As an equal opportunity armchair quarterback, I’m more than happy to explain why each party has a problem with its base. Lately, though, I dare say the Republican Party has a far, far more severe problem with its base than do the Democrats with theirs.
Most of you probably recall my October-fast, and so realize that it must be something pretty outrageous to have me turning my attention toward the rabid, frothing conservative Teabagger base. It is.
Elie Weisel is a Holocaust survivor turned Nobel laureate who committed the unpardonable sin of… criticizing the Teabaggers who held up a picture of the Holocaust in an attempt to exploit that pain and criticize Democrats’ health care plan. The response is downright horrifying. Head to the original Politico story for more comments.
Rothschilds nothing! Everyone knows that Obama is George Soros sock puppet. Wasn’t Soros Jewish once upon a time? May the Schwartz be with you.
The jews need to clam up and accept the fact that they are in a Chritian country.
This hollowcost thing is totally overblown by the jewish.
Elie Weisel is disgusting PR-seeking profiteering demagogue who has made a fortune off playing on the world’s guilt trips about the what happened to the Jews during WW2.
Weisel is getting too touchy in his old age. Too bad, I remember when he deserved respect, not pity.
This comment is pretty awesome.
Perhaps Weisel should take Obama’s advice. Lets wait for the facts. For all we know it was liberal democrat holding that sign.
I’d like to remind everyone that these people are defending the use of a picture of the stacked bodies at Dachau for a disagreement on health care reform, and turning their ire toward a man who was actually in a concentration camp. I’m almost expecting to see someone with a sign that says, “I’d rather die of cancer than live under socialism”, and after a man dying of cancer says that”s tasteless, the base tells him he should have his corpse buried in France. These are people who would correct Jesus Christ on what the Bible says.
These are your friends, GOP. Those are the Teabaggers, the “real Americans” who are supposedly giving voice to the “concerns” America has with liberal policies. We often talk about the spineless Democrats, but the Republicans have become far worse. While the Democrats are afraid to embrace the ideals of their base, the Republicans are downright terrified to rebuke theirs.
You’d think any decent human being would agree that using an actual photograph of corpses in the Holocaust would be beyond the pale, but the GOP is so scared of losing what little support they have that they won’t do it. Ironically, this is the very reason national support for the Republican party is collapsing. While the Democrats’ problem with their base is related to their seeming abandonment of the base, the Republicans have the opposite problem.
Of course, this all adds up to a Washington that’s sitting far to the right of the people they’re supposedly representing, but that’s another rant for another time.
This is one reason why, I think, I like Canadian politics better than American. We've got our crazies, true, but if a party tends to ally with them, we can just up and switch parties, because somewhere there is a party that will fit how a person thinks. It just seems that American's, with their two parties, don't have that choice. You're either Republican or Democrat and that's it. Of course you can also be Independant, but mostly independants are looked down upon and ignored from the way I've seen things.
The US is fairly institutionalized like that. Even I concede that a massive third-party uprising is unlikely (if not impossible), and so any change would have to be within parties. It's downright depressing.
Although I think Lieberman's done better as an indie than he did as a Dem.
You're probably right about Lieberman.
I'm surprised no more elected officials go indie, especially recently, because of the divides in both parties.
As much as I admit sometimes the American system has it's benifits, it's got it's serious problems, too and this is one of them. It's more than depressing; it also, at least to me, seems dangerous.
Beautifully put, kind of makes one think 2 years, 5 years 10 years down the road and wonder where we will be as a nation? I served in the Marine Corps from 86-90 and although there were distinct differences in political philosophy between Jarheads, (I leaned left back then as well) there was tolarance and respect for opposing viewpoints and we all loved our COUNTRY. I fear that we may someday recover economically from 9/11 and the poor choices made in reaction to it, but the real damage caused by the attack is the rotting political divide that seemingly has no way of healing. Growing up I could never understand how neighbors, friends and brothers could take up arms against one another during our Civil War – but sadly as the years go by I am witnessing some of the same blind hatred – just manifested on a different subject.
Keep up the outstanding blog, I enjoy reading your thoughts
You bring up possibly the most depressing facet of the whole thing. The divide has become, apparently, not between differing viewpoints of what to do for America, but between those who love America and those who hate America. Us liberals, so the thinking goes, hate this country and for some reason are actively seeking to destroy it (rather than simply moving out).
It often gets frightening to be on the receiving end of the vitriol, accusations of America-hating and what have you. I end up spending just as much time arguing that I do indeed like it here as I do making my original point.
Like my mother told me as a kid, "sometimes it isn't easy to stand up for what is right." Keep up the good fight, I believe that President Obama will lead us back towards a better place, defending a Democratic position will be much easier once that is accomplished. The last ten years have been absolutely unreal upon reflection.
My only hope is that in another ten years, we look back on the early 2000s as the dark times, not the beginning of the collapse.
"Growing up I could never understand how neighbors, friends and brothers could take up arms against one another during our Civil War – but sadly as the years go by I am witnessing some of the same blind hatred – just manifested on a different subject."
Perhaps the scariest but most accurate assessment of the situation I've ever read. And quite honestly, scary as all heck.
I think we are witnessing an increasingly rabid Balkanization of the body politic in the U.S. that's not yet reflected in our political parties. The term "independent" probably describes anyone feels unrepresented by the existing parties, but beyond that it's meaningless. It says nothing about one's values or beliefs. As an Independent, I consider myself far more radical than most Democrats — nothing like Joe Lieberman (I hope!). Some Independents are far to the right of me, and I'm sure a lot of Independents are even further to the left.