I cross-posted this diary on redstate.com today. It's just a whimsical experiment; they may bar me from the site as a troll. Whatever. It'll be interesting to see if it garners any reaction over there. Maybe they'll just ignore it.
As a technical aside, the sofware and formatting for posting a diary are better here - much more versatile with better tools.
I occasionally write diaries for dailykos. You can now stop reading, have me barred from this site as a troll, whatever you wish. I saw reference to this diary from Dave_in_Fla from November 5, and wrote a response. His original piece is in italics. This is just a whim on my part. Perhaps I'll give some of you food for thought; perhaps my diary will just cause bemusement. Either way, for those of you who do read it, thank you for your time.
We got the results I feared. I was hoping for a different result, but in the end the pollsters were again correct and it was a 5 point win for Obama, with a devastating down ballot result. When you end the night being glad that Ted Stevens might eek out a victory, that is a bad sign.
So here are some things that I think we now know for the future. If we want to get this country back on the right track, we better learn these and act on them: 1) People are not afraid of Socialism, it is an acceptable political outcome. I'm going to be thinking a long time on why this is, but I think that it is a combination of lack of education within the electorate, a generation has passed since Carter, and the illusionary success of European socialism in our globalized economy.
No, people are not afraid of socialism. Your confusion stems from an incorrect base postulate, the belief that socialism neither works, nor is beneficial. Europeans have enjoyed for decades a good quality of life under a capitalist system tempered with socialism. While the socialistic regulations of the New Deal were in place in the United States during 1945-1980, this nation enjoyed its greatest period of prosperity and economic stability in its history after the Civil War. Once Reagan took office, conservatives began to dismantle that regulatory apparatus, leading to the end of that stability and prosperity, replaced by a growing disparity between rich and poor, a shrinking of the middle class, rising costs for higher education, inflated housing costs, and a rising cost of living at a far greater pace than during the regulatory era of the New Deal, with wages for average workers unable to keep up. Conservative belief in the failure of socialism derives from the failure of the Soviet Union, which was hardly socialist at all but instead a planned capitalist system, with control of wealth deliberately placed in the hands of an elite few as part of the plan. The model for the Communist Party in the Soviet Union was only Karl Marx in theory; in practice it was simply the return of the tsars. In reality, socialism works very well. Democracy itself is a type of socialism. For most of human history, governance has been by a tyranny of some kind – monarchies, emperors, oligarchies, et cetera. The Bourbon Kings, the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Japanese Shoguns, the Roman Emperors, Chinese Emperors, Aztec Emperors, the myriad emperors, all ruled through money and power, and their attendant controls of military strength and favorable positions with established religions. Democracy circumvents this, in our society allowing all citizens one vote regardless of their financial position and influence. That’s classical socialism, moving toward an egalitarian society with power distributed more evenly among the general population, rather than as always concentrated in the hands of an elite wealthy few. It’s not a lack of education, but resonance between socialism and democracy. The success of European socialism is not illusory, by the way, just in conflict with the globalization drive of trans-national corporations to transcend international boundaries and rewrite national laws while ensuring citizenry remain trapped within them and unable to effect changes to those laws. Globalization is merely old-fashioned Empire building, putting wealth and power into the hands of the few, and nothing new under the sun.
2) Bi-partisanship is a waste of time. You can't make nice with the political enemy and expect them to play fair or support you in any meaningful way. The PUMAs were interesting to listen to, but they weren't a political factor. The fact that McCain and Hillary are friends means nothing, and just serves to cheapen our positions. By the same token, mavericks should be marginalized, not given our nomination.
McCain was only a maverick to your reckoning; and yes, bi-partisanship is a waste of time. This is a war, and one that you are eventually going to lose. It's inevitable. Conservatives throughout history invariably support positions which become discredited with the passing of time: resistance to the results of scientific inquiry, allegiance to a monarchical system of government, slavery, women being denied the right to vote, resistance to the forty-hour work week, resistance to health benefits in the workplace, prohibition, resistance to the civil rights movement, the list is endless. You guys always resist change, and change always comes. You are doing no different now. In the future, your positions on Roe v. Wade, gay marriage, and blind allegiance to the free market as the ne plus ultra of societal governance will be looked upon the same way we look today upon Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, the idea that the Sun revolves around the Earth, and the aristocracy of France believing it had the right to starve its populace to death so that it could maintain its luxuries and indulgences during the eighteenth century.
3) Image, charisma, and articulation matters. If our candidate doesn't make the people who watch Access Hollywood say, "Hey! He/She is really hip and cool!", then we are toast. This goes for ALL of our leaders, not just our presidential candidate. We need people who can articulate our positions in terms that the voters can understand and resonate with. It took an Ohio plumber to put in simple words what was wrong with Obama's tax plan, and it came too late. At the end of the day, none of our candidates really stood a chance with this dynamic.
This is true; certainly charisma greatly aided JFK, Ronald Reagan, even Teddy Roosevelt in 1904. It’s not the sole component, however. Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman, and by all means Richard Nixon were hardly the most charismatic men to come down the pike. Obama’s charisma helped, but didn’t win the day by itself. Articulation matters, too. Good articulation isn’t some kind of parlor trick, but an indicator of an educated and polished mind. By the way, the liberals that I know don’t watch Access Hollywood. We couldn’t care less about that kind of swill – the whole culture of celebrity worship actually gives us hives. Also by the way, my man for this election cycle was Dennis Kucinich. Obama has potential, though – I’ll wait and see.
4) You have to fight everyday if you want to win. When the opposition makes a mistake, you have to publicize it everyday and never ever let them walk away from it. When the Dems blocked reform of Fannie/Freddie, we should have been pounding home the message that the Dems were heading us toward a disaster. In the future, we have to loudly disagree with their socialist agenda, and when they inevitably fail, loudly condemn them for their failures. Their social safety net should be daily criticized for the failure that it is.
Thirty years of conservative fiscal policy, driven by Republicans but unquestionably with the aid of Democrats, caused this financial disaster, not some presumed missed last-minute attempt to put the brakes on after the train had already careened off the cliff. As far as your constant reiteration of the evils of the social safety net, please take a ride into the poorer urban and rural areas of the United States, and tell me where this social safety net resides. The average food stamp benefit for a single person is $96 per month; you try to feed yourself on this amount, if you can qualify for it – it’s not automatic. Besides, a social safety net is what the government is for: promoting the general welfare, etc. This is the promise of democracy. Before you come back with critiques of laziness and urban myths of welfare queens and Cadillacs, please understand that we live in a reality that, barring some major natural disaster or plague, will never again have enough jobs for everyone, at least following the free market policies you prescribe. The purpose of the free market is to provide return on investment for shareholders, not jobs. Payroll is on the books of any business as an expense, not a goal, and is the first thing slashed when the economy starts to fail. Given increased automation and technology, there will always be more people than jobs from now on. So, what do we do with all the people who are surplus to the needs of the economy?
5) Social conservatism does not trump financial conservatism. As much as it pains me to say this, abortion is not an issue that the majority of the electorate cares about, and frankly we have now lost on Roe v. Wade. The courts are lost for a generation, and there will be no turning back the clock. Social conservatism works for ballot initiatives, like Amendment 2 in Florida and Prop 8 in California. But the best we can hope for is state initiatives to enhance right to life issues on the edges. This was probably our biggest loss yesterday, and it is probably permanent.
A legion of issues undercut your entire position on right to life. You don’t seem that concerned with rights to life when it comes to handguns, the death penalty, avoiding unnecessary wars, and what happens to people after they are born. Also, not everyone believes that the soul dives into the zygote at the moment of conception. The foetus has rights, but they do not at any time trump the rights of the mother who carries that foetus. Abortion is an issue to be decided by medical science and the conscience of the individual woman. For the umpteenth time, pro-choice stances do not affect your position to refuse abortions, or to convince others to follow your lead. Our position allows you your position without interference; yours outlaws ours. Again, this is a battle that you will eventually lose over time.
6) The education system and the media are devastating losses for us. With no mechanism to publicize our positions fairly, the new voters are being taught lies as truths, and we lose the propaganda war. If we can't find a way to get around this problem, we will be a political minority for a very very long time. The reinstitution of the fairness doctrine must be defeated, or we will lose even that small voice.
I’m sorry, but this is nonsense. Interesting that where we see an overwhelmingly conservative media, you see an overwhelmingly liberal one. The myth of the liberal media is exactly that, however. ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN are all owned and controlled by giant conservative corporations, and the Fox News Network is nothing more than a shill for the agenda of Corporate America (which is always the same – better profits for the few regardless of the consequences and lower taxes) and the GOP. We hardly count people like Lou Dobbs and Andrea Mitchell as liberals, or Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw. To us, the real liberals on mainstream television are few; Maddow and Olbermann on MSNBC come to mind immediately. As satirists, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert probably count, too. (Have you noticed that when conservatives try satire, it doesn’t quite work out?) We also don’t view the conservative media as some vast conspiracy the way you view the liberal media, we just see it as the natural result of a commercial enterprise. Since market forces constantly pressure any company to increase revenue streams, news broadcasts became less about journalism and more about ratings. Coverage of the realities of the Vietnam War and the Watergate hearings in the 1970s made viewers less responsive to the advertisements that are the real business of television. So, the networks reversed this negative effect on the revenue stream by toning down the serious content of the news. They kept away from political items that upset people, such as unorthodox countercultural opinion, presentation of too many multiple and confusing viewpoints, and so on, all of which might cause viewers to change the channel. They ramped up the razzle-dazzle. This moved network news political coverage into the safe conservative format it has today, focus on the horse race / beauty pageant / tactical aspects of campaigns rather than investigative discussion of issues. All the networks do this. Remember, please, that all corporations are about profit, and any commitment to journalistic integrity on the part of Fox, CNN, and the rest stops where the bottom line begins. Radical and liberal views don’t improve ratings, safe orthodoxy does. Hence the conservative mainstream corporate media, with its status quo pursuit of market share. This played directly into the hands of political conservatives, since conservatives are all about status quo and markets. None of this resembles a liberal media; the closest thing to a liberal media is PBS. Unconcerned with attracting large corporate advertising dollars, for the most part they continue to do things the intelligent and responsible way, which is why we like it. A truly liberal media would be questioning so-called received wisdom constantly, rather than reinforcing it. College professors and scientific experts would have a much greater presence on a liberal media, professional pundits and photogenic anchors less. A liberal media would have no stories of kittens up trees, no lurid tales of sensationalist crimes, no reports of the goings on of sports and entertainment celebrities. A liberal media would have non-stop in-depth scrutiny of policy decisions made by Senators, Congressmen, and business leaders. As far as your voice being small, that’s not even remotely true. Your voice dominates mainstream television; it’s a big business, remember, and big businesses are by nature conservative, and receptive to conservative viewpoints. Your voice dominates radio. Hell, you own AM radio. It’s not a coincidence that the rise of conservative talk AM radio parallels the deregulation of broadcast media as more and more radio stations were bought up by giant media conglomerates. You have dominated the ranks of lobbyists to the federal government for almost three decades now, and you have been the driving voice of this nation’s political discourse for that time: it is your definitions of liberal=traitor and dissent=treason that has been the mainstream. You define where the center is in America. You have shifted this nation so far to the right that Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed by Republican Gerald Ford, has stood still while newer conservatives on the Supreme Court have moved to his right and the new liberal wing has assembled around him. Past conservatives James Jeffords, John Dean, and Arianna Huffington have abandoned you as they saw your views become more unacceptable with your success. If you become a political minority even with this dominance of the mainstream media and its awesome power as a propaganda tool, if the mainstream flees from your attitudes, then it must be owing to the fact that your product is no longer selling.
7) Trying to fight fair, when the opposition refuses to do so, is foolish. Campaign finance reform is a crock, and using public financing is moronic. Until real reform occurs to stop voter fraud, we can't be left defenseless. In the meantime, we can either fight in the gutter, or we can lose.
I don’t want to go into this one. The easiest thing to do when you lose is to accuse the other side of not fighting fair. I doubt that any political campaign in history, be it conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, has been waged 100% fair from some absolute standard.
8) Similar to the social conservatism, 2nd amendment rights is not a political winner. Not enough of the voters really give a damn.
There’s this great cowboy film with John Wayne and Gail Russell from 1947 called Angel and The Badman, where outlaw Wayne falls in love with pacifist Quaker Russell. The local marshal is out to get him, but under Russell’s influence Wayne changes his ways. At the end, the marshal guns down guys who were gunning for Wayne, who leaves on a buckboard with Russell with the exclamation that he’s a farmer now. At the end, the marshal, played by the great western actor Harry Carey, looks to the camera and says that "only a man who carries a gun ever needs one." I’m paraphrasing. Does this have anything to do with interpretations of the Second Amendment? I don’t know, it’s only a movie. I do know this: of the Bill of Rights, the second amendment is the only one you people ever seem to have any enthusiasm for, however.
So what do I think can work in the future for us? 1) A reform agenda - Palin has set the right "outside Washington" tone to benefit from the inevitable mistakes that the Dems are going to make now that they fully control all branches of government. Our congressional members need to enforce party discipline and eschew fiscal stupidity like earmarks. Then people from outside DC need to run on permanently changing the culture.
Being the insiders of Washington and ramping up fiscal earmarks is what the GOP has been all about for three decades now. I refer you to Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew for a well-researched account of this. They made a big show of saying they were the outsiders in 1981 when they took over. To see how long such a strategy would last again if it prevailed, just look at who built all the McMansions around the beltway, and where their political allegiance lies, for evidence of so-called conservative repugnance toward being that kind of Washington insider.
2) Fiscal education - Strong leadership in teaching the voters the truth about tax policies. We don't have to get into what the money in the treasury is going to be used FOR, as long as we teach them why lower taxes result in increased revenues. If they think giving it to the UN is the best thing to do with it, then fine. But getting people to understand what is needed for a sound economy is critical.
I agree. But fiscal education is not your best weapon. People have been discovering where the money is going to, like enormous no-bid contracts in a war zone that never should have happened, like tax breaks to people who need none, all propelled by conservatives. Better to continue with the urban myths of social safety nets and welfare queens driving Cadillacs. The UN thing is a good one, too. They all worked swimmingly in 1980.
3) Media - We need to destroy the current media. They must be punished for their abdication of their duties within a free society. Establish alternative sources to reach the voters with our message. Financially ruin the mouthpieces of the Democrats. Buy the New York Times and fire their editorial board, replacing it with one leaning right.
Please destroy the current media. By the way, if The New York Times is so liberal, what are David Brooks and William Kristol doing on board there with regularly published columns?
4) Grassroots - Establish a permanent and effective local political apparatus that can mutually support between states and districts. Share best practices, and provide technical and financial support between organizations.
A sound strategy for any political movement.
5) Win the hearts and minds - Low level voter education to target the youth and independents to teach them the core principles. Work outside of the liberal school indoctrination, or better yet, force the schools to give us equal time. We have to get past ceding political education to the NEA. We need to stop mind numbed robot Democrats from just showing up at the polls and blindly pulling the lever for the D.
This would be a mistake on your part. You’d have to prevent your targets from asking too many questions about those core principles. Education isn’t really your strong suit. Your current constituency eschews science it disagrees with, and has no room for history that does not fit in with its views. If the American people become more educated about their system of government, how their economy really works and what its goals are, how the work of the founding fathers as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights relates to history and the writings of the enlightenment authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, then they will more than likely move to the left in their political viewpoints. History is all about ordinary people becoming educated. In Europe 1000 years ago, education and literacy were limited to a small elite, and they had monarchs, feudalism, and the medieval dark ages. With the greater proliferation of knowledge owing to the printing press, increased literacy, and general education for all, the Western world has had the Renaissance, the Reformation, the scientific revolution, and the implement of democracy, and has jettisoned medieval sources of political authority such as kings and the clergy. Education makes people less conservative, not more. Best stick to what has worked for you in the past, stories about flags and America standing tall and the like. Reagan swept into office telling America what it wanted to hear, as the people who formed the conservative constituency were sick of the constant doses of reality that were the 1960s and the 1970s. Mythos, not argument based in reality or on scientific evidence, is what galvanizes your voting base. Just ask the people who poured donations into the Creation Museum in Kentucky.
6) National level branding - Now is the time to begin an advertising campaign to dispel the myths about Republicans. We aren't racists, we aren't homophobes, we aren't war mongers. We need to change our public image, and that has to be done through a public relations effort. Pick a few core messages, and put them out in opposition to the socialism that Obama will be trying to push through.
I applaud your claims to be not racists, not homophobes, not war mongers. Yet why do you not only tolerate such viewpoints among your constituents, but actively rely on the support of individuals who hold such viewpoints to bolster your campaigns? If you look at the states where you won the electoral vote on Tuesday, this is precisely who you have left. It’s your own fault – racists, homophobes, war-mongers, bigots, knee-jerk reactionaries, Bible-belt zealots intolerant of any other viewpoints, these are the people who respond most enthusiastically to your philosophy. They are your core constituency. You have been hoist by your own petard, methinks.
7) Leadership - Finally, we need leadership, probably as the head of the RNC. Congressional leaders are fine, but a strong RNC chairman that focuses on the Republican brand is critical for success.
Good luck with that. Remember, please, that history is never on the side of conservatives. Look it up. Time is our ally, not yours. What conservatives fail to understand is that liberals today, just as liberals in the past, are the driving engine for justice, progress, equality, and democracy, not conservatives. Conservatives in general want either things to stay the same, or to return to an idealized, romanticized past when things were stable, secure, when everyone knew their proper place and worshipped the same gods, or whatever, that idealized past usually resembling the actual past very little. Tyrants always appeal to conservatives and conservative ideals to support their regimes. Fear helps as well; fear of change, fear of people who don’t think like you, eat the same foods you do, speak the same language you do. The Nazis, the Soviet Politburo, Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Mao in China, all had the financial institutions, the political conservatives of their day, the time-honored status quo of a privileged few ruling over the disenfranchised many, and the basest allegiances to national pride and the purity of their people and way of life, on their side. As a final thought, please remember that the implosion of a major political party in the United States hasn’t happened since the Whigs went down in flames in the 1850s. We’re long overdue.