A Failure of Leadership
Over at Daily Kos, some fucking hippy is arguing that defeat is a winnign strategy. No, i’m totally serious:
Geez, don’t you get it yet? The more Obama is seen extending his hand and the more the Republicans obstruct, the more likely it is that the average American out there will get the message that the problem is the Republicans.
So the more they bitch that they are not being heard, the more ridiculous they look. Obama is extending a hand, but proceeding without them. Every time he is defeated, it looks worse for Republicans because Obama’s policies are what everyone is calling for (even the teapartiers are against the SCOTUS decision and want it fixed!)
This is what i call “stupid as shit”, and argued as much:
“defeat” does not equal “winning.”
it looks bad for democrats because A) they weren’t elected to play nice with the republicans, but to GET THINGS DONE; B) because the result of playing nice with the republicans has been a health care reform that can’t pass the house and a stimulus that was too small; and C) because extending a hand to the GOP tells right-wing fucktards like Ben Nelson that it’s OK to side with the GOP publicly on the Dems’ big issues, making the party look disorganized and weak.
Scott Brown didn’t lose massachusetts because democrats were too lefty: they were too accomodating to corporate interests and the GOP, and people got disgusted. that’s the facts.
I’ve noticed that there’s this hardcore group of Obama supporters that don’t really understand politics. This same person tries to conflate a presidency with grassroots movements, like those led by King and Ghandi. This is a false analogy: you can’t conflate mass action from the politically powerless with the refusal of political elites to exercise their power.
The former looks courageous as they stand up to entrenched forces with way more power than themselves, while the latter looks weak and duplicitous.
And it’s good to know that I’m right, because as i was responding to the hippy, the front page of Daily Kos read “What Democratic leadership failure looks like”. check out these two graphs:
This first one is the collapse of the Democratic Party over the past year. Kos finds two bumps: the inauguration and passing the stimulus. Once the victories stop (ie, the health care mess), support crashes. That’s because A) people like winners and B) people expect the party they voted for to do what they said they were gonna do.
Here’s the second graph:
Here, you can see the GOP, energized by the teabaggers they’ve been riling up all year, trending as the more popular of the two parties.
Not too hard to figure out, unless you’re a Democratic politician or consultant.
