Where the right went wrong
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| Fri, 10-31-2008 - 9:43pm |
Just my opinion, the title meant for anyone interested to offer up their view.
As with Democrats by the early 1990s, so used to a hold on Congress that the membership lost sight of America, what took Democrats decades to decay found and wound its way through Republican Congress inside of 6 years, the excess exacerbated by 11 September and the beginnings of an irrational push for war, leaving a feeling they could run roughshod over liberal Americans, as if we were some pox upon the nation.
A message of warning was sent in the 2006 elections, but still the right persisted. Claiming a stake on a surge bandwagon, liberalism remained a dirty word, and the left was treated with continued contempt.
I've long argued on this board, well before the 2004 election, that liberalism boasts some heady successes (and yes, it has its failures.) When a nation begins to hurt economically, when life looks a bit uncertain on a personal level, liberal viewpoint gets more of a look.
The result? Democrats seem to be within 1 or 2 seats of a filibuster proof Senate, while holding the House and Presidency.
At another time, I'll shout my warning on this, not a warning that this is bad, but a warning that if they heed not the past, and take care to recognise the right is not evil, then they will feel the same ball swing back at them one day.
Obama's message is one of reconciliation. Bush pushed this in 2000, and dropped it in the heady days of rightist excess. Obama cannot let this go, he has to make it work.
The right ignored the left, to its peril and its demise. The left should take care to learn the lesson. Sooner or later, someone has to.
