The mistake of the Right, let's not make it

[imdjh]

I believe it's bad policy overall to overestimate the appeal of the various manifestations which march under the name of conservatism, especially when we didn't really win this last election by a landslide and our win was tainted with the fact that so many of the people who voted for Obama and other Democrats also voted with the Republicans on Prop 8 and Amendment 2. There is also the troublesome report of rising fascist sympathies in the same places and people where it got a foothold the last time around, as well as the ongoing fascism of Islamic fundamentalism.

However, I do think it's safe to say that the folks (FRolks) who have declared every GOP defeat in recent history to be due to candidates who were not conservative enough are in denial about the changing dynamics of American society. The simple truth is that most Republicans one meets in person are not mindless trogs or fascists, nor are they the innocent but misled. They are people who sincerely believe that the GOP for all its faults is "at least" officially dedicated to sound American economic and social values. We all assign our own value to a given issue, and we're bound to disagree with others. We take the most convenient label, but it really doesn't mean that we are in lockstep with all others who wear our label.

I probably have more in common on environmental issues with a liberal or "moderate" Republican than I do with the most extreme Democrat. I like to think of myself as a mainstream Democrat, but that' probably wishful thinking as my unyielding demand for NSP and gay equality probably shifts me Left. Even though I don't own a waverunner, I'm not going to vote to ban them from the Florida waterways because they might be disturbing the eagles, especially when I can go out my front door on any given day and satisfy myself that there are plenty of eagles in the sky. I like the screeching parrots in my yard, and I don't care if they are a native species. I despise pigeons, and I don't want the bird sanctuary wasting my donations on saving them. It's just how I feel.

By the same token, some people on our side seem to be deluding themselves about the meaning of our recent successes, in an almost Republican way. They think that they have been vindicated, that Obama won because he is more like them than Hillary is, or because he's farther Left. Stop kidding yourselves. Obama did not win because he's Dennis Kucinich, or Ralph Nader, or whatever icon of the far left one imagines to be a purist. If those people had winning power, they would have won long ago.

The Republicans will not win by being more extreme, and the Democrats will not hold power through similar foolishness. Just because NSP and banning waverunners seems cohesive and makes sense to you, doesn't mean it makes sense to me. I'm not going to switch parties because a Democrat supports banning waverunners, but each one of those little things adds up to a vote lost here and a vote lost there in the final count. There are three branches of government. Where we are most vulnerable is in the Congress, where there are Republicans who have been elected by Democrats and which Republicans may well vote in a way that pleases us some of the time, but cannot be counted on when it matters.

Moderation is strategy.

[MADem]

1. Of course it is. The thing disdained as 'triangulation' or 'third way' is how you do two terms.

Even Bush, who was a total jerk, ran way to the right of the way he governed. That's not to say he was a moderate, but his talk was right of his actions. That, and those bribes, er, meaningless tax cuts and silly checks he mailed out periodically, kept a lot of people pulling the lever for him who should have known better.

[rrneck]

2. Ocean liners have a very large turning radius. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. What does acronym NSP stand for? nt

[imdjh]

4. National Single Payer

[leftstreet]

5. Yeah, and what's a 'waverunner?'

I feel old

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. "Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

Thomas Paine

Becoming more like "moderate" Republicans is just like becoming Republicans...even if it is a "strategy".