Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
Just as apropos would be to ask "where have the Moderate Democrats gone"? And the likely answer would be, back home -- voted out by their constituents, or retired, or retiring soon. "We, the people", are tired of moderation, despite what the media will tell you. The Democrats are forging further left, and the Republicans are being pushed further right . . . by their respective bases back home. The "moderate Republicans" vote Democrat too often, and my guess is that that's the way the Democrats feel about the moderate Democrats. "Moderate" anythings in Congress are now seen as lifelong politicians, simply trying to "go along to get along", and to hold on to a very good job -- and the folks back home are tired of that.
Is it a progressive idea to see that when people work they become consumers? Is it also a liberal idea that when workers make more money, they spend more money? The answer is; not really. Or at least it shouldn’t be. What it should be called is logical, not liberal. Read more
This upcoming election is more difficult for Republicans than it has been in the past and that’s because of their need to move so far to the right. Since the midterm elections in 2010 when the Tea Party gained so much power in Congress, especially in the House of Representatives, the Republican Party has had to move further to the right than they’ve ever been. Read more
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate... Leads to suffering."
Yoda - Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace
I was born on December Tenth Nineteen Seventy Three. Much of my young life was shaped by two very important things. The Soviet Union, and Nuclear Armageddon. The truth is, that those two things, were really just one thing. My life, was shaped by fear. Read more
Hold up. Slow down. If you wait a half a second, there'll be time for me to hop on the Ronald Reagan 100th birth-anniversary bandwagon, onto which I plan on leaping with both feet. Well, to be honest, not so much jumping on as using a Sherman tank to slam sideways into it, then soaking the floorboards with fermented cabbage shreds marinated in red wine vinegar-infused deer urine. Read more
“Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”
In that one sentence political satirist (and politically right-leaning) P.J. O’Rourke succinctly defined the motivations and consequently the lack of effectiveness of the Republican Party to govern or even participate in the various processes of government. In fact Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the Conservative movement, once famously said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Read more
The Tomorrow Speech
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Barack Obama’s initial foray into that belly of the beast known as a joint session of Congress was nothing less than a resounding… semi- success. Sort of. It wasn’t quite a State of the Union Address. His inaugural pre-empted that. You get one or the other. That’s the rule. This was a State of the Union Address Lite. With only 60 percent of the expectations of your normal State of the Union Address. A pseudo SOTU, if you will. Read more
Ronald Reagan
