[kenafein]

Whatever happened to the party of Lincoln through Eisenhower(even Nixon)?

[stanleyk]

Whatever happened to the party of Lincoln through Eisenhower(even Nixon)?

Nixon would actually be extremely liberal by today's standards. I think after this election (if Obama wins and barring something extraordinary he should win by a good margin) you'll see some of the rational Republicans really trying to figure out how to jettison off the some these voters. However, I thought they would do that after Sarah Palin and I was wrong so maybe not. As a Democrat, I'm not sure this is good for our party either. It's just almost financially impossible for a third party to emerge so I'm not sure what the answer is.

[boriscleto]

Nixon would actually be extremely liberal by today's standards.

No, he would still be a conservative, he would just be called a liberal.

[lesmore49]

I would say that Barry Goldwater..back those many years...was on to something.

[stevewig]

It is my belief (and hope) that people en mass inherently dislike extremists of either brand (Left or Right). The Republicans, at the moment are so far to the right that they have become an extremist party and I hope the voters will teach them a lesson.

Get rid of the Tea Party hangers on and reject the unelected Norquist extremists.

[boriscleto]

A Conservative Explains Why Right-Wingers Have No Compassion | Visions | AlterNet

In the right-wing id, freedom is the emotional release that a hostile and psychologically repressed person feels when he is finally able to lash out at the objects of his resentment. Freedom is his prerogative to rid himself of people who are different, or who unsettle him. Freedom is merging into a like-minded herd. Right-wing alchemy transforms freedom into authoritarianism.

[jeffkrol]

Longish read....

Where GOP Libertarianism, White Supremacy and Social Conservatism all Came Together



Walter Shapiro reads Rick Santorum's book so you don't have to. And it sounds like you really don't want to. The guy sounds like a hot tempered idiot. He discusses the influence of the Catholic Church, naturally but there's another, less obvious, aspect to his worldview as well:

Sometime, presumably early in law school at Penn State, Santorum was introduced to the concept of the slippery slope--and it changed his mental life. In It Takes a Family, Santorum repeatedly warns about the legal consequences flowing from popular Supreme Court decisions. He laments the reasoning behind the 1965 Griswold decision (overturning--yikes!--a Connecticut law that banned the sale of condoms) because it introduced the constitutional zone of privacy that later allowed the Supreme Court to legalize abortion. Santorum even expresses his concern with the precedent set by Loving v. Virginia, the landmark 1967 civil-rights decision that decreed that states could not ban interracial marriages. What troubles Santorum is not the result (ending Jim Crow legislation) but that "16 years later, the IRS ruled that religious groups opposed to interracial marriage could be stripped of their tax-exempt status."

Now that, my friends, is a dogwhistle. A particularly shrill one:

[W]hat I try to expose in the book and I think I document copiously is that the religious right did not--did not--coalesce as a political movement in direct response to the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention, which is hardly a bastion of liberalism, had passed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion, and this was a resolution that was reaffirmed in 1974, again in 1976. It was not the abortion issue. What galvanized evangelicals as a political block, as a political movement, was instead the actions of the Internal Revenue Service to go after the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, because of its racially discriminatory policies, and that Carter was unfairly blamed for this by the architects of the religious right, and they used that against him and mobilized to defeat him four years later in 1980. [...]

Bob Jones University did not allow African-Americans to be enrolled at the school until 1991 and did not allow unmarried African-Americans as students until 1995. The lower court ruling that really became the catalyst for the rise of the religious right was a ruling called Green v. Connelly, issued in 1971, by the district court of the District of Columbia; and it upheld the Internal Revenue Service in its ruling that any organization that engages in racial segregation or discrimination is not, by definition, a charitable organization and as such has no claim to tax-exempt status. And as the IRS began applying that ruling and enforcing it in various places, including Bob Jones University, that is what galvanized evangelical leaders into a political movement that we know today as the religious right.

According to one of the architects of the religious right, who told me this directly, after they had organized on the issue of Bob Jones University and more broadly the issue of government interference in these schools, as they understood it, there was a conference call among these various evangelical leaders and the political consultants who were trying to organize them into a political movement, and several people mentioned several issues. Finally the voice on the end of one of the lines said, `How about abortion?’ And that’s how abortion was cobbled into the agenda of the religious right, late in the 1970s in preparation for the 1980 presidential election.

Bob Jones University is where GOP libertarianism, white supremacy and social conservatism all come together in one big toxic stew:

Where GOP Libertarianism, White Supremacy and Social Conservatism all Came Together | AlterNet

[Ratmagiclady]

It is my belief (and hope) that people en mass inherently dislike extremists of either brand (Left or Right).

Stop acting like those labels mean anything in the first place, never mind on the Right's terms, start fixing some of the world, and *maybe,* just maybe , I can come into another life here as two-legs with people I can trust.

Meanwhile, if there are any left-wing extremists that are running the show, (or being represented) please do name them. I'd hate to waste perfectly good 'left-wing extremism' Obviously, I've not written the right Congressman.

But clearly you can tell me. Name names. Tell me who is overzealous 'extremist Left' in my government.


To be quite honest, I kinda thought the *last* time I got my arse blown out from under me for America, ....I don't remember being exactly what you'd call 'progressive,' but I get the distinct impression that if that hadn't happened,these GOPers would *still* call me a Commie.


That's gratitude for ya. Where's this Left?

That's part of *my* little soul's story.

What Left?

[audiobomber]

A Conservative Explains Why Right-Wingers Have No Compassion | Visions | AlterNet

That is an amazing link Ben. I was particularly struck by this quote from the psychologist Altemeyer:

Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result.... And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.

I suspect this 20-25% (more or less) are present in any society. The societal culture and political situation determines whether they hold power or not. I plan to read Altermeyer's book which I found online to see what he says about this. http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

[ihasa]

Obama's a compromiser, not a polariser, and it's a shame how the GOP have mercilessly exploited this and - by painting democrats as cravenly partisan socialists, tried to shut the door on meaningful bipartisan compromise to the point where people would be forgiven for thinking that the only hope is a truly radical left wing movement. The choice is A) A right wing free-market 'hell with the poor' theocratic America or B) A splintered and fragmenting America. Congrats, GOP you've played a blinder - you win, America loses.

[boriscleto]

Daily Kos: Polling shows that 10% of Michigan primary voters*are*insane

[jeffkrol]