American Politics

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Kryptowhite

I just like to tell everyone that I haven't been brainwashed yet by Obama's speech, i'm sure you were all worried...quote>

Well, by definition, if someone is getting brainwashed, they are unaware of it....

But, yeah, this one ended well, fortunately. It was a nice speech.

[Patricius Maximus 236]

No one (well, possibly excepting the Obama-drones) can be indoctrinated or brainwashed with one speech or lesson. It takes time.

[Meg 368]

Being a centrist myself, I was pleased to see this editiorial.

Avlon: Extremism in danger of acceptance

Editor's note: John Avlon is the author of "Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics" and the upcoming "Attack of the Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America." Avlon writes a weekly column for The Daily Beast. Previously, he was chief speechwriter for New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- We are witnessing a wingnut war break out in American politics, organized on the Internet and fought out in airwaves and in town halls, wingnuts firing their shots from the outer reaches and strafing the common sense center.

Look beyond the sober skeptics and the principled opposition to President Obama, and you'll find an ugly fringe festival cultivating the wounds left by the 2008 campaign and pouring gasoline on the embers of the culture wars.

As the two parties become more ideologically polarized, the fringe is now blurring with the base while the moderate majority feels increasingly politically homeless.

A culture of extremism is in danger of gaining acceptance.

We've become almost used to the escalating tone -- comparisons of the president to Adolf Hitler now seem unremarkable, part of the contemporary political scenery.

In a CNN.com profile of the Tea Party Express, lead speaker Deborah Johns is quoted as saying, "The men and women in our military didn't fight and die for this country for a communist in the White House!" while the Louisville, Kentucky, crowd chants "U-S-A, U-S-A!" This ugly scene was unremarked on -- hopefully because the insanity spoke for itself.

 

Since I started the "Wingnut of the Week" segment on CNN's "American Morning," each week has given us multiple contenders for the ring of dishonor from the far right and far left. But lately, it has gotten improbably worse.

In the last week, Arizona Rep. Trent Franks called President Obama "an enemy of humanity" in his speech at the "How to Take Back America Conference" (where one workshop was called "How to Recognize Living under Nazis & Communists").

That's not all: A former White House speechwriter posted a call on the conservative Web site Newsmax for the president to be deposed in a military coup. It was quickly taken down, but the damage was done.

The civility is dying in part because the permanent campaign pursued by incumbent presidents to sell the American people on their agenda is being met with a new innovation: the permanent opposition campaign.

There is no presidential honeymoon and no national unity in this new view.

 

There is no assumption of goodwill or responsible governance from the president of a different party.

Opposition is now "resistance" and politics is an ideological blood sport between not just right and left, but good and evil. And so any president with an opposing view is an enemy -- and the ugliness emerges.

President Bush was subjected to many of these same attacks from the far left -- "Bush = Hitler" signs and being called a domestic terrorist. But there is a more widespread fury and fervor being directed at Obama in far less time.

There is a recipe that keeps being repeated -- a wingnut claim is posted on a fringe Web site and gets passed around. It gets reiterated on talk radio, and then talk radio comments bubble up to the grassroots with signs at protests echoing the claims.

Eventually some far-right or far-left elected official repeats, playing to the base while venting their spleen. It makes news not only because of the statements' outrageousness, but because it crystallizes the crazy that is going on in our politics.

Two broad factors are driving this uptick of insanity and incivility, beyond Obama himself and whatever policies he proposes: the economy and the Internet.

History shows that demagogues rise when the economy turns south.

They specialize in blaming others for the troubles with wild accusations. It's a time-honored formulation, a powerful narcotic for the nervous and dispossessed, with violent side effects.

During the Great Depression, populist anger was directed at big business.

When conservative populism reared its head in the late 1960s, anger shifted toward big government.

But now we've got both -- anger at big business and big government. It's a perfect political storm, primed for a return to pitchfork politics.

The Internet has made it easier for wingnuts to congregate across state lines, to form an army from the fringes.

This has increased their influence and amplified their voice, making them, in effect, the loudest lobbying block.

No longer are they just cranks to be tolerated -- the fringe is blurring with the base, creating leverage on the party leadership.

Finally, there is an additional factor that has enabled this explosion of hyper-partisanship -- the rigged system of redistricting that has reduced the number of competitive congressional districts around the country.

This has encouraged play-to-the-base politics and discouraged the virtues of moderation and constructive compromise.

Amid the declining civility, some people are asking if the middle ground is gone for good. It's not -- it's just under attack. Although wingnuts attract a lot of media coverage, polls show that most Americans don't share their extreme views.

The wingnuts are still the fringe and we have seen their kind before.

We've seen them in the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, which was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic while waving the American flag, ultimately dubbing itself "the American Party."

Teddy Roosevelt coined the term 'lunatic fringe' to describe the anarchist wingnuts of his day.

The wingnuts surfaced in the paranoid anti-communism of the John Birch Society and when far-left liberals and union leaders got all misty-eyed talking about "Uncle Joe" Stalin.

In the '60s, there were White Citizens Councils in the South and violence from far-left radical groups like the Black Panthers.

All these were influential in their time and capable of intimidation. Each time, we beat them by standing up and calling out their paranoia, hate and political excess.

They shrunk back into the shadows when confronted by the common sense and common decency of the moderate majority of the American people.

There are those who believe that highlighting wingnuts only gives them more power, because they thrive on the oxygen of attention.

But I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. Wingnuts' influence on hyper-partisan politics proliferates in the dark.

That's when politicians can play to their fears, seek their support, and benefit from the paranoia they create, while maintaining plausible deniability. By naming the problem and calling them out, we can hold them accountable and help define the terms of the debate.

The wingnuts' increasing influence in our politics should be a wake-up call.

It is a challenge to the idea that what unites us is greater than what divides us as Americans.

We need to keep an eye on their efforts, remembering something President Eisenhower said a half-century ago: "The middle of the road is all the usable surface. The extremes of left and right are in the gutters."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John P. Avlon. quote>

 

[Duke87 1,070]

Wingnuts?

Odd choice of terminology aside, he's right. The country is rapidly polarizing.

The internet is a key part, but really the biggest part is that at some point, someone somewhere in the media realized that they could attract more viewers by presenting people with rhetoric rather than facts. Ultimately, we are more emotional creatures than rational ones. We form opinions and then stubbornly stick with thim no matter what facts we're presented. Ergo, nobody wants to hear the facts - they want to hear their oppinion parroted back at them and opposing opinions berated.

And yet, it's unsurprising. It's a road we started down the instant we decided that you didn't need to be a land-owning white male to vote. The slippery slope there of course being then a trend toward a common idiot having equal voice and credibility as a scholar. And so that's where we've ended up.

[Duke87 1,070]

*thread poke*

State of the Union Address tonight. 9PM Eastern, 8 Central, 7 Mountain, 6 Pacific.... 5 Alaska, 4 Hawaii-Aleutian.

(hey, I'm being thorough!)

[Easy Bakes 253]

PFB again?

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Duke87 1,070]

Full text of the speech is here.

One Item of note that's just rich:

Said by: Barack Obama

But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is election day. We cannot wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about their opponent — a belief that if you lose, I win.quote>

How does he manage to say that without spontaneously combusting?

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: chicah in this thread

He's right about this; America can not continue spending money like debt doesn't exist, like it doesn't have consequences. You seem to have gotten your first somewhat economically reasonable president in a while.quote>

$700 billion stimulus package. Trillion dollar healthcare plan. "Let's triple everybody's energy costs with cap and trade." Budget for the next fisical year that's expanding the deficit more than ever before.

"Ecomonmically reasonable"?

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

The good news is that Liberal governments seem better at reaching a surplus than conservative ones.quote>

Generally speaking, that is only true if the President is a Democrat and the Congress is locked up by the Republicans.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

Now wait a minute. Obama is not responsible for the stimulus package. That was Bush's (even though Obama supported it, a subtle yet true distinction).quote>

TARP was Bush's. ARRA (the "stimulus package" in question) was Obama's.

The cost of any healthcare reform is in the air, so throwing numbers is misleading.quote>

Okay, fine. How about we say it will cost "a lot". Better?

Not sure about the "quoted" comment. Please cite a source for a quote so we can understand the context.quote>

It isn't actually a quote. It's in quotation marks because it's phrased like somebody other than me is saying it.

As for energy costs "tripling" specifically, I have no idea where that comes from other than that it's what everybody's repeating. You want actual numbers? Try this. $1761 a year per family. Ouch, right?

The budget will expend next year because we have to spend money to dig ourselves out of the quandary we are in.quote>

In other words, we're deep in debt, and to get out of debt, we should to start spending more money. 

Er, yeah. Unless followed by "Quod Est Absurdum", I'm afraid that's a logical fail right there. 

[astronelson 339]

Originally posted by: Duke87

The budget will expend next year because we have to spend money to dig ourselves out of the quandary we are in.quote>

In other words, we're deep in debt, and to get out of debt, we should to start spending more money. 

Er, yeah. Unless followed by "Quod Est Absurdum", I'm afraid that's a logical fail right there. 

quote>

I can assume you're not a fan of the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, then?

It may seem like a logical failure, but by spending more money, the government can create demand. This demand causes supply, which helps create more jobs, more people are able to buy more things, and the economy starts to grow again. Eventually the spent money is recouped through taxes.

Not spending money has been tried, and it didn't work. Spending money, in the form of Roosevelt's "New Deal" helped the US out of the Great Depression. Unfortunately, Roosevelt didn't spend enough fast enough to get the US out of the depression before WWII.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: astronelson

It may seem like a logical failure, but by spending more money, the government can create demand. This demand causes supply, which helps create more jobs, more people are able to buy more things, and the economy starts to grow again. quote>

This only works if the government has money to spend. We do not. We have not for years. We have trillions in deficit we need to pay off. That cannot continue ad infinitum, and continuing it at all does harm, not good, regardless of what the money is getting spent on.

Not spending money has been tried, and it didn't work.quote>

When?

Spending money, in the form of Roosevelt's "New Deal" helped the US out of the Great Depression. Unfortunately, Roosevelt didn't spend enough fast enough to get the US out of the depression before WWII.quote>

Actually, there's a fair amount of controversy over that. A lot of people hold that the "New Deal" actually lengthened the depression and that the best course of action would have simply been for the feds to just balance the budget and not run a deficit (federal deficits create inflation).

Besides, if crazy spending doesn't work, what makes you think that even crazier spending will? It's like saying "I'm stuffing my face all the time, but I'm still not losing weight. I need to eat more!"

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

The first sentence should have said "Actually, there's a small amount of controversy over that".quote>

I suppose it depends on who you ask.

By far, the majority recognizes the benefit of FDR's actions.quote>

I'm curious, was there some sort of poll or something on this matter?

Conservatives hate FDR and the majority of them simply whine about how they could have done better.  Of course, they couldn't have, because they really do not understand anything beyond what garners a buck in their pocketbook.quote>

Well, I am not a Conservative and I do not "hate" FDR. I am not "whining about how I could have done better", and I am sure you will admit I have an understanding of many things.

But nice job attacking the straw man!

[chicah 20]

I just thought I would express how annoyed I am with Massachusetts. It's evident people lack even a basic understanding of their political system. Sure, the Republican guy seemed nicer and more down to earth - but in politics, his views are the most important; and electing him robbed the Democrats of their majority in Senate, and thus ruined Obama's chances of getting through a lot of his propositions. They might have elected the most charming candidate, but for a traditionally Democratic state they did their best to ruin it for the Democrats. Way to go, Massachusetts...

It seems like this is the situation for a lot of Americans, they elect the nicest/most charming candidate, without any thought whatsoever of the consequences. Which is sad, and can be harmful for both sides, when it is all about ONE person. In a lot of ways, electing representatives directly is much more democratic, but not if the focus is entirely on the person and not the view he/she represents.

[morriswalters 16]

It's the nature of politics.  Sometimes the other guy wins.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: chicah

Sure, the Republican guy seemed nicer and more down to earth - but in politics, his views are the most important; and electing him robbed the Democrats of their majority in Senate, and thus ruined Obama's chances of getting through a lot of his propositions.quote>

Um... yeah, exactly. That was the idea, you see. Scott Brown wasn't elected because he's "charming". His election was a slap across the face of the Obama administration, particularly to the healthcare bill - plain and simple. To look at it otherwise is to deny the reality of current public opinion in this country.

It seems like this is the situation for a lot of Americans, they elect the nicest/most charming candidate, without any thought whatsoever of the consequences.quote>

It certainly can contribute. Charisma helped get Obama elected (although, let's be honest, after 8 years of Bush, no Republican would have had a shot).

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

No, more a matter of common knowledge.  There is no denying it accelerated the end of the Great Depression.  WWII just happened to truly end it. quote>

Somehow I don't think there's much common opinion on the matter either way. D'ya think that a majority of Americans are familiar with the "New Deal" at all? Normal people don't pay that kind of attention in history class. This is only for us nerds to debate.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Muck308 55]

The New Deal had its ups and downs. But it seems, at least to me, that much of FDR's time in office was praised due to his predecessor. If he did a better job than Hoover, the end result is "he did a good job."

I think that type of thinking is still taking place today. "Obama is doing better than Bush did so that's that." A statement based solely on opinion at this point, since I don't think one year of Obama can be fairly judged against 8 years of Bush.

Inevitably, you are going to be compared to whomever came before you, but in the end, you will be defined by the decisions you made and the outcome you produced. I still have faith that our President will produce results... and if not faith, well, at least hope.

[morriswalters 16]

You could argue that FDR is well thought of because he died in office during wartime.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Looks like another Dem is not running for re-election.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: Muck308

. . .  but in the end, you will be defined by the decisions you made and the outcome you produced. I still have faith that our President will produce results... and if not faith, well, at least hope.quote>

One problem is that people do not want to hear what he is saying.

If the health care system stays as it is, the aging baby boomers will totally collaspe it.   That is a basic mathematical fact.

This has been a known mathematical fact for decades.   But no one wants to deal with the ramifications of doing anything about it.

At some point, we will need to remove our fingers from our ears and stop saying "la-la-la".   But, apparently, many people are not ready to do that.

I agree that various members of Congress are more interested in scoring points off of each other than in getting anything accomplished.    I think they should follow our rule:  Discuss the issues, not each other.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: blade2k5

Looks like another Dem is not running for re-election.quote>

There are two sides to these coins.

On the one hand, it does reflect the current disenchantment with the powers that be and the situation of the country in general. On the other hand, in many cases a new democrat would likely have sufficiently better chances of winning than the incumbent democrat, because the new face wouldn't be someone you could direct disapproval at over their legislative history in Washington. So these guys declining to run for reellection are in fact doing their party a favor.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Barbarossa

Feel free to run for President... siphon off some of those teabaggers, Blue Dog.quote>

Somehow I doubt he would "siphon off" too many votes from the tea party crowd. He's, as you said, a "blue dog"... not a libertarian or a neo-conservative.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa