will take away your firearms. God knows you have precious little else to cling to right now.
And how about one more? I've about reached my limit for tolerance, but let's just do one more for shits and giggles. Here's another vanity post with a good "gut feeling" about "What to expect for the next 2 years."
No facts here - just my gut as 13 years in the military, 5 years as a SF Commander with 1 year deployed to Afghanistan.
The Islamic terrorists will take the election as a sign of weakness. They will see it as the infidels are weak and have no stomach for fighting. It will embolden them. They will increase attacks on us "over there" and at start here at home.
Expect terrorists attacks in the USA. Most likely course of action will be 1-2 muslim terrorists shooting up a mall, school or church or detonating bombs in them about once every 2-3 months.
Most dangerous course of action will be a Beslan type attack in a mostly white, suburban school. The children will be herded into the gymnasium, school (especially the gymnasium) will be rigged with explosives to thwart any attack and to inflict massive casualties on the children, unrealistic demands will be made, students will be systematically raped and when the attack does come, the terrorists will look to inflict maximum casualties on the students (up to and including dressing female terrorists as wounded teaches so they can detonate suicide bombs in ambulances and site triage centers).
I'm not even going to remark on the inane stupidity of this. Let's go to the comments.
Dems will blame everyone but themselves. And the terrorists won't care that they are killing the children of their greatest appeasers...
Wow. That's some hardcore projection there, Sparky.
Well, now that the terrorists and their terrorist loving party are in control, we are in for a hell of a ride.
The same is true for any Republican who voted for a democrat or was too LAZY to get off their DEAD A$$ to go vote yesterday.
Now we will see a big pick up in terrorist activities with both the terrorists around the world and the terrorist democrat party.
Yawn. Oh, come on. Surely you can be more original than that?
But ha ha!
WHAT TO EXPECT TODAY ON FREEREPUBLIC:
An extremely tedious and endless string of gloomy, pessimistic, despair-filled, and utterly pointless VANITY POSTS.
I like the cut of that Freeper's jib.
losing the teachers won't be so bad, they're 99.9% dems, so they brought this on themselves.
Oh, OK, I get it - so terrorism is OK as long as the terr'ists are killing people you don't like. I guess that's why they don't give a shit about the insurgency in Iraq?
More of that attitude here:
Well, I believe this too. Look at what the Clinton years of appeasing terrorists got us.
It would be a horrible thing, but it wouldn't surprise me, and when it comes it will probably be in a blue state.
And one final comment, a relative breath of fresh air:
There's no truth in this post. The terrorists don't wait for our permission. I suppose the election of GWB was a sign of weakness, resulting in 9-11? No, it wasn't. I suppose the election and reelection of Ronald Reagan was a sign of weakness, resulting in over 200 dead Marines? The post is bullshirt. The terrorists will proceed apace regardless of who we elect, as they have for the last 30 years or more. There's your truth.
Maybe we should recruit this guy. He doesn't sound like a milquetoast - he sounds like he's got a foot in the world of reality.
And this concludes your morning stroll through the halls of Free Republic, peeking in the doors to see what the other half is doing. Not much, as it turns out, because they know they got whupped, as Tom DeLay said on CNN this morning. And for all their false bravado, no matter how many Democrats they wish terror attacks on, they know they suck, and that big talk is all they have, and is all they've had for the last six years. Personification, as if Dubya wasn't enough, of All Hat, No Cattle. I typoed that at first as All Hate, No Cattle. That's not far-off from wrong, either.
Doesn't matter, though, really. Know why?
Because we won! Yay!
Update: Maccabee donned the biohazard suit this morning, too. Good stuff.