18. "The bummer flipside is the right's message discipline is ... solid" In response to In response to 16
>so its much easier to elevate voices among the right when most >of their audience is tuned into that heavily-concentrated >elevation venue and more willing to receive >orders/instruction.
Yep. I guess it helps that their actual political message is so thin. It's really just "owning the libs" via huge business interests. There's no meaningful intellectual underpinnings on the right, and the ones that once existed are subsumed and transformed by capitalism. Look at how thorough the Koch's have branded Libertarianism, which is incredibly dumb but at least was once relatively independent.
>even when you look at pure politics...all of the major shifts >in the party platform have been driven bottom-up by the people >(marriage equality, renewable energy, criminal justice, >healthcare, etc). the major shifts in the repub party >platform have been completely driven by special interest >groups via 'leaders' (climate denial, gun rights absolutism, >etc).
And that means the left is going to fight internally more often. Which is good insofar as it means vibrancy of ideas and bad with respect to obtaining political power. It's while I'll grump on liberals' insistence on simply reforming capitalism rather than destroying it, and why I'll keep grumping on it. But the most damaging notion, and the one that deserves as much opposition as the actual GOP, is the insistence on civil engagement (looking at guys like Jon Chait) with transparently bad faith conservative thought.
The Republican party is the furthest right mainstream political party in the world. Even the weird racist European parties want to preserve social welfare programs to some degree. So, the GOP needs to be destroyed entirely. If there are any good ideas there (there aren't) they can be picked up by whatever emerges that's willing to suggest those ideas in good faith.
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"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"