Romney-Ryan Extremism Could Revive Liberal Support for Obama
Soviet citizens had to be Kremlinologists, studying subtle linguistic and tonal shifts in state propaganda, noting the seating order of party leaders at official functions, in order to predict the future direction of their lives. So too are we Americans, for without any way to really get to know our politicians—their press conferences and interviews are too infrequent and carefully stagemanaged, unchallenged by compliant journalistic toadies—we are reduced to reading signals.
Even to an alienated electorate, the tealeaves are easy to read on the Republican side.
Between Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, his team of Dubya-rehash economic advisors (because that worked out so well) and Tea Party favorite Chris Christie as keynote speaker at this year’s Republican National Convention, the Republican Party is in danger of doing something that seemed impossible just a few months ago: strengthening support among the liberal base of the Democratic Party for President Obama.
Granted, disappointed lefties will not soon forget Obama’s betrayals. Guantánamo, the concentration camp that supposedly holds “the worst of the worst” terrorists, remains open—although, now that the White House is reportedly negotiating with the Taliban to exchange captured Afghan ministers for an American POW, one assumes they’re not all that bad. The drone wars against Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere are an affront to basic morality, logic and decency. On the economy, this tone-deaf president has yet to propose a jobs program, much less try to push one through Congress.
But many progressives, until recently threatening to sit on their hands or cast votes for a third party, are reconsidering, weighing disgust against gathering terror as they read the signals from the gathering storm in Tampa. Where Obama fails to inspire enthusiasm, the Romney team seems determined to generate as much fear as possible that he plans to shove the needle even further to the radical right than Reagan or Bush.
Romney, who abandoned his history as a centrist Massachusetts Republican and is running as a right-winger, chose to balance his newfound extremism with Paul Ryan, an even-more-right-winger. Ryan is a vicious, overrated ideologue whose greatest achievement, his theoretical budget proposal, paints a picture of America as a dystopian hell where an infinitely funded Pentagon wages perpetual war and the top 1% of the top 1% party on tax cuts while the elderly and poor starve or succumb to treatable diseases, whichever kills them first. (In the media today, this gets you lionized as “smart,” “wonky,” and “an intellectual heavyweight.” Ryan = Sartre.) Lest you wonder whether the Ryan selection is an anomaly, wonder not—from Christie to the stump speeches to the men first in line to join a Romney cabinet, everything about Team Romney screams Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Ayn Rand minus the cool atheism and elitism.
This is a Republican Party that Barry Goldwater wouldn’t recognize, batso nutso, stripped of the last veneer of libertarianism, completely owned by and in thrall to figures whom the media would characterize as “extreme nationalist” or “neo-Nazi” if they spouted the same nonsense in other countries.
If I were advising Romney, I would tell him that cozying up to the lunatic fringe of American pseudoconservatism is not a prescription for victory in November, when the outcome hinges upon seducing that 5% or 10% of voters who swing both ways. Ryan isn’t as crazy (or bold) of a choice as Sarah Palin, but what Republicans don’t understand is that conservatives will vote Republican regardless of who is the vice presidential running mate or, for that matter, who is the Republican nominee for president. Lack of enthusiasm among the base wasn’t Romney’s big problem, it was Obama’s.
Romney’s biggest albatross is that he’s a terrible candidate, a guy who obviously doesn’t like people. And his campaign sucks. The deficit may or may not represent an looming existential threat—unemployment and the environment are more urgent—but “take your medicine” austerity isn’t much of a sales pitch, especially when two-thirds of the people are already feeling squeezed. Voters reward candidates who present an optimistic vision, a future in which they see themselves richer, happier and with fuller, more lustrous hair.
The fact that Romney can’t manage to put forward a credible economic program doesn’t help either. Since his entire campaign is predicated on the argument that he’s the economy guy and knows how to fix it, he needs to cough up a plan.
However, my real concern is that Romney’s gangbusters right-wing extremism lets Obama and the Democrats off the hook.
If all Democratic strategists have to do to attract progressive voters is to frighten them with greater-evil Republicans, when will people who care about the working class, who oppose wars of choice, and whose critique of government is that it isn’t in our lives enough ever see their dreams become party platform planks with some chance of being incorporated into legislation? In recent elections (c.f. Sarah Palin and some old guy versus Barry), liberals are only voting for Democrats out of terror that things will get even worse. That’s no way to run a party, or a country.
(Ted Rall’s new book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt.” His website is tedrall.com. This column originally appeared at NBCNews.com’s Lean Forward blog.)
COPYRIGHT 2012 TED RALL
22 Comments.
“… the working class, who oppose wars of choice…”
Which working classes are these? Certainly not the US working classes, who, whenever they’re given the choice, vote for the War president (though they DID vote against Goldwater, but he was the exception that proves the rule).
Ted is still in denial, he believes the majority of Americans are peaceful. Truth is, democrats just want to kill different people than republicans. The evil Iranians, or the evil Libya folks, your vote determines in which country thousands of civilians will die today!
Blah, blah, blah …. Does anyone really care anymore? No, of course not. Left, right, Marxist, Fascist, Greenie, Corporatist, blah, blah, blah …. Total nonsense, a sideshow. Americans are obedient consumers, nothing more. It not longer matters where you fit on the political spectrum because citizens are not part of policy-making, they’re just bystanders expected to fulfill their roles as obedient consumers. And they do. This other nonsense (talking about issues, blogging, etc …) is just what they do to make themselves feel good about their lives. In the end though, they’re just dumb consumers. And that’s the way they want it. It’s also the reason Occupy was doomed to fail from the start. You can’t have a revolution where the underlying premise is to demand to be a more obedient consumer.
Ayn Rand was never a true atheist, she was the founder of her own cult, one that worships greed and selfishness.
Lets see Romney was going to receive the White Bible Belt Vote, the Birther Vote, Pro NRA Vote, Pro-Life Vote, and Anti-Obama Care Vote. So Ryan adds little to the equation.
Obama, like Clinton before him probably cannot figure out why the Reactionary Right hates him so much. Obama has basically provided Cover for the Thieves of Wall Street, he uses the world as an Aerial Bombardment and Gunnery Range for the Pentagon. Obama has caved in to the Corporate America of the Wall Street-Security-Military-Industrial Complex from Day One. Yet the Reactionary Right shows him no love.
I never expected Obama to move us hard to “Port.” You do not rise as high as he did without a careful vetting by Wall Street.
Whether or not you worship something, or start a cult, has nothing to do with athiesm; there are other things to worship besides God. Trying to throw Rand out of the club because she’s an asshole is pathetic since athiests aren’t supposed to have a club in the first place. If you’re that bloody tribalistic, you’re giving fundies a run for their money.
***
The thing to remember about Romney et. al. is that their decisions don’t have to be smart or intelligible. You’re all overthinking this. Keep in mind, the vast majority of our aristocracy a) inherit everything they have and/or b) are rewarded, politically, due to success in systems that have NOTHING to do with politics. Learn how to screw over customers and market well? Massive political reward.
Many politicians are very, very bad politicians — and they can afford to be bad because their job isn’t politics. Their job is to attach themselves to the orifices of any of their betters upon command. Political failures are a nonissue since they can be solved with direct violence — imprisoning or destroying whistleblowers, murdering U.S. citizens, arresting protestors illegally, and so on — and with other forms of treachery and malice that can be derived from wealth. And even when that fails, because the system is rigged, the replacement for the failed “politician” is another horrible politician.
So, we don’t have politicians of note: we have a system of courtiers.
Looking at it in that light, Romney’s choice was plain stupid: true. And it was self-indulgent: true. It shored up support with rightwingers that he’d already been (grudgingly) given. As Coulter ranted when complaining about that one Romney staffer who used MA’s healthcare plan to rebut an Obama ad, they’re already giving Romney everything they’ve got, and Ryan won’t make it any better.
But they didn’t get where they are by being smart politicians. And they will learn nothing from their failures: do recall that in 2008, Clinton’s people had a long track record of losing elections.
Ryan was an incompetent choice that no one will pay the price for making. There’s not much more to it than that.
@Ted
“Guantánamo, the concentration camp that supposedly holds “the worst of the worst” terrorists, remains open—. . . this tone-deaf president has yet to propose a jobs program, much less try to push one through Congress.”
Ted, Ted, Ted, such a sad (though given your eagerness to bash Obama at the expense of everything else, not surprising) lack of due dilligence. Obama has done everything in his power to close Gitmo, and has proposed several jobs-growth programs- ALL of which have been blocked by the Republicans.
Don’t worry though- I’ll keep correcting you whenever you spout utter nonsense. No charge, even.
However, after that terrible start, you do go on to paint a highly accurate picture of both Ryan and Romney, and for that you deserve kudos. You’ve come part of the way in admitting that the Romney-Ryan ticket would be a “a dystopian hell where an infinitely funded Pentagon wages perpetual war and the top 1% of the top 1% party on tax cuts while the elderly and poor starve or succumb to treatable diseases, whichever kills them first.”- now you need to come the rest of the way and admit that the only way to preevnt that is to re-elect Obama, re-flip the House, and hold on to the Senate (I know, doing all three is damn near impossible, but a man can dream).
But instead, you veer back to terrible, whining about the quality of the candidates that you’ve earned through your own failed strategies. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, but I’ll repeat it again: Ob ama and Biden are the DIRECT RESULT of 40 years of FAILED electoral strategy and ridiculous levels of impatience by the left. Want better candidates? Change your damn strategy and have some damn patience.
Or keep doing what you’re doing and whining about the completely predictable results. It’s been working REALLY WELL for you so far, right?
“Ob ama and Biden are the DIRECT RESULT of 40 years of FAILED electoral strategy and ridiculous levels of impatience by the left.”
What a load of total bullshit.
Is this liar really stupid enough to believe that we’ll believe that establisment Democrats sit on their hands, powerless before the might of populist forces and their vicious political cartoonist allies?
Democrats lose when and if Democratic politicians fuck up.
What kind of whiny little bitch blames the failure of some of the most powerful people on Earth to either stay in office or enact policy on the poorest part of their political party? How does that lie even form?
Here’s reality. In 2004, Hiliary Clinton worked behind the scenes to ensure that Kerry got the nomination. She and her friends didn’t want it known (though it came out later, as these things tend to), but she desperately didn’t want Edwards or Dean running, since all the polls showed them beating Bush at every point in the primary campaign — and if Bush loses, Hillary wouldn’t even be able to run for eight more years. So she backed the worst candidate, using campaign ads that synergized with Republican TV spots, to smear anyone but Kerry, because, guess what? The Republican PACs also wanted a Kerry win, for the same reason.
Obviously, there’s an example of populists skewing the vote, yessir.
The fact of the matter is that there isn’t a “left.” Rightwingers exist — like the trolls here — but the “left” is literally everyone else in the country. That’s like saying there are two kinds of theological viewpoints: Scientology and everyone else. Athiests, Muslims, Taoists, Christians, Agnostics — you’re all the same, and in the same organization. It’s massive self-delusion. Since “the left” doesn’t have a 100% shared valueset, even less an actual organization (all it has is some kind of values — any serious political principles at all knock you out of the rightwing designation, so that’s not saying much), blaming “the left” for the failures of establishment Democrats is insulting and absurd.
I honestly don’t understand why Whimsical isn’t on redstate or stormfront or something. I mean, even the rhetorical style of the lies is inappropriate outside of a rightwing site.
Atheism really is more than not believing in a god, but acknowledging a level of reality and fighting for the good of the planet, the stuff religion is against. I equate Rand’s so-called atheism with the so-called atheism of Stalin or Mao. And on another level, Rand was a fake libertarian in the same sense they were fake commies. And I think conservatives and Republicans who are Christian don’t see any cognitive dissonance in following a cultist like Rand because in the larger sense religion is all about power and authority whether it’s Christianity or Objectivism.
“Atheism really is more than not believing in a god, but acknowledging a level of reality and fighting for the good of the planet, the stuff religion is against.”
Wow, what a doughy pantload. When you raise your atheist ring aloft, do your powers activate?
You are literally just making crap up. Your claim has no recourse to anything in fact or philosophy. Just smearing every religion that has ever existed for any reason (even nigh-agnostic, anti-imperialist, anti-caste and pro-social works creeds like some forms of Buddhism) in order to puff up a theological perspective into the Justice League of America.
Atheism is either the positive belief that there are no divine entities (strong atheism) and/or that the burden of proof for such a belief, being on those positing such entities, has not or cannot be met (weak atheism, with some different ramifications within the latter two burden situations).
That’s as extensive a definition as necessary. Hell, that’s more than usually necessary.
Karl Rove is an atheist. He’s admitted it in the past. If that company you keep disturbs you, maybe you need to stop defining atheism into something completely stupid. I, as it happens, am a primate. So is Karl Rove. Seeing as how being a primate presents with no particular tribal attachments, our shared taxonomical status doesn’t keep me up at night — and, as such, I don’t have to make up bullshit on the internet about how primates don’t include bald jackasses in the Republican party in order to maintain my dignity.
“And on another level, Rand was a fake libertarian in the same sense they were fake commies.”
Yeah, my faith that you actually know what libertarianism is, given that atheism is a stunningly more simple concept, is nil, but we’ll leave that there.
“And I think conservatives and Republicans who are Christian don’t see any cognitive dissonance in following a cultist like Rand because in the larger sense religion is all about power and authority whether it’s Christianity or Objectivism.”
That is hilarious. Republicans don’t have a problem following Rand because many violently reject Christianity and just lie about it. People have been doing that for literally two thousand years now. It’s old news. Unlike atheism, Christianity actually has some rules written down so you can objectively tell if you’re in or out of the club.
So, you’ll invent rules for a faith* that has absolutely no rules and dismiss the rules in a faith whose written rules are one of the literary cornerstones of Western Civilization. If you could put your own head further up your own ass with this perspective, you’d implode and create a singularity, instantly giving us another Tunguska event.
*(The viewpoint a faith only in the most utterly, utterly nominal sense of the term.)
There are plenty of credos to hang your hat on, and, if none fit, you can always make your own. Hijacking a theological position that isn’t even a credo — like, at all — and using your Wonder Twin powers to make it into one, dragging the entirety of all atheists on Earth into a confused blender of redefinitions is way too much work, as well as a complete failure.
And, btw, when you’re writing up such a credo, you aren’t writing rules for atheism: you’re writing up a code of honor that has atheism as a prerequisite.
@Sekhmet
I don’t give two shits what you believe(gravity works whether you believe in it or not, after all), other than this: what the far fringe left is doing now ISN’T WORKING.
Mind you, given that the majority of your post is abusrd attempts at deflection and pointless ad hominems, I don’t really expect you to be the one to wake the far left out of the delusion they’ve been in since 1970 or so.
“Democrats lose when and if Democratic politicians fuck up.”
Democratic politicans don’t fuck up. They make carefully calculated moves based on election results. And when people like you and Ted depress turnout by Democratic bashing, telling pointless stories, spreading false information, and using bullshit false equivalencies, you help Republicans win.
When Republicans win, Democratic politicians get the message that the country WANTS Republican policies (Because if the country didn’t, Republicans wouldn’t have won), and that if they want to keep their own jobs, they need to move right.
That’s the way it always has been, and until the far fringe left stops their insane electoral policy, that’s the way it always will be.
“I honestly don’t understand why Whimsical isn’t on redstate or stormfront or something.”
The right isn’t the problem. If it wasnt for folks like you and Ted actively providing them aid, while delusionally thinking you’re helping your own causes, they’d have been defeated ages ago.
Hell, if you’d just shut up and go away rather than stabbing Democrats in the back any and every chance you get, the right would cease to be a problem inside of a decade.
“I don’t give two shits what you believe(gravity works whether you believe in it or not, after all)”
Aaaand that’s a lie. You care very much about what I believe because you are attempting to convince me to change my beliefs on the internet, and I don’t even know your compulsively lying backside.
Hell, you care so much about what I believe that you’re actually making up beliefs to strawman about.
“I don’t really expect you to be the one to wake the far left out of the delusion they’ve been in since 1970 or so.”
WTF IS THE FAR LEFT? See, here you are again. The notion that everyone in the world is either in the rightwing, the “good left” that exists only in the small, microscopic space in your alimentary canal that isn’t occupied by your head, and “the far left” is part of a fever dream that most of the U.S. doesn’t share. Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? Where’s the far left? What’s their demographics? What’s their strategy? What’s their impact?
I’ll tell you where you find the “far left” as you’ve conceived it: in the same place you find Rush Limbaugh’s feminazis and Bill O’Reilly’s Christmas-Haters: right up a rightwinger’s backside.
Which would be a perfectly nice place for such delusions to live if it wasn’t for the fact that you insist on labeling everyone who points out the counterfactual nature of your narratives as part of this scatologically-improbable social group.
“Democratic politicans don’t fuck up. They make carefully calculated moves based on election results.”
Wow. WOW. If you needed any other proof that Whimsical is an authoritarian lickspittle, you need look no further. Who in their right mind ever claims that a class of people never, ever makes mistakes? How is it even humanly possible that an entire 200-year-old political party has a membership that has never lost an election unless An Evil Conspiracy has influenced the contest?
Whimsical just jumped to a level of credibility below 9/11 truther, below right-wing troll, and slightly below “The Reptoids control the media.”
“And when people like you and Ted depress turnout by Democratic bashing, telling pointless stories, spreading false information, and using bullshit false equivalencies, you help Republicans win.”
Yes, being unhappy about empirically observable actions by objectively identifiable humans that has empirically proven harms = “false information.” I wasn’t kidding when I said Whimsical is a rightwinger. If Obama does anything, up to and including murdering someone, that cannot, in Whimsical’s view, be considered a harm.
“– until the far fringe left stops their insane electoral policy –”
What policy? What left? Do you have any examples of a political faction affecting the Democrats in any manner consistent with your mythology? Who are these people and what are they doing?
Whimsical occupies the same conceptual space as white supremacists who complain than blacks and Mexicans are somehow corrupting the U.S. They can’t establish any criteria to link their hated group with any actual, empirical, physical activity at all, so they make up for their logical gap with simply more vitriol.
“rather than stabbing Democrats in the back”
Yes, folks, in Whimsical’s electoral politics, when a politician hurts his constituents and his constituents are unhappy — that is, operating like normal, biological entities — that comprises a betrayal against the authority figure.
Anyone who’s studied fascism should be having a flashback here. When the leader betrays you — it’s you who are the betrayer for noticing. Authoritarianism at its finest.
Keep in mind, Whimsical doesn’t actually know what comprises my own view of the Democrats outside of “the powerful ones often do shitty things, including Dear Leader.” He has no idea what my substantive positions actually are, since I have posted here very rarely, and only posted to attack a bad framing problem or call bullshit on rightwingers claiming liberal bona fides. That’s not a enough substance to work with for good-faith commentators, but not Whimsical. He doesn’t need to know anything about my position. The mere fact that I don’t kneel down and masticate anything Obama has to offer puts my political position into the same box as Ted’s:
We are the Enemy.
Anyone is isn’t for Dear Leader is against Dear Leader.
Fascism sure simplifies things, doesn’t it?
***
Still waiting to meet this far left conspiracy that’s totally ruining the Dems’ party like a little brother pestering a teenage girl. I’d love to hear where these massively powerful factions live and see evidence of their behavior. I imagine they dwell in Arcadia, and devastate the electorate every four years by calling out the Wild Hunt, when they aren’t curdling the milk of households that fail to keep cold iron near their doorways and hearths.
@sek Deflections and ad-hominems. The sure sign of someone who can’t see the forest for the trees.
Until you want to take off your blinders and open your eyes, I can’t help you. And until you stop with the crap deflections and ridiculous ad homs and respond like a rational adult, frankly, I don’t want to.
Your understanding of politics (and, I suspect of life) is completely and utterly backwards.
Good day to you, sir.
Well here’s a gem:
Given: “”When Republicans win, Democratic politicians get the message that the country WANTS Republican policies (Because if the country didn’t, Republicans wouldn’t have won), and that if they want to keep their own jobs, they need to move right.””
So, progressives, the political process is, apparently, the realm of only the neo-fascists. All others are to keep quiet, keep head down and hope that the change will magically descend upon you.
“Deflections and ad-hominems.”
Whimsical: you are a liar.
Name one time in the last 30 years, as you put it below, that the “far left” destroyed a Democrat’s chance for electoral success, and identify the constituents of the “far left.”
You can’t.
You’re a liar.
And there is nothing more contemptuous or insulting than being lied to by someone claiming to be helping you.
@sek
The far left destroyed the chances of quite a lot of House Democrats in 2010 by depressing turnout.
If you cant identify the left, you have blinders on. Not my problem.
Until you indicate that you are ready and willing to have a rational, respectful discussion, with no deflections and no ad-hominems, you aren’t worth my time. I have my own work to do, and I need to do everything in my power to make sure the Republicans don’t gain the advantage needed to complete their goal of transforming America into a fascist theocracy.
I don’t have time to deal with childish deraliers like you. We’re done.
“The far left destroyed the chances of quite a lot of House Democrats in 2010 by depressing turnout.”
That is a lie. You have no evidence of anyone identifiable as “the far left” of depressing turnout.
You basically admit as such here:
“If you cant identify the left, you have blinders on.”
Wait — don’t you mean “far left”? So you’re just admitting you’re a rightwinger now? After all, you’re effectively claiming to be the left — just not the “bad left.”
“I have my own work to do, and I need to do everything in my power to make sure the Republicans — ”
Alright, that’s called protesting too much. Whimmy has been an insulting, ad hominem-spewing troll since day one, and he knows it. He’s also a reactionary, rightwing authoritarian, and he knows that too. Now he has to reaffirm his bona fides before he becomes a complete sideshow. Newsflash, whimmy: people who aren’t assholes have no compelling need to claim that they aren’t assholes.
“If you cant identify the left, you have blinders on. Not my problem.”
Actually it is your problem, since you hope to impress people that your authoritarian garbage is acceptable — which is why you replied.
The core of the problem is that whimmy is still lying. He is not attempting to demonize not the “far left” — which is as real as feminazis — he is demonizing Americans.
Whimsical has the same problem all rightwingers have: he hates a good chunk of Americans.
Oh, he’ll say he loves America, meaning people who worship the same idols that he does, but when it comes to actual, breathing human beings who think for themselves, he has nothing but contempt for us. Go look at his bile on the link to Ted’s MSNBC article. If you’ve lost your home because a bank commited fraud against you and you’re unhappy, Whimsical’s conclusion is “screw you.” That is identical to the Republican position. Rightwingers don’t want to hear about how their policies hurt you. They don’t even have the patience to lie about whether or not they caused the problem. They just want you to shut up unless you’re kissing their asses.
If you’ve lost your home, you’re “far left.” If you tried to whisteblow and got arrested by the government, you’re “far left.” Lost your business or poisoned after the Deepwater disaster? “Far left.” Chronically unemployed? “Far left.”
The “far left” is the same as when rightwingers use “liberal” — it means “people I don’t like.” Remember when they turned on Bush and began claiming he’s liberal?
Whimsical is lying, and changing the subject, hoping you won’t notice. Like any rightwinger, he projects his failures on others. The ONLY subject at hand is who is the far left and he’s derailing from that claim — while claiming anyone else but him is attempting to distract. He still can’t give one example of a “far left” person, not a single one, even though this mysterious faction happens to be crippling one of the most powerful political institutions on Earth.
He’s derailing from that claim by claiming he’s too insulted to talk. . .
. . . which is hilarious since he’s the most insulting troll on this site.
So, put up or shut up time, whimmy: who’s the far left that’s been making you cry?
Hm. Maybe you should just save time and head onto the “shut up” phase.
Deflection, distortion, delusion and denial.
Alliteration to obscure lying.
He even lies about giving up on lying — remember when he said his previous post was going to be his last one?
Hey liar, who were those “far left” people that cost your infalliable Democrats their elections in 2010? (And if they’re infalliable, how is it that the “far left” stopped them?)
I love it Sekhmet. Thanks for taking the Whimmy duty this time. Somebody has to do it. God I hate that guy… Why doesn’t Ted just pull his login?
One other problem with Whimmy’s narrative, is this notion that He can help us. That there is actually something that can be done that will make things better in America. Wrong. There is nothing that can be done. Neither Whimmy, nor Ted (no offense), nor I, nor you (no offense), nor anyone can do anything to save “Us”. This country is doomed. Extensive, intensive, human civilizaiton is doomed. This is what it feels like to live through collapse. We are not the first. Mayans, Romans, Chin, etc. It sucks. We rage. We analyze. We blame. None of which matters, except to the extent that it makes us happy. Every little bit of happiness is precious though, so, enjoy.
Aaron, I agree with you. The country is doomed. Crazy or not, I just feel better about it when I get to say “I told you so” after the collapse. At least I was one of those who warned and screamed and whined. Maybe it didn’t help, but I wasn’t as complicit as those who act as though everything were normal.
I don’t pull Whimsical’s registration because he contributes a legitimate viewpoint and set of arguments. I totally disagree with him. I dislike his snotty tone. I think he’s either a DNC plant or willfully naïve.
But lots of Americans feel like him, and so it’s useful for us to engage his ideas, which are basically what pass for centrist-liberal thinking these days. I don’t want this blog to become an echo chamber of like-minded thinkers who all agree with one another. I want it to thrive as a forum where intelligent people can connect with one another and debate ideas.
I have pulled registrations in the past, but only when the posters became repeatedly personally insulting to me (my online home, be nice to your host) or trolled rather than discussed. At times, Whimsical has flirted with trolling, but I don’t think he has crossed the line yet.
Ted, I agree with you. Which is why I come here. I guess I wouldn’t mind it a bit echo-chambery, if that’s what it would mean to deal with this one willful malcontent. After all, there are 1,000 echo-chambers out there, but this one is mine; If you will. This is where I come to commune with like-minded thinkers. I don’t throw around disemloginments lightly, but, I understand where you’re coming from, and, it’s your site and your call. I’m just damned glad to be here. And this guy bums me out. Asked and answered. Fair enough.