Whistling Past The Conservative Graveyard

Both Patrick Ruffini and Mark Tapscott have items up dealing with reaction from the Right to Yearly Kos - which shows some signs of fragmentation, by the way:

They're renaming YearlyKos "Netroots Nation" for next year, making the separation from the DailyKos blog more formal. But there's also rumblings in the small-n netroots that this year's convention got away from them and into the hands of far too many professional activist shops. On the other hand, people also seem to have enjoyed the cross-fertilization that occurred at YKos this year between the netroots, labor, and other longstanding Democratic interest groups.

Patrick is overly kind to the Right in his traffic analysis, take the war and terrorism away and the Right has nothing when compared to the Left. And on line fund raising, which is the real story behind the Netroots success, hardly exists on the Right, with past efforts falling flat.

And while he points out Free Republic's self-marginalizing approach, he counters with nothing other than We have CPAC and the Heritage Foundation - both very different animals than the Netroots and mostly uninspiring, unless you're Ann Coulter and want to move a few books. Patrick himself is as much an embodiment of the top down versus bottom up approach of the Right. That isn't a knock at Patrick, but you can't lead a truly bottom up grass roots effort when you've already been co-opted by the machine. All that great Right-side infrastructure is boring and now way more than five minutes ago.

Lead Pipes vs. Leaky Pipes
Posted by Patrick Ruffini

As for Mark's piece, if your competition has blown by you, I wouldn't endorse sobbing, either. But there may not be much else to do for now. Like it, or not, the Conservative movement is in a shambles mostly because we were screwed over by the very people we empowered by sending them to DC. And short of some truly inspirational work on the part of some next Republican Presidential nominee, I don't see the fire being re-kindled this time out. It may happen, but I for one don't like what I'm seeing in that regard.

Republicans appear to be resorting to their pre-Reagan revolution form of running away from strong stands on principle and may come to enjoy being in the Minority, again.

Can we please stop sobbing about 'our Yearly Kos' now?

Still, it's like an Indy 500 that never ends - we led the first 10 laps, but while we were waving to the crowd, the Left turned up its turbo boost and blew by us. We better wake up and get back in this race before it's too late.

Comments

[LOL]

ykos coverage by the reichwing blogs is so obviously jealousy

[Joe Citizen]

Its going to be hard to change this dynamic.

The right-wing blogosphere is top-down, because conservative philosophy is inherintly top-down. Even when y'all find traction with the average folk, it comes through shouting down at them, or finding ways to throw red meat down at them, trying to get them to distrust and hate their fellow citizens while worshipping the "powerful leaders" of the right.

When average people turn off the radio and actually start talking to eachother, and acting like normal human beings - expressing their real feelings rather than talking points, listening to what their interlocutors actually say, and finding common ground and compromises - i.e doing the things that a bottom-up movement must do, then they arrive at positions that are very far from the things that the RW blowhards are trying to cram into their ears. Very far from the Republican platform.

So that is the dilemma y'all face in this democratized medium. The interactivity and relative leveling effects of the medium itself make it ideally suited to real bottom-up efforts, and that is not a process that tends to lead to RW solutions.

[Dan Riehl]

Nonsense, JC - you're just spitting out the usual talking points. The Netroots became organized because they felt they had no power and were displeased. Righties haven't felt that way until recently. And the same lib Pols the Kos Kidz are now getting in bed with will leave them just as disappointed in ten years. And so on and so forth. If the Left gains over the next couple of elections, the dynamics will shift and it'll be the Right crashing the gate. There are larger dynamics at work then your superficial analysis of the Right.

[southdakotaboy]

All I can say is that when you live by the mob you die by the mob. The nutroots will not be able to live in their fantasy world for very long and when it starts to fall apart they will have a mental melt down. The left has lied to the American people about the threat of radical islam, they have tried to ram political correctness down the people's throats and they are gearing up to ruin our economy and on top of that tax us into poverty.
The internet will not allow the dems to hide from all their lies when the whole thing starts to crumble, it will be there for all to see and the dems will be finish.
Notice the 3% approval rating lefties, I guess we can call you guys 3%ers now right.

[Lala]

Well, Joe Citizen, my spouse and I are just average people, one a firefighter, the other an airline worker and we both belong to unions. We live in an average town with other people just like us, who, just like us, vote for Republicans.

Why would the lower middle-class and the middle middle-class vote Republican? Because we can't stand liberals who want to take away our hard earned money and give it to people who mooch off us.

We are tired of welfare, illegal immigrants, failing schools, "affordable" housing, section 8, food stamps, global-warming liars, piping plover saviours, anti-gun nuts, nanny Mayors who ban trans-fats, and on and on.

So, there!

[Joe Citizen]

"Well, Joe Citizen, my spouse and I are just average people, one a firefighter, the other an airline worker and we both belong to unions. We live in an average town with other people just like us, who, just like us, vote for Republicans."

Well congratulations Lala.
I see you have assimilated all the messages quite well.

Welfare?, Section 8?, food stamps?
I have never met an "average person" who really thought that these things were at the top of any list of serious problems in America. I bet you have not the slightest clue as to the scope of these programs - the actual cost of them. the actual effect that they do or dont have in the real world, in the lives of real people. Nor what the consequences of eliminating them are. They are just RW bugaboo issues that you are told should outrage you.

Global warming? Let me guess. You did not drop out of climatology graduate school to become a fireman and an airline worker. I'm betting that you, once again, dont have the slightest real clue as to whether global warming is a real phenomenon or not, nor what causes it, nor what should or should not be done about it. You choose your team, and you mouth the approved lines.

"Why would the lower middle-class and the middle middle-class vote Republican? "

Because some of you, a quickly shrinking minority of you, have no real interest in thinking for yourselves about the real issues in your life, but seem to get your jollies by playing Rush-wannabes, repeating talking points that do nothing but insult your fellow middle class citizens, and serve agendas that you barely comprehend.

So there.

[GO]

Lala-

I think your commonsense comments left a mark on Joe Citizen. His sputtering response of “well, I think you’re just stupid” (in sooo many more words) is pretty funny... in a sad sort of way.

[southdakotaboy]

Joe Citizen one of the reasons we don't take the whole global warming thing very seriously is because the libs tend to go nuts when you start asking them a few pointed questions. Questions like: how do you explain the world wide warming trend from the 900's AD to about the early 1400's AD which was followed by the little ice age or how do you explain the fact that Mars is warming up.
When guys like Al Gore will stop blaming everything on America and giving China and India a free pass then maybe I will start to listen. When you come up with solutions other than destroying America then I will listen.
A good example of a concrete way to lower greenhouse gases is working on changing Asian rice growing methods. The current way of growing rice produces huge amounts of methane ( close to 30% of the global total )with simple changes in irrigation and fertilization methods we could have a bigger impact then what the Kyoto Treaty could ever dream of doing. And as an added bonus we could feed more people. But since this dosn't punish America the left won't listen or like it.

[Joe Citizen]

Southdatkotaboy,

Seriously now buddy, what is up with this seething hatred that you seem to have for, at minimum, half the American people? You wingnuts love to hurl charges about America-hating liberals, but its pretty obvious that the real, vile hatred that infects our poltical system is your hatred of Americans.

Did it ever occur to you that this might play a part in the fact that the majority is turning their backs on your ideology??

"A good example of a concrete way to lower greenhouse gases is working on changing Asian rice growing methods."

Oh, whats this, you mean there might be a reason to lower greenhouse gases? Why would you care about Asian rice growing if there is no problem in the first place?

"When you come up with solutions other than destroying America then I will listen."

The real question is when you will stop listening to the propagandists that tell you that addressing this problem will "destroy America". Or an even better question - why do you listen to them in the first place? Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, the people who say this have an agenda of their own?
Did you ever stop to consider what that agenda might be, or do you just dive right in and believe whatever they tell you?

Why do you have such hatred and cynicism regarding the left, and total non-critical suckupance toward the other side? Are you so desparate to believe that one ideology posesses the absolute truth, and absolute virtue?

As to your examples - let me ask you this. Have you ever actually made an effort to find out the answers to your questions? Or have you just picked up on the RW grapevine that Mars is warming, therefore GW is bunk? Any critical thought whatsoever on your part?

Here is a place to start. I'm not asking you to beleive anything in particular, but it would be a good thing if you at least spent the time to get the basic views of both sides before you jump to conclusions.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192

As to previous bouts of warming and cooling, I dont really understand your question. Everyone knows that climate has always been variable on earth - through natural causes. And it remains so. The global-warming that is caused by humans is an additional factor that is driving warming - it is not, nor was it ever claimed to be the only factor (obviously, I mean for chrissakes, we all know about the repeated ice ages that affected this continent).

If you really want to get serious, and get a sense of the research that is going on, I have found the following article to be helpful. It is rather long and technical, but since you are prone to such strong opinions and sweeping claims on the subject, I am sure that you will have the patience and integrity to devote the time to reading it. It is a history of the development of climate models, and thus, gives lots of insights into the factors that have been and are considered by climate scientists.

http://www.physicist.org/history/climate/GCM.htm#L_1988

[Lala]

Joe Citizen should change his name to Joe Elitist. I get the impression that he thinks that because we are just average working people that we are unable to think for ourselves and are just parroting what we hear on the radio.

As to his betting and guessing he's very much off the mark and my advice to him is that he should stay away from Vegas.

[Alec]

Lala,

Out here in the Hamptons, where all us rich liberals live, we've been forced to hire undocumented workers as housekeepers, gardeners and nannies because we can't afford the high salaries that greedy Americans are always demanding.

We pay them $10.00 an hour off the books but unfortunately they can't find places to live nearby that they can afford. The nearest low income town is Riverhead and since it's such a long commute we've asked the various Hamptons towns to provide the "affordable housing" that you seem to despise, and we've also asked the state to get them food stamps asap. Ten bucks an hour doesn't go far when you have a lot of children, does it?

A clinic will also be needed to provide them all with Medicaid. A new school will have to be built soon too, and, of course, we'll need a load of ESL teachers.

The new school will cost a lot of money but that can easily be covered just by raising everyone's property taxes by about $1,000.00 a year. There's a lot of middle class people here so the pain can easily be spread around.

These poor people really need these jobs and we're here to do our part, but it's only fair that the government do theirs to pick up the slack.

Maybe Hillary will help when she becomes President. After all, we've raised tons and tons of money for her.

[Joe Citizen]

Lala,

Nice try bud. But I am as "working-class" as you, probably more so.
The issue is not the capacity of working-class people to think for themselves, it is the tendency of conservative working-class people not to do so.
To wit, I see you have no real response to anything that I say other than to call me an "elitist". So yeah, you are just a radio-parrot.

[Joe citizen]

And Alec thinks he is being oh so witty, but his comment does illustrate something really interesting.

What he calls "liberals", by which we can assume he means all the people who support Democratic policies, are not, of course represented by, or confined to the rich on the Hamptons. Supporters of Democratic polices make up the MAJORITY of the American people. Did you people suddenly forget the results of the last election? Do you not read the polls which find that more Americans trust and support Democrats rather than Republicans on EVERY issue, even national security issues? Or the ones that show a 5-10% advantage for Democrats in party ID? Even in your heyday, when winning the last two presidential elections, Democrats got more votes than Republicans in 2000, and only 2.5% less in 04.

And yet you conservatives constantly drink this kool-aid about your ideology somehow being a majoritarian ideology, that it is somehow the view of "real" America. What is the source of this fantasy? And dont the more sober ones amongst you realize that at some point you better face reality - the reality that you had at best, a slim hold on a tiny majority, and that now even that is long gone, and that your party and your movement is heading full steam into irrelevancy and oblivion?

And that maybe the first step you need to take to turn things around is to acknowledge reality and start THINKING, or, even better, start listening to your fellow Americans and reconnecting with them?

Just trying to be helpful to you guys. I believe in the two party system, and I believe in a coherent, strong opposition party holding the party in power to account. I very much want the Dems to have this new generation of power that seems on the horizon, but I actually do get nervous at the notion that maybe there wont be any effective opposition. Thats never a good thing. So, turn off the radio, realize that treating politics as a blood-sport entertainment has ruined your movement, get your act together, and form a vibrant loyal opposition. Maybe then you will someday be entrusted with power again.

[Cindi]

Tell us Joe, what's your stand on same sex marriages?

[Joe Citizen]

Cindi,

I think marriage is the bedrock social institution of all human societies - a relationships that gives grounding to individuals by formalizing their emotional needs and attractions and focusing them on developing the loving, nurturing, and caring aspects of their potential - focused on other individuals. Maybe it is a bit presumptious of me to say so, but I think that such a structure is an important part of emotional maturation.

I think that people who happen to be gay should be encouraged to enter into this institution. Society as a whole would benefit, as will the individuals involved. I really do not understand the logic of those who seek to deny this opportunity to gay people. What could be more "civilizing", and indeed conservative (in the good sense) that getting married?

Churches, of course, have the right to marry gay people or to not marry them, as they see fit. The government, however, regulating civil marriage, should not deny this to one class of citizens.

[Fred Beloit]

And now ladies and gentlemen, I have to make an announcement. Joe Citizen is none other than, taaa, ta ta Daaaaaaa: nowingker the great. There is no mistaking that bone-headed logic, those old worn-out charges and talking points, and that sniveling, whining, cringing, and wallowing style.

[Joe Citizen]

Fred,

What on earth are you talking about?
And arent you at all a bit embarrassed, to have nothing whatsoever to say in this public forum except a string of insults? I mean, are you actually trying to make a caraicature of yourself and your movement?

[Fred Beloit]

My "movement" plans to continue to out you as an unimaginative, lying, uncreative, plagiaristic, propagandist with way too many monikers, my sweetheart. Your secret admirer, Fred.