Republican protesters openly admit using racist imagry

[Strix]

I don't think it is impossible that we are in a similar situation now, especially as my/our generation will remember how awful the Bush administration was for the rest of our lives.

People forgot about Carter quick enough.

[Queequeg]

I don't think it is impossible that we are in a similar situation now, especially as my/our generation will remember how awful the Bush administration was for the rest of our lives.

People forgot about Carter quick enough.

I don't think that is true at all.  He made Reagan look a lot better than he was.

[Strix]

People forgot about Carter quick enough.

I don't think that is true at all.  He made Reagan look a lot better than he was.

Yes he did and he made people forget Carter. The same thing will happen with Bush once the economy gets back on track. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been doing well, so that isn't an albatross that will hang around Bush's neck. In the long run, Bush like Carter will be forgotten because they didn't do much of note during the Presidency. Bush like Carter will also be known by the crisis that occurred during their Presidency that neither handled that well but issues like that aren't remembered except on Languish.

[Queequeg]

Yes he did and he made people forget Carter. The same thing will happen with Bush once the economy gets back on track. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been doing well, so that isn't an albatross that will hang around Bush's neck. In the long run, Bush like Carter will be forgotten because they didn't do much of note during the Presidency. Bush like Carter will also be known by the crisis that occurred during their Presidency that neither handled that well but issues like that aren't remembered except on Languish.

Herbert Hoover poisoned an entire generation of people to conservatism and the Republican party without starting, not financing and  botching two wars.  People are shaped by the administration and atmosphere they grew up in, and Bush's presidency will be remembered as a Republican high water mark and a total fucking disaster zone. 

EDIT: Even though I think his post-Katrina presidency was about as improved as a president's second term after a disastrous first can be. 

[Neil]

Yes he did and he made people forget Carter. The same thing will happen with Bush once the economy gets back on track. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been doing well, so that isn't an albatross that will hang around Bush's neck. In the long run, Bush like Carter will be forgotten because they didn't do much of note during the Presidency. Bush like Carter will also be known by the crisis that occurred during their Presidency that neither handled that well but issues like that aren't remembered except on Languish.

Herbert Hoover poisoned an entire generation of people to conservatism and the Republican party without starting, not financing and  botching two wars.  People are shaped by the administration and atmosphere they grew up in, and Bush's presidency will be remembered as a Republican high water mark and a total fucking disaster zone. 

EDIT: Even though I think his post-Katrina presidency was about as improved as a president's second term after a disastrous first can be.

Well, you certainly think so.  However, Iraq and Afghanistan don't really matter in the long run, just as people kept voting Republican even after he performed some military interventions that snivelling leftists whined about.

[Hansmeister]

In that time it's grown in strength.  The Democrats seem more like an old-fashioned trans-national coalition of different specific groups with different interests and different agendas.  But that does mean that the Democrats like the ideological power that a successful intellectual movement can provide - a la Irving Kristol, Chambers, Buckley and so on.  The Democrats are too fractious for something like that, they'll always need a coalition-building approach to idelogy.

I think there have been times of greater and lesser Democrat idealogical unity.  The New Deal, and the thirty years after it, saw the Democrats functioning as a far more coherent idealogical unit with a far more developed idealogical base. 

Also, it is worth remembering that the Republican idealogical unity today came out of the post-Depression Republican party that couldn't do anything but bitch while the Democrats transformed the country.  I don't think it is impossible that we are in a similar situation now, especially as my/our generation will remember how awful the Bush administration was for the rest of our lives.

After the emerging train-wreck of the Obama administration nobody will remember any of Bush's faults.  It only took Jimmy Carter 4 years to make the country forget Nixon/Ford, I doubt it will take Obama any longer.

[Martinus]

The Republicans have their own share of powerful lunatic extremists. Like, the entire fucking religious right. Are you disputing their extremism or their influence on the party politics?

I don't think that the Republicans are that extreme actually, but then I don't think the Democrats are that extreme.  However, I think the Republicans are slightly more at risk from their extremes than the Democrats, which seems to be the opposite of the languish conventional wisdom.

That's because the Republican extremes are numerous and willing to donate and organize.  The Democratic extremists are less of a danger to take over the party because nobody can take over the Democratic Party, they can only try and keep it from flying apart in a thousand different directions.

Well that's true, as conservatives have always been and will always be more organized and cohesive, because they represent the reactionary majority whereas progressives represent various interest groups that want to upset the status quo in a myriad of different ways.

[Martinus]

That's because the Republican extremes are numerous and willing to donate and organize.  The Democratic extremists are less of a danger to take over the party because nobody can take over the Democratic Party, they can only try and keep it from flying apart in a thousand different directions.

I think this is right, and, more importantly, the Republicans will also not donate or organise and not vote (or field a new primary candidate).  I wonder if it it's because the Republicans have an ideological base - the conservative movement - and have had that since Goldwater.  In that time it's grown in strength.  The Democrats seem more like an old-fashioned trans-national coalition of different specific groups with different interests and different agendas.  But that does mean that the Democrats like the ideological power that a successful intellectual movement can provide - a la Irving Kristol, Chambers, Buckley and so on.  The Democrats are too fractious for something like that, they'll always need a coalition-building approach to idelogy.

I think you are giving Republicans too much credit. There isn't much ideological coherence between a NYC neocon and a rural Kansas preacher, really.

[Admiral Yi]

I think you are giving Republicans too much credit. There isn't much ideological coherence between a NYC neocon and a rural Kansas preacher, really.

Are you using neocon here in the European sense of "like a conservative, but much worse," or in the strict sense of formerly leftist Jewish intellectual who has recanted his ways and now believes in an assertive foreign policy which spreads democracy?

[Martinus]

I think you are giving Republicans too much credit. There isn't much ideological coherence between a NYC neocon and a rural Kansas preacher, really.

Are you using neocon here in the European sense of "like a conservative, but much worse," or in the strict sense of formerly leftist Jewish intellectual who has recanted his ways and now believes in an assertive foreign policy which spreads democracy?

The latter, I believe. People like Wolfowitz or (to a lesser extent) Cheney.

[garbon]

Well, you certainly think so.  However, Iraq and Afghanistan don't really matter in the long run, just as people kept voting Republican even after he performed some military interventions that snivelling leftists whined about.

Apparently many Americans thought his first term was alright.

[Admiral Yi]

The latter, I believe. People like Wolfowitz or (to a lesser extent) Cheney.

Yup.  I misread your earlier post and thought you had sad there *is* coherence between the two.

I've said it many times: the Republican party has two main ideological bases: prohibitionists and libertarians.  They can and do conflict in the realm of individual freedom.

[Sheilbh]

Are you using neocon here in the European sense of "like a conservative, but much worse," or in the strict sense of formerly leftist Jewish intellectual who has recanted his ways and now believes in an assertive foreign policy which spreads democracy?

That's only a modern turn neoconservatism's taken though - and I think 'an assertive foreign policy which spreads democracy' is a beautifully phrased version of modern neoconservatism.  Neoconservatism started as almost entirely preoccupied with domestic policy and, especially, urban policy.

[Jaron]

Its only fair. The Republicans fucked us over with the rest of the world, and now the Democrats will fuck us up domestically.

[Admiral Yi]

That's only a modern turn neoconservatism's taken though - and I think 'an assertive foreign policy which spreads democracy' is a beautifully phrased version of modern neoconservatism.  Neoconservatism started as almost entirely preoccupied with domestic policy and, especially, urban policy.

Huh?  Everything I've read about Irving Kristol and friends has to do with their falling out with progressives/socialists over the latter's failure to face up to the brutality of Soviet rule.