Trust me, I’m not counting my chickens before they have come home to roost. But it is enjoyable to read the distraught comments from those trying to run away from the wave.
The “wave” is the most recent Gallup poll showing a 10 point generic ballot lead in favor of Republicans, a historic high. I’m not schooled enough to compare that number to real life numbers, but a lot of people on all sides see it as tremendously significant.
I don’t think those about to go swimming understand what has happened, as witnessed by these two posts at Hullabaloo:
- Tristero: “This is exactly what happens when top Democrats, including the president, are obsessed with appeasing Republicans – who can’t be appeased – and take liberal support for granted.
- Digby: “Oh gosh. What to do? I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that if you want to get people enthusiastic you might want to pick a big old fight right about now instead of trying desperately to avoid controversy (also known as “kerfuffles”.) In case the Democrats don’t realize it, Republicans and right leaning Independents aren’t going to vote for them no matter what they do. Even if they open up those FEMA camps and start rounding up every Muslim and Mexican looking person they see, it won’t work. Neither will rolling over and playing dead.
I think I was pretty clear in the battle over health care that I respected the opinions of the principled left, even if I disagreed with their principles. I think it would have been healthy (pun intended) to have a national debate over single-payer or Medicare for all or whatever, a debate I am confident we would have won.
Instead, the left was unwilling to join us in stopping Frankenstein-like Obamacare, pushed through by the Harry Reids of the world. As Jay Cost points out, it was Obamacare beyond all else which crystallized the opposition to the Democratic Party, and which started the wave rolling.
Make no mistake, the left brought this on itself, not by being too liberal or not liberal enough, but by allowing itself to be co-opted by the unprincipled, power-hungry, self-aggrandizing Democratic leadership, from Obama on down.
The wave may be coming, and if it does, it will wash away what needs to be washed away, including the illusion that the modern Democratic Party stands for anything.
Update: Jane Hamsher writes:
Rather than focus on jobs creation in a country with climbing unemployment rates, Obama spent the better part of a year focused on passing a health care bill that looks like it will play no small part in the Democratic Party’s upcoming electoral woes.
Well, we warned you
I’m not buying that spin. It is true that Hamsher had some of the most devastating critiques of Obamacare. But when I wrote my Open Letter in January 2010 to Hamsher asking her to join us in defeating Obamacare, there was no response, either directly or indirectly, in words or in action. Instead, Hamsher and others were focused on improving (e.g. public option) not defeating the legislation, an ultimately futiile quest which required a level of subservience to the Democratic leadership in the hope they would come through for you. They didn’t.
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Related Post:
An Open Letter to Jane Hamsher
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Comments
Couldn't agree more. As an independent who votes on both sides of the aisle, my primary recollection of the first 12 months of Obama's presidency is the condescending smirks on the faces of Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, et al as Obamacare was passed into law.
The democratic leadership, including Obama himself, had two choices in January 2009: to solve problems or to enact an agenda. While the nation's economy burned, they choose the latter. Not only did the democratic leadership 'fiddle' in passing this incredibly flawed plan, they added fuel to the nation's economic fire by inserting so much uncertainty into the economy at a time when certainty was essential. The arrogant, condescending, totally partisan nature of the process became so reprehensible it would have required a near-perfect healthcare law to salvage it.
Yes .. the left brought the wave down on itself. The right will soon have their chance to avoid the same fate. If not, I see the emergence of a third party that will marginalize the ends of the right/left spectrum.
I'm sure when He opens his mouth tonite, it's gonna be the second to last stab he has left.
Both sides are disgusted for different but the same reasons. He's completely incompetent to everyone, except to whatever private agenda he's been playing. No one can come back from the damage he is inflicting on this country.
He promised them he was the most capable and historically intelligent president to date. I just hate that the left will just think they had the wrong guy, when it was the wrong ideology that dragged us in the wrong direction. His epic failure hopefully sets liberals and lefists back long enough for us to clean up this mess, while dragging us back from the cliff.
Glenn's right, time for us all to pray to our individual Gods.
What's the real story with your Hamsher infatuation?
This argument doesn't make sense – would Obama and the Dems be more popular if they were more radical?
Maybe if they had started rounding up the Kulaks and putting them into gulags, they would be doing better with independent voters?
The Dems got into bed with the far left ages ago and this is the logical conclusion. Live by Marxism, die by Marxism. The left can continue to tell themselves the worst and most destructive president this country has ever had is just too moderate. The rest of us are pledging to take this country back from the brink.
A lot of us conservatives are former Dems and even former lefties (I am both) who saw this coming a long time ago and jumped off this train before the wreck. We are a large part of the backbone of the Tea Party movement. I'm quite convinced that, had it not been for the America-hating left, there would be no conservative movement and we'd be drifting in a trance toward full socialism.