Sounds kind of like me, but more interesting and funny. Tuesday night was a victory for "pot, gay marriage, and math." This includes video of Dick Morris and discussion of that. Maher is hoping, like me, that the popping of the bubble leads at least some conservatives to get out of the bubble.
Iraq popped the bubble for me. I suppose the 2008 financial collapse popped the bubble for some of the free market cheerleaders. Even Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan seems to have had his bubble popped by that. This election will hopefully nudge others along.
1 comment:
Jon,
I think Bill Maher to some degree has it sort of correct, that the demographics of the US has changed.
Yes the problem with the Republicans is that they didn't read the last census and do the math... they're still living in the past. A past that was in a context.
The truth is the 1950's were great for the white establishment, providing you exclude the women, children, white poverty and everyone else.
The reason why the capitalists etc see the 50's as the time was because of the great depression (unemployment was in the high teens to mid twenties depending where/who you were). Then there was the profits made during the war and after that the return of massive amounts of service people and their marriages hence the Baby boom. In economic terms Nearly 15 years of pent up demand.
The final factor was that 90%est of manufacture (satisfying the demand) no cheap labor destinations.
This is relevant to the conservative world wide (including the Republicans) think that this was a (halcyon) cultural moral thing rather than a set of unique external factors making up a context.
Like the old saying “you can't go back. Things change”,time and circumstance to paraphrase Omar Kyam The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit, Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
The conservatives simply want to recreate something that is “unrecreatable” (out of context) and gone because it gives them the security of predictability.
Simply put the WORLD has changed and all we can do is try to adapt (nasty word ...'evolve' to the new circumstances) .
I don't know if you pay much attention to O/S trends but I've noticed a political trend around the world that now seems to have also reached the USA that of “subconscious voter enacted political paralysis”, the voters don't like giving the establishment a clear majority. I would argue that is because the people don't feel or believe their interests are being served by either side.
True the Dems got the math right but they still didn't get enough “ clean air” to do what they want.
The public agree with Obama's 2012 social notions( as opposed to the Republican Reaganism..the last hurrah of 1950's mentality see http://www.washingtonpost.com/john-boehner-says-new-taxes-ok-if-spending-reduced/2012/11/08/b7d1a69e-29b5-11e2-aaa5-ac786110c486_video.html.... in the original vid he was more threatening than conciliatory ) but rightly fear his less than admirable foreign policy and inbuilt paranoia....things like wars, gitmo, and spying on citizens, kangaroo courts , drones and his playing to the finance sector bail outs don't sit well.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-08/crabb-us-election/4360796 in this piece the really important bits isn't so much the color differences but look at the poverty(inequity) levels referred to.
In terms of your previous post title you're right just wrong target. “will the Parties learn?” … I don't think they can. Too many, too powerful, too comfortable elite stand to lose too much.
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