I was listening to The Rachel Maddow Show podcast for Feb 29, and Rachel opens with a compelling argument about conservatives playing "the long game", sacrificing individual candidates and even entire election cycles, yet still moving the country further to the Right every year.
Then look what`s happened since 1975. Look. Look what happens to those red lines up top. Those are the Republicans -- getting way more conservative. The Republicans, both the super partisan Republicans and the moderates shoot up toward the top of that graph. They shoot up in a conservative direction.
Democrats stay roughly the same since 1975. I mean, the most partisan Democrats, that`s the very bottom line there, they stay basically exactly where they have been over not just the last generation, but the last several generations.
If you look over time, the craziest hair-on-fire most extreme Republican in 1975, which that is top arrow right there, that person`s super crazy far right wing positions in 1975 are where the most moderate Republicans are now. That`s where the most liberal Republicans are now. They have the positions that were far to the right of the Republican Party just a generation ago. That has happened over one generation.
So, on the Supreme Court, they are storming to the right. The presidency, storming to the right. Congress, storming to the right, too.
Boy, this is going to cost them a seat. This might cost them an election. Why are they going so far to the right of where the center of the electorate is?
It`s because they don`t care what happens in the short term. Losing a few seats here and there, does not matter if the long term project is dragging the country, dragging the center to the point where frankly a Ronald Reagan running for president today would have to pick Dennis Kucinich as a running mate. It`s a long term goal.
As usual, Rachel provides a cogent, compelling analysis of the facts. She further buttresses her argument by pointing out how many of the legislation and programs the GOP viciously oppose today, were originally THEIR idea in the first place.
They were Republican ideas five minutes ago, but now they are communism.
Having explained her thesis in detail, Rachel then ties it to the situation in Maine, and how the GOP tactics could cause them to lose Olympia Snowe's seat, now that Snowe has thrown in the towel. She then introduces Chellie Pingree, a self-described "strong progressive" who is considering a run for Snowe's seat. Pingree is in complete agreement with Rachel's explanation of the GOP tactics of playing "the long game".
I think you did a great job explaining the fact that it`s the Republican Party that`s gone to the extreme, while Democrats have actually gotten more moderate or conservative, or at the very least stayed the same.
It`s made the Senate a very difficult place to operate.
At this point, I am excited. I have pulled up Pingree's web site and am looking at my checkbook to determine how much I could afford to donate to her campaign if she runs.
Well, I have been a strong progressive in the House. I was previously in the Maine senate. And Maine has chosen to reelect me over and over.
I just paid off an old debt, and could splurge and send her the $200 I now have freed up.
So, I think I reflect the views of many Mainers, but I think we look at it differently. We`re not a hyper partisan state. We`re a third Republican, a third Democrat, a third independent. We like Olympia Snowe. We like Chellie Pingree.
Pingree just started speaking of herself in the third person. The yellow caution flag just came out.
So, the fact is, people in Maine, they look for common sense solutions. They look for people who reach across the aisle, find common ground.
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! After agreeing with Rachel that the GOP has spent the last 37 years forcing the Dems to move to the right, and that this is a bad thing, she promptly pivots and moves right.
She then proceeds to spout the usual buzzword-stuffed blather that comes out of "pragmatic" Democrats when they pander to folks on the right who they delusionally believe will vote for them.
They want you to talk about what you've done, your record, you know, the things you`re engaged in, fighting for the middle class, clean energy jobs, health care -- you know, things that matter to everybody, that aren`t left or right. And I think they want us to move beyond political ideology, constant elections, you know, one fight after the other, they want things to start being fixed and feel good about America and feel good about their children`s future.
Ms. Pingree, these issues ARE "left or right", in fact "fighting for the middle class, clean energy jobs, health care" are liberal (i.e. left-wing) issues. The Right HATES the middle class and the poor, hates clean energy, and think people who can't afford health care should simply die. If you do not understand this, you are NOT paying attention.
The second part of her statement is just random focus group approved words strung together.
Then, she begins to display the incoherent, self-contradicting logic that is the hallmark of the GOP.
Rachel: ...it was so surprising in 2010 when Maine elected not just a lot of Republicans at the state level, but elected a Tea Party guy, pretty extreme far right guy, Paul LePage to be governor of the state. Republicans took control of the House and Senate there.
How has Republican governance at the state level under Paul LePage and those Republicans at the state level affected Mainers` view and your view of the two parties?
Pingree: Well, I think it`s gotten people feeling a little frustrated
with the Republican Party. And remember, we put Governor LePage in the statehouse with 38 percent of the vote. It was a three-way race. You know, that can happen in Maine politics, you get an independent, a Republican, a Democrat and you end up electing somebody that doesn`t reflect everyone in the whole state of Maine.
You say that like it's a bad thing (which it is). The trouble though was you had just said a minute earlier:
So, I think I reflect the views of many Mainers, but I think we look at it differently. We`re not a hyper partisan state. We`re a third Republican, a third Democrat, a third independent. We like Olympia Snowe. We like Chellie Pingree.
You had just lauded this as a point of pride about Maine, and now you are bemoaning the fact that one of those "thirds" (my guess would be the Republican/Conservative third) plus 5% of the clueless/insane "independent" and/or "Democratic" thirds, elected a complete whack-job as governor.
In conclusion you note:
And the fact is people -- they are frustrated, they`re tired, they don`t like the agenda of the governor or the way that our legislature has moved too far to the right. I think they are ready for a big change and I think we`re going to see a lot of changes in this election cycle.
Here, Ms. Pingree, you factually note that the governor AND the legislature "has moved too far to the right", but your solution to this problem is to ditch your "strong progressive" credentials (needed to pull the Main government to the left), and "reach across the aisle, find common ground". You are going to adopt a tactic which you JUST AGREED with Rachel is absolute folly for liberals. She drew you a detailed diagram of the mine field liberals have been walking into for 37 years, and you say. "Right! I need to run right across that mine field littered with limbless corpses and see if I can persuade the enemy to come to some agreement about the mine field."
The time between Admiral Akbar telling you "It's a trap!" and you running toward the Death Star to have a word with the Emperor, was about 45 seconds.
My checkbook has left the building.
I realize the mission statement of DK is "More, then better Democrats", but I must respectfully ask whether "more, then better liberals" would not be a better idea?
If we have a choice between a Jon Tester/Jim Webb/Kay Hagan Democrat, and a Bernie Sanders liberal, WHY would be support the candidate who is already drawing a circle on our back to remind themselves where to put the knife?
Yes, I hear some folks claiming that Bernie Sanders is "an exception", but I disagree, he isn't. He is PROOF that liberals, REAL liberals can get elected, if they stick to their principles and refuse to compromise with insane people.
It seems to me that the "post 2000" Al Gore would have CRUSHED Bush in the 2000 election if he had tacked left instead of right during the election. If the guy who starred in An Inconvenient Truth had ran in 2000, there would have been no need for a Ralph Nader to enter the race. And how different would the history of the last decade be?
To use one last movie quote, let me explain Conservative ideology:
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
As long as we refuse to understand this, we will lose.