I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson

The Danger of Panic
by Hal_10000

Crowley points out the obvious:

My friends and fellow prisoners, time for some straight talk: Politico has a good story today about Republican rage at the notion of an Obama presidency. It cites McCain-Palin supporters raging at Obama as a “terrorist,” a “damn liar,” and a generally wretched and possibly illegitimate figure.

This is all nasty stuff. But is it really unprecedented? A pitchfork rebellion of alarming proportions? I’m not so sure. Around this time four years ago Democrats raged furiously against an illegitimate, lying “war criminal.” Indeed some even called Bush a terrorist.

Yes, there’s probably a nativist strain here that makes this uglier than anything we saw in ‘04. And anything resembling a threat, or a racial slur, belongs in a special category of contempt. But I haven’t seen many examples of overt racism beyond the smears we’ve seen for months. (Indeed as Noam notes below, race has been somewhat surprisingly absent from ths campaign so far.)

Unfortunately, to some degree this seems to be what happens in American politics nowadays when one side is losing. No one wants to accept the possibility that they’ve been outplayed fair and square.

This is a fair point. We spent eight years hearing that Bush was Hitler. During the 2004 campaign, we were told that Bush would end civilization and destroy the planet.

But I would note that Kerry and Gore weren’t whipping people up into frenzies of hatred the way McCain seems to be doing right now—giving legitimacy to the extreme wing of the movement. I don’t recall people at Kerry rallies screaming out “traitor!”. However, that could be because listening to Kerry talk for more than 30 seconds put them to sleep.

Posted by Hal_10000 on 10/10/08 at 12:25 PM (Discuss this in the forums)

Comments

Posted by on 10/10/08 at 04:23 PM from

I don’t recall people at Kerry rallies screaming out “traitor!”.

No, they said “war criminal.”

Posted by on 10/10/08 at 05:35 PM from

No, they said “war criminal.”

At a Kerry rally?

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 12:50 PM from

Perhaps because each successive DNC presidential candidate since Carter has been more and more of an America-hating socialist/marxist?

Personally, I don’t even think Obama can be considered “American” in his core beliefs and values - he’s a foreigner in his thinking and agenda. He’ll do his very best to fuck the country over and remake it into a as much of a euro-socialist state as he can.

Taxes will skyrocket to pay for his massive entitlement programs and attempts to nationalize healthcare (among other industries), and regulation of just about everything will increase. He will do his best to restrict gun ownership, and will support efforts to overturn the latest Supreme Court ruling.

If we thought that spending was out of control over the last eight years, and that the constitution was essentially a piece of toilet paper to Bush and Cheney, just wait until Obama gets in power with a leftist congress and senate - he’ll make FDR’s communist agenda look like a dry run.

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 01:25 PM from

Seattle -

See 1993-2000 US Economy.

Then compare the US Economy from 1980-1992 to 1993-2000.

Then compare Economy from from 2001-2008 to 1993-2000.

Then try again with some connection to facts and reality.

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 03:51 PM from

GADMAN

Why don’t you try reading my post again?

Things Obama has essentially promised:

Increased taxes
Increased social programs

Things Obama has expressed support for in the past:

Getting rid of private gun ownership
Universal healthcare

Things we know about Obama’s worldview based on his public statements and associations:

Free enterprise is evil and must be stopped
He’s a racist
He looks at non-liberals as stupid and “bitter”
The more regulation the better

Even though FDR once tried to raise the highest tax rate to over 100%, I’m sure you see him as a savior of America, when he actually drug the depression out with his socialist/marxist policies

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 04:50 PM from

Seattle Outcast in 1992 (probably):

Things Clinton has essentially promised:

Increased taxes
Increased social programs

Things Clinton has expressed support for in the past:

Getting rid of private gun ownership
Universal healthcare

Things we know about Clinton’s worldview based on his public statements and associations:

Free enterprise is evil and must be stopped
He’s a racist
He looks at non-liberals as stupid and “bitter”
The more regulation the better
-----------------

Conservatives were sure right about how Clinton was going to ruin the economy, weren’t they?

Conservatives were sure right that Clinton was going to impose a socialist state, weren’t they?

Grow the fuck up.

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 05:21 PM from

Conservatives were sure right that Clinton was going to impose a socialist state, weren’t they?

As long as Republican politicians pay lip service to these fools they will always find an excuse as to why their policies are failing (Always seems to be them darn left wingers)

Definition of socialism:
a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

What do you call an economy that has it’s insurance companies, banks and major mortgage lenders ran by the government? Keynes must be laughing in his grave.

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 05:48 PM from

Even if (when) Obama is elected, I doubt the major programs he has advocated (e.g. universal healthcare) will come to pass. Remember that the Clintons thought they had a mandate to do the same thing. American citizens, as a whole, tend to balk at massive government takeovers. (See the major backlash that Congress got that at least stalled the bailout bill for a bit.)

I think that’s why the Democrats have problems passing their programs. They shoot for these Big Picture things (healthcare, etc) that people hesitate about and finally rebel enough against to kill. The Republicans, on the other hand, promote about 800 small programs, so they can push them through and run up record deficits.

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 05:54 PM from

Yeah, but we seem to keep getting these programs in incremental amounts. At some point, just giving them a shove into their leftist wet dream implementation is a very short walk.

Last time they tried it Hillary showed that it would 1) cost like a motherfucker and 2) be a fucking headache to run. She also showed that she was in way over her head at the time, but lots of leftists saw it as a “learning exercise” on how to do it right next time. Obama hasn’t made any show of shying away from giving it a shot.

Posted by on 10/11/08 at 06:01 PM from

Conservatives were sure right about how Clinton was going to ruin the economy, weren’t they?

Conservatives were sure right that Clinton was going to impose a socialist state, weren’t they?

Kind of hard to implement your plans when one house of congress is doing everything it can to screw you over. Obama, like Bush, is going to have a congress that will pass about anything he fucking wants.