I shake my head alot when I see the condition the republicans have left the country again after a period of Republican rule.
Back in the 1920s, the republicans messes up as bad as they did today but, with FDR coming in and doing something to get this country going and to punish the republicans, they were kept out of power until 1952.
That has not been the case in recent history and I have been confused about why they keep getting voted back in and why the democrats keep having to struggle.
Since Nixon the republicans have left monumental messes in their wake. On top of their total disasters in governing, they have also left our schools in shameful condition as far as education goes, the poor have fallen back more and more from the gains of 40 years ago, and the middle class, our strongest and most proud segment in the 1950s and 60s, have been decimated. In fact, while our middle class has been wiped out by republican policies, these very people keep voting overwhelmingly for republicans.
After months of thinking about this I keep coming back to the same thing but, have a hard time trying to put it in words for a diary without inflaming people.
I came across an article by Kevin Drum in Mother Jones last night. He laid out pretty much what I have noticed and felt was a huge reason why we struggle and have been since the era of LBJ
He begins with a portion of an article by Bernard Avishai on the election in Massachusetts and I have put in a part of that:
The real question Democrats have to ask themselves is: how come the greatest piece of social legislation since Medicare is something a progressive Democratic candidate for Ted Kennedy's seat has to speak so defensively about?
And we can look no further than Howard Dean, and MSNBC, and Arianna Huffington, and, yes, some columnists at the Times and bloggers here at TPM — you know, real progressives — who have lambasted Obama again and again since last March over arguable need-to-haves like the "public option," as if nobody else was listening. They've been thinking: "Oh, if only we ran things, how much more subtle would the legislation be," as if 41 senators add up to subtle. Meanwhile the undecideds are thinking: "Hell, if his own people think he's a sell-out and jerk, why should we support this?"
I find that to be very astute by Mr. Avishai. He notes the opportunists like Huffington to sew discontent in order to promote herself and get in front of the nearest camera. And she does so with clever op-eds in her blog meant to sew that discontent. Others have done so as well.
Drum goes on to point out the obvious in the campaign for the presidency in that people did not really listen or see the man. I agree with that but, I go further in that people basically blocked out parts that they did not want to see or hear. It is obvious when so many people keep insisting that Obama promised to end both wars when in fact he only promised to do so with Iraq. And while he is preparing them to leave Iraq, many do not understand that Obama cannot push up the timeline of what a treaty done with Iraq by Bush before he left office, hinders the timetable.
But, I find this to be the money quote of the article:
The striking thing to me, though, is how fast the left has turned on him. Conservatives gave Bush five or six years before they really turned on him, and even then they revolted more against the Republican establishment than against Bush himself. But the left? It took about ten months. And the depth of the revolt against Obama has been striking too. As near as I can tell, there's a small but significant minority who are so enraged that they'd be perfectly happy to see his presidency destroyed as a kind of warning to future Democrats. It's extraordinarily self-destructive behavior — and typically liberal, unfortunately. Just ask LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. And then ask them whether liberal revolt, in the end, strengthened liberalism or conservatism.
We have a tendency to eat our own. The reason we do not get our message out and the republicans are able to recover all the time and come back in a few years is that we are so busy destroying ourselves from within that we do not notice and have the time or have the unity to push out our message. It is lost in the fighting between ourselves.
We simply have to quit this destructive behavior towards our own side. We can get our wants and needs across and make sure our politicians know how we feel without being nasty. And we also need to learn how governing works. The reality of it is disheartening but, it is the way it is.
We need to really sit down and think about what is the most important to us. Is it purity and perfect or building a foundation to build on. And if it is the latter then, we will never get advantage over republicans, get our message out, be taken seriously and quit being blamed for the repubilcans misdeeds until we begin to unite. In unity, like in the election, we are strong and we are able to overcome the republicans. Divided...well, we have seen the result since Nixon's time.
Drum goes on to list the things he's disagreed with Obama on in the past year but, then, writes:
Still, none of that comes within light years of providing a reason to turn on him. The national security community has tremendous influence; the financial lobby has a stranglehold on Congress; Obama told us explicitly during the campaign that he planned to escalate in Afghanistan; his caution on gay rights is quite likely smart politically; and he certainly gave us fair warning about his dedication to reaching across the aisle and trying to work with Republicans. The fact that they've spent his entire first year in a raging temper tantrum is hardly his fault. Given the cards he was dealt, he hasn't done badly.
And that is very true.
While we may disagree with policies and issues, nothing Obama has done this past year comes close to warranting the sheer vitriolic hate and rage that his own side is displaying towards him (and in front of the whole country).
Why should we keep blaming republicans when in fact, many of our failures are the direct result of our own side preferring to eat their own rather then fighting the opposition.
'Who needs enemies with 'friends' like these?'
Indeed.
http://motherjones.com/...