If it's a truism that the lower classes vote Democrat, and there isn't much of an upper class (by definition less then five percent) then who is voting for the Republicans? It must, by a process of elimination, be the Middle Class, which I'd define as anyone making at least 25 grand and less than 250 grand. Is this correct? Most think the Republicans are the party of the super rich, but I see the super rich and the very poor playing a pincer movement against the middle classes, which they despise or have contempt for since both the lower and the upper classes have a live for today philosophy while the middle class live for their grandchildren.
Therefore the middle class is the party of the work ethic, who is also paying taxes. The lower classes pay nothing. The upper classes pay something but generally don't work: they collect their money out of investments. I don't know how big all these different groups are, but how large are my preconceptions? They are vast! Has anyone ever figured this out? Men vote primarily for Republicans, I've heard, and women for the Democrats. That might have to do with reproductive rights. Blacks go 90% for the Democrats. Also, the south tends to go Republican, while the NE tends to go Democrat (with the exception of NH). But NH is middle class and still produces products (what do they make up there?). So that would tend to reinforce the impression that the working middle class tends to go Republican.
I used to think that Republicans were people who had no concern for the middle class. But it must be true that this is a MSM canard. The middle class by definition must predominantly BE Republican. But there are splits. Santorum got the vast majority of people making less than 100 grand in Ohio. Romney got the over 200 grand crowd. These are vast quantities of people, but what generalizations can be made that also happen to be true?
47 comments:
"[H]ow large are my preconceptions? They are vast!"
I love that. And I love how you comically provoke by being deliberately obtuse. I say that in all admiration.
As for the "middle class," it is a rather large grouping that one can tinker with to get certain results. I think in campaign rhetoric the middle class becomes 80-90% of the country, which makes no sense. But you want to kiss up to the people with all the votes, so there you go.
i doubt that there has ever been this much fanfare this much pandoring this much woooptee doo
this much character maiming this much idiocy this much senseless babbling this much ignorance in the republican party they all sound pretty dumb after awhile you've got to admit i would vote for ron paul but he's not a real republican let's face it the men are being stupid because the women run everything oh wait did i say that what i meant to say was why bother the whole culture is speaking as if it were completely zoned out on a variety of medications the pahrmecies run everything welcome mr anderson here for your paxil no it's zoo out there adn the media drivin race is a host of ludicrosity ( is that even a word) good to get some various banter on this blog it get's a little hairy sometimes
what's next
jh
"What's next?"
Nonsense is next. And lots of it. Now there's a non-partisan campaign promise that would be kept. That said, I'd like a better quality of nonsense. Perhaps they could bring back the Hollywood Squares? They could call it Capital Squares or Washington Squares. And while they were all held captive in this massive grid, someone could go through the phonebook and rustle up some legislators. h/t Bill Buckley
Kirby,
It is certainly entertaining what an imagination unfettered by real world constraints can invent.
Of course there have been studies of political affiliation and its correlates with practically everything that seems remotely predictive: geography, education, income, etc.
An accessible, relatively recent exemplar is the following Pew Research Center study: Independents Take Center Stage in Obama Era. It is page 2 of this article that is of immediate interest, the section "Party Identification by Income," near the bottom of the (long) page.
There's a set of graphs that show party identification, over time, by income quintile. I'd caution against putting too much weight on the 2008/09 figures, as that represents a strong local minimum for the Republican party, and concentrate instead on the big picture, which is that income is that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the lower three quartiles, the fourth quartile is close but leans Republican, while the Republicans outnumber Democrats in the highest income quintile. So it's pretty clear that any mathematically reasonable definition of the middle class (I'd argue that this is any income-defined interval, centered at the median, subject to the nontriviality constraint of containing the middle quintile, and being contained within the middle three quintiles) is going to result in more Democrats than Republicans.
The graphs also make clear that the Republicans are losing ground, although not so much to the Democrats as to the Independents, and this raises several points that I believe are worth further development.
Although Republican identification is clearly on the decline, the division between liberal-moderate-conservative has much more stable. The effect of this is most visible in the lowest two quintiles, which are disproportionately Black, Hispanic, and unionized. These are subpopulations that the Republican party has chosen to demonize, creating a party affiliation problem, e.g., for a unionized conservative, which they'll probably resolve by calling themselves "Independent." Conservative independents are going to be "lean Republican" voters in practice, but willing to break ranks over their particular issue (be it union membership, or ethnicity).
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Another curiosity is that approximately 20% of Democratics identify themselves as conservative, whereas approximately 0% of Republicans identify themselves as being liberal. The later, in my opinion, is a reflection of the efforts by Ronald Reagan to demonize the word "liberal," in the hopes of driving it out of the American political lexicon. In fact, he was probably most successful in driving New England Republicans out of the party. And this brings me to the rather curious case of the New York Times, which I believe might most naturally be cast as the voice of Liberal Republicanism, an audience which no longer recognizes its own existence. And that's why contemporary Republican whining about the biases of the NYT seem so bizzarely unfair to Democratic ears -- bitching about NYT bias has been our job for a long time, and we resent that you're trying to take it away from us. The death of Republican Liberalism has also, to a large part, meant the death of bipartisanship. We still have our conservadem Joe Libermans to reach across the aisle; you guys have no one reaching back.
What's next?
I think there's good historical evidence that the American democracy tends towards two nearly-equally matched political parties. I see this as a consequence of (1) the integrity of our elections, and (2) the natural ambition of politicians. We've been best served as a nation, paradoxically, when the political division has been at most weakly aligned with either the Conservative-LIberal or Rich-Poor axis, simply because bipartisan governance is easist in such a model. In effect, weak alignments decouple political ambition from the practical problem of making government work.
But I think it is also clear that the Republican party has become, to its own detriment, the party of division. You can survive as a party, I suppose, by trying to identify with 2/3rds of the population, and demonizing the other third. But if you divide the country 16 different ways (conservative/liberal, religious/non-religious, rich/poor, recent immigrant vs. Mayflower descendant, sexually libertine vs. faithful, strictly homosexual vs. everyone else, male vs. female, urban vs. rural, etc.), you're going to end up throwing everyone off the boat one way or another. I expect the last two Republicans standing will divide themselves over naturally bald vs. Rogaine. Your party is dying of self-inflicted division.
It's not just politicians who can make a commitment to nonsense. Everyone can play! (cf. Stu)
WB,
It's not just politicians who can make a commitment to nonsense. Everyone can play! (cf. Stu)
I did not mean for that bald/rogaine crack personally. Please accept my apologies ;-).
I think many people are split on issues. For instance, I'm pretty much 100% free speech, which is a liberal position (or at least it used to be). It aligns with JS Mill, at least, who is a liberal epigone of a kind.
Today of course liberal is a code word for Marxist.
And that, I am not.
On several things I am quite liberal: distributio of any kind of written material, for instance, should be permitted.
I don't know what I think about a lot of issues. I wish more was done about Lyme disease. I'm somewhat pro-hunting but wish that the government would enter the fray with attack helicopters and go after everything bigger than a chipmunk in order to rid the country of Lyme. We could always reintroduce these things such as deer and beer after a thousand years when the ticks are no longer such a severe threat.
Is hunting a liberal or a conservative issue. I forget.
I do think that people should get excess weight off. I think it's wrong that some people go around eating Twinkies and then hoping Obamacare will bail them out when they have their heart attacks.
There should be some kind of mandatory weighing in at tax time, and the thinner you are the less taxes you have to pay. If you're fat you should be imprisoned until you get the weight off. That sounds a tad Marxist.
It's a weighty issue.
It's strange though that none of the candidates bring up my issues or at least never talk about handling them the way that I might.
I really don't know what to do with the growing number of fake Warhols and Dalis. It's undermining a certain market.
I do think it's probably important that we protect the Americans who are already here by enforcing border laws. I also think that to increase the sense of humor of the citizenry there should be mandatory humor testing. Anyone who can't come up with a reasonbly good spin on any given topic should pay a tax for weighting the rest of us down.
We could also take over Canada and Mexico and then sell them their land back to them at a small profit.
stu's claim that the NYT represents some "liberal Republican" point of view and reportage are jokes--it hasn't hasn't endorsed a Republican candidate for decades (*56 years* to be precise)! Come on, stu, cut the crap!
JADL,
-it hasn't hasn't endorsed a Republican candidate for decades (*56 years* to be precise)!
It took me under a minute to find this:
An Endorsement for Mayor
forgo to add: "presidential" candidate
JADL,
I've looked further, and found more NYT endorsements of Republicans. This is a fairly easy sport, and one that quickly loses its ability to amuse. But in my searches, I also discovered a page of NYT endorsements for the Presidency in the general election, and it is true that the NYT has not endorsed a Republican candidate in the finals since Eisenhower. But this by no means makes my claim crap, simply because the Republican party has oscillated between electing very conservative and fairly conservative candidates in the years since.
To make my claim crap, what would be required would be a race in which the two candidates were fairly close in political ideology, at which point you would expect the party affiliation to matter more. I'm somewhat skeptical that the ideological gap in the post Eisenhower era has ever been much narrower than Eisenhower-Stephenson.
GHWBush vs. Dukakis? Carter vs. Ford? Make a case.
Liberal Republican does not mean rock-ribbed.
JADL,
Let me push this a bit further. If nominated, I believe that Mitt Romney will be the most liberal Republican presidential candidate since Wendell Wilkie. A hypothetical but eminently plausible Obama-Romney contest would be closer than Eisenhower-Stephenson. Do you think it is obvious, given NYT endorsements for Bloomberg, Pataki, etc., and Romney's Wall Street experience and relative "home field advantage," that an NYT endorsement of Obama in the general election can be taken for granted? I don't.
I invite you to put a marker down.
Joke on your claim stands, stu; Nixon was an "establishment" Republican (and Eisenhower's VP, bien sur), and so were Ford, the first Bush, Dole, McCain, and the second Bush a compromising "compassionate conservative." It's just that you're watching the game high up the the left field bleachers.
Many leftists think Obama is a centrist. The Breitbart vid with Obama endorsing Derek Bell shows to such people what an extreme moderate he is because I guess hes not threatening to murder anyone who doesn't agree. I think probably in Chicago radical circles someone like Bill Ayers is a softie because he didn't actually kneecap a police officer or CEO. It's hard to know what's going on over there on the left these days. The NYT is so screamingly far to the left that indpendent media research shows that they run 50 articles favorable to dems for every one favorable to reps, but the existence of an endorsement for any Rep shows that they are tilted very far away from say, World Workers Weekly or whatever the Wobblies are reading these days in Haymarket Square.
Many leftists think Obama is a centrist. The Breitbart vid with Obama endorsing Derek Bell shows to such people what an extreme moderate he is because I guess hes not threatening to murder anyone who doesn't agree. I think probably in Chicago radical circles someone like Bill Ayers is a softie because he didn't actually kneecap a police officer or CEO. It's hard to know what's going on over there on the left these days. The NYT is so screamingly far to the left that indpendent media research shows that they run 50 articles favorable to dems for every one favorable to reps, but the existence of an endorsement for any Rep shows that they are tilted very far away from say, World Workers Weekly or whatever the Wobblies are reading these days in Haymarket Square.
JADL,
You're moving the goal posts. Establishment Republicans can be liberal, but they're not necessarily so. (And certainly trying to equate Californian Establishment Republicanism with New England Establishment Republicanism is laughable -- they loathe one another).
I don't think it's reasonable to try to infer Nixon's political ideology from his term as Eisenhower's VP. Ticket balancing often creates odd-fellow running mates, as it did then. Or are you prepared to argue that JFK and LBJ were ideological soul-mates?!
I think it's arguable that GHWBush was moderate -- but he ran against the far more liberal Dukakis. I believe Carter/Ford is your best case, but it's enough of a special case that other considerations come into play. Ford never really overcame the "accidental President" label, and the political calculation behind his nomination as VP to replace Agnew had a lot to do with his general inoffensiveness rather than with conspicuous ability. In the race against Carter, his incumbency was a liability, both because of the circumstances by which he acquired it, and because of the Nixon pardon. The actual endorsement would make interesting reading, but I haven't found it on-line.
As for the rest, you seem not to be paying attention. I don't think the second Bush was anything but a conservative, but that's immaterial to the argument. The material question is whether or not he was appreciably more conservative than Gore or Kerry. I'd be happy to dredge up your characterizations of the latter two, if you like, to argue that they were much more liberal.
I also note that you haven't committed yourself on the NYT's endorsement in a hypothetical Romney-Obama race. If you're so sure, this is a no-brainer stand to take.
Kirby, you're right that President Obama has been shielded from scrutiny of his embarrassingly radical associations by a fulsome and degenerate MSM press.
The MSM routinely hide Obama's sinister and radical connections, but the late great muckraking Andrew Breitbart and now, his legacy team are already working on putting the jigsaw puzzle-pieces together to form a more complete image of Li'l Caesar Obama's designs for "transforming America."
Presidential campaign adviser David Axelrod, who only just rounded on Mitt Romney for not rounding on Rush Limbaugh for his (admittedly) dumb and crude humor directed against the female student-activist at Georgetown U is now pleased to appear as nutty-buddy on a show with the purveyor of a far cruder and truly syphilitic-paretic imagination, Bill Maher (distinguished for his misogynistic epithets directed at conservative women like Sarah Palin, e.g.,"tw*t," "c*nt," etc.). That's the sort of toilet bowl Obama's fish are swimming in, despite the President's apparently stable family life, "Moochelle Antoinette's" extravagance notwithstanding.
Who's moving the goalposts, stu? Nixon may have differed from Eisenhower in personality, but the former's policies weren't radically different from the latters. Kennedy ran with LBJ to keep the "moderate," gradualist, but still, Southern segregationist vote for the Ds one more time, for even the Democrat governor of TX, John Connally, who rode with Kennedy in his fatal motorcade, ended up as a Republican.
If brussel sprouts were steak, then little Billy would eat them because he loves brussel sprouts (that are steaky.)
JADL,
Nixon may have differed from Eisenhower in personality, but the former's policies weren't radically different from the latters
Let's see. Eisenhower integrated the military. He kept us out of Vietnam, at least for a while (thanks to Matthew Ridgway). He initiated the interstate highway system, a huge jobs and infrastructure program. He coined the phrase "military-industrial complex," and in his farewell address to the nation warned of its dangers.
Nixon initiated the "southern strategy," nevertheless, he was generally pro-civil rights, albeit gradualist. He was pro-ERA. He was elected to Presidency in '68 on the basis of promising a "swift and honorable end to the war in Vietnam," but instead escalated and prolonged it.
I'll grant that they're not radically different, but they are clearly distinct, with Eisenhower being far more willing to use governmental power to change society (integration of the armed forces, interstate highways). Nixon, on the other hand, was reactive on domestic issues, and at most went along with policies proposed by others. To me, this seems like the gap between a moderate liberal and a moderate conservative, as measured against the status quo of the time.
Where the two were most similar was in foreign affairs, where both were staunch anti-communists, but both followed strategies of diplomacy backed by demonstrations of military power to bring the communist nations more into the "community of nations." Nixon is particularly well known for initiating diplomatic relations with the PRC. But I also think it is fair to claim that US Presidential elections rarely turn on foreign affairs, and that both Eisenhower and Nixon were well within the post-war consensus on foreign policy, as were their political opponents.
JADL: You need to go back to making lots of literary allusions and speaking in Latin.
I listen to AM radio on the drive to/from school nowadays.
Which means I hear, over and over again, exactly the stuff you're spewing. Except they're more entertaining about it...
So bring back the unnecessary linguistic fluff - it's the only aspect of your political comments that I would really gain anything from these days.
(this doesn't apply to your discussions on religion, military history, etc.)
And come on JADL - Derrick Bell? That's the best y'all got? Jeremiah-light, 20 years ago? The guy (Barry) said he 'sought out Marxist professors in college.' Yipdeedoo! You really think if 'chicken coming homes to roost' didn't make much of an impact --
"abstract principles lead to legal results that harm blacks and perpetuate their inferior status. Racism provides a basis for a judge to select one available premise rather than another when incompatible claims arise. A paradigm examples presents itself in the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Relying heavily on the formalistic language of the Fourteenth Amendment, and utterly ignoring social questions about which race in fact has power and advantages and which race has been denied entry for centuries into academia, the Court held that an affirmative action policy may not unseat white candidates on the basis of their race. By introducing an artificial and inappropriate parity in its reasoning, the Court effectively made a choice to ignore historical patterns, to ignore contemporary statisitscs, and to ignore flexible reasoning. Following Realist approach, the Court would have observed the social landscape and noticed the skewed representation of miniority medical school students" --
will?
There's this weird disconnect: I would like to say to Republicans, "Look, there's not some media conspiracy to cover up Obama's HORRIBLE PAST with RADICALS. We get it. He went to college at Harvard, and supported his black prof. He went to a black church with a hyperactive preacher. He was in Chicago at the same time as Ayers, and served on a few boards with him. Thing is? Most people don't care. Think about all of the Bush's connections to, say, the BIN LADENS. Now, liberals of sound-mind don't harp on that too much. (liberals of unsound mind jump all over it, eh hem, mr. Moore).
Don't be a conservative of unsound mind and believe that connecting exaggerated, mostly-irrelevant dots is going to sway people, or that it mattres.
Once Obama actually ACTS like an extremist lefty, THEN, maybe, the narrative will stick.
The reason you have to point to trumped-up associations is because there's no evidence from Obama himself...
Obama's to the right of Bill Clinton... He's hovering in the area of Eisenhower and Nixon.
He's closer to Bob Dole than he is to Marx. Hell, he's closer to Bob Dole than Rick Santorum is.
When a group of folks say that tax rates for the rich of 39% = MARXIST!!!... And the fact is that most of the 20th century had tax rates above 70 percent, ESPECIALLY while we were in the Cold War...
Well then, it follows that it is the perspective of said group of folks that is skewed - not that Obama is some kinda crazy extremist leftist.
OK Brett, you've spent your ranting time and haven't even succeeded in covering for Obama's worse than seedy connections, whether gangsters like Rezko or terrorists like Ayers ("just a guy in the neighborhood" glibly lies Obama the Prevaricator-in-Chief) and Dohrn or racists like Wright and Farrakhan--you forget that he more-or-less launched his political career from the Ayers and Dorhn living-room. These two pieces of radical offal (who lavishly and obscenely praised to the skies the horrible Manson-gang murders) are unrepentant domestic terrorists who conspired heavily in robbery, arson, and murder. Ayers the communist got off 'cause his big-daddy was CEO of a big electric company (irony that!) and could buy the best lawyers, and the FBI was judged to have done illegal wiretaps on him, and Dohrn, Ayers mattress, got six months in a federal slammer for refusing to answer questions to a grand jury investigating domestic terrorism (and whom Northwestern somehow in their folly later picked to teach law, for God's sake!--and U of Illinois-Chicago tapped Ayers the moral and ethical abyss to teach education, another sin that cries out to Heaven to redress!). So have them sue me for what I've said and see how far they get!
That's not even to touch on the vicious and obscenely racist rants of the Obamas' preacher, Rev Wright, an abyss of rhetorical mischief as ever there was ("hyperactive," as Brett mumbles, my a**!).
Just don't get me started on Obama's other vicious and corrupt connections. . . .
Brett, It's probably worth making a distinction between the importance of such connections and the effect that such connections actually have on the electorate. Regarding the former, it actually should matter if a president has terrorist associates and/or radical ties. Regarding the latter, voters might not care. Or they might consider the information mere rumors or a vicious political smear.
If it is indeed bad politics to make the case that Obama has ties to radicals that does not at the same time mean that those ties are unimportant. I think you'd agree that truth for its own sake is important.
Should Republicans try to make the case? As a matter of politics, I don't think they should overdo it, (nor do the candidates need to go around saying Obama's a swell guy.) Primarily what they need to do is make a broad argument that he has been a poor president, providing plenty of specifics.
A few things.
1) You're kinda proving my point, JADL. Obama's supposedly close and seedy associations were drum-beat during the last election. Everyone knows about Jeremiah Wright's racism, and about Ayers' past. Whether or not those things matter, or effect your view of Obama's efficacy as president, Derrick Bell is an even weaker point of attack.
And would you deign to consider the reality that Ayers was quoted out of context when he said 'we didn't do enough,' and that it was about that he hadn't done enough to stop the war, not that he should've set off more bombs? Or are you incapable of doing anything but intensifying everything beyond reality in order to make your skewed, sophomoric points. Look, if Ayers WAS such a horrible thing, you wouldn't have to spend so much time and effort both amplifying how evil Ayers was and amplifying how connected to Obama he was.
Consider:
Romney grew up in a church that was explicitly racist until 1978, and he continues to not only have an association with said church, but also has given them millions of dollars.
And remember, he was ACTUALLY part of the church during which they had an ENCODED racist viewpoint. JEEZ!
There's a a pretty strong association there.
But do I lambast Romney for it?
No. Because, unlike JADL, I understand the way the world works and the complexity and nuance of human interaction and association.
And New Gingrich, in fact, worked VERY closely with a man who pardoned - I repeat - PARDONED - members of the same weather underground of which Ayers was a part.
Disgusting!
Brett, Romney's church wasn't anymore "racist" than Rev Wright's, and certainly less so than a certified racist nutter like Farrakhan. You could say the same about Catholic or Orthodox or Orthodox Jews, etc. 'cause they don't have women clergy (I've been to synagogue with a Jewish colleague and friend where a female rabbi read prayers). This friend would be a counter to stu perhaps, for he's a PhD theoretical mathematician who's a devoted fan of Michael Savage. Teaches at the U of Minnesota.
I think the President is more radical than any president known to me in the 20th c. His education seems quite limited however, and he shows almost no grasp of or interest in literature, history, philosophy, poetry, science, languages, etc. except as they relate to power politics. The left is endlessly "discovering" implicit, covert, or hidden "racism" in conservatives or Republicans' statements, so perhaps a little turnabout is fair play.
JADL,
I think the President is more radical than any president known to me in the 20th c.
I don't doubt that you think so. The question I'd ask is, on what basis? There must be a more compelling answer than simply that he's the Democratic President du jour. Let me suggest, to avoid silliness, that we limit the scope of the discussion to actual actions undertaken as President.
Potentially radical actions by Obama might include PPACA, the Stimulus, the appointments of Sotomayor and Kagen to the Supreme Court, and the "justification" for the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki. Any others come to mind?
Now, let's consider some worth competitors.
Teddy Roosevelt -- Greatly expanded the use of Presidental power to intervene in capital/labor disputes. Initiated construction of the Panama Canal. Greatly expanded the national park system, initiated major modernization/expansion of the Navy in peacetime.
Franklin Roosevelt -- passed a wide variety of New Deal legislation, including Social Security, the WPA, the CCC, the FDIC, etc.
Lyndon Johnson -- creation of Medicare, passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. Creation of the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts. Nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court.
Richard Nixon -- normalized relations with China. Formed the EPA, OSHA. The Clean Water Act. Attempted to pass universal, federally run (single payer) health insurance. Endorsed the ERA.
George W. Bush -- initiated tax cuts that created a structural federal deficit. Attempted to financially destablize Social Security. Successfully destabilized Medicare via Medicare Part D. Reduced regulatory oversight of the financial industry, leading to the the 2008 financial crisis. Passed No Child Left Behind, a de facto federal take over of US public education. Invaded Iraq. Passed the Patriot Act. Signed Executive order allowing interception of domestic email, telecommunications, aka "domestic spying." Signed Executive Order authorizing the use of water boarding and other "enhanced interogation techniques" that the US had long held to be torture. Nominated Rogers, Myers(!), and Alito to the Supreme Court. TARP.
I suppose you can argue that GWB wasn't a 20th century President, although this is technicality in the present context.
Indeed, it seems to me that from a libertarian perspective, GWB is by far the most radical and dangerous President since Lincoln, through of his pervasive undermining of constitutional protections for due process. And indeed, where I reserve my strongest criticisms for BHO are precisely in areas where he's continued to expand executive power along lines that GWB initiated, e.g., the assassination of US citizens abroad. But it's clear that GWBs sins in this area far outweigh BHOs.
BTW, Kirby, Picklesworth and I ended up having a nice conversation over Origen. Given that you kicked it off, it would be nice to know your thoughts.
Stu, your conversation on Origen went over my head and I have no time to bone up -- in over my head in many ways just now with papers coming out of my ears, conferences to prepare for, and committee work, etc. But I did read it, and wondered in all serious what was meant.
stu, many specific points, though, e.g., Nixon's creation of various fed agencies doesn't mean the Obama admin is running them in the same way. And indeed, what was considered a "constitutional crisis" during Watergate (initially a trivial matter, though the "cover-up" wasn't) has been drastically increased by the Obama admin's ruthless and, to my mind, unconstitutional power graps that endanger the separation of powers in our republic. You know the issues I'm talking about, e.g., the uncooperative, corrupt, and race-biased DOJ, the refusal to enforce Congressional laws (DOMA, immigration laws, etc.) the recess appointments and parade of political-hack "czars" made without Senate hearings and confirmation, the use of admin "rules" (esp. EPA, which should be abolished, along with the Ed dept, the NLRB, etc.) to circumvent Congress, the continuing crony-government nexus, etc. Thoroughly corrupt and in some cases unconstitutional.
Don't hear a lot of complaining about Obama's policy on Guantanamo, civilian trials for terrorist suspects, extra-legal killings of citizens, renditions, drone strikes, etc. 'cause your man's in charge. He gets a pass for what you'd otherwise be screaming about if an R were pres.
Origen, yes, an interesting Church Father and much a part of my Patrologia Graeca studies.
stu, many specific points, though, e.g., Nixon's creation of various fed agencies doesn't mean the Obama admin is running them in the same way. And indeed, what was considered a "constitutional crisis" during Watergate (initially a trivial matter, though the "cover-up" wasn't) has been drastically increased by the Obama admin's ruthless and, to my mind, unconstitutional power graps that endanger the separation of powers in our republic. You know the issues I'm talking about, e.g., the uncooperative, corrupt, and race-biased DOJ, the refusal to enforce Congressional laws (DOMA, immigration laws, etc.) the recess appointments and parade of political-hack "czars" made without Senate hearings and confirmation, the use of admin "rules" (esp. EPA, which should be abolished, along with the Ed dept, the NLRB, etc.) to circumvent Congress, the continuing crony-government nexus, etc. Thoroughly corrupt and in some cases unconstitutional.
Don't hear a lot of complaining about Obama's policy on Guantanamo, civilian trials for terrorist suspects, extra-legal killings of citizens, renditions, drone strikes, etc. 'cause your man's in charge. He gets a pass for what you'd otherwise be screaming about if an R were pres.
Origen, yes, an interesting Church Father and much a part of my Patrologia Graeca studies.
JADL,
And indeed, what was considered a "constitutional crisis" ... has been drastically increased by the Obama admin's ruthless and, to my mind, unconstitutional power graps that endanger the separation of powers in our republic
Let's go through the list. I'm not convinced there's as much there as you seem to see.
You know the issues I'm talking about, e.g., the uncooperative, corrupt, and race-biased DOJ
Evidence, please?
the refusal to enforce Congressional laws (DOMA, immigration laws, etc.)
This is simply not correct. The Obama administration believes that section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional (and it clearly is, c.f., the "full faith and credit" clause). What he has decided is that the government will no longer defend these portions of DOMA in court, but it will continue to enforce DOMA as written (cf., the Wiki article on DOMA). Obviously, this invites a court challenge, the result of which could be to render moot the affected portions of DOMA, as well as the President's legal obligation to enforce it. The President is sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution, and in his judgment, that is what he is doing by declining to defend an unconstitutional provision of the law against the Constitution itself.
As for enforcement of immigration laws, I've previously noted that Obama is doing it (a) differently, and (b) more effectively than Bush did. Obama is under no obligation to enforce the laws the same way his predecessor did, and characterizing the difference as "refusal to enforce" is intellectually dishonest.
the recess appointments
The use of recess appointments has been on the increase as politics in this country have polarized. This is an authority granted to the President by the Constitution. One might as well turn this around, and say that there's a problem in the current political arena in getting any Presidential appointments through the Senate under its current rules.
I'd argue, though, that the current situation w.r.t. Senate approval of appointments is different from the past. In particular, when Senate Democrats have blocked Republican Presidential appointments, but so far as I know the objection has always been to the nominees, cf., Carswell, Bork, or more recently, John Bolton's appointment as UN Ambassador. Whereas, it is quite clear that the Republican Senate today is objecting to certain appointments not out of an objection to the appointee, but rather to the office itself, cf. Richard Cordray as Director of the CFPB.
I get that you're not happpy with the recess appointments that Obama has made, but to characterize his Constitution, precedent-honored use of this kind of appointment as radical doesn't cut it.
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parade of political-hack "czars" made without Senate hearings and confirmation
Some offices require Senatorial advice and consent, others do not. The only news here is that the Republicans, having introduced the word "czar" into the contemporary political discourse as a word of approbation to describe the appointment of Jerome Jaffe as "drug czar" now use it as a cudgel to describe any political appointee made by a Democratic President. Contemplate the use of the word "political general" to describe certain officers who held brevet (i.e., temporary, and therefore non-confirmed) military rank in the Civil War. This is the way government works, and the substance of your objection is that these powers are now being used by your political opponents. The issue here is not their use of long recognized powers of their office, it is with you.
the use of admin "rules" (esp. EPA, which should be abolished, along with the Ed dept, the NLRB, etc.) to circumvent Congress,
Is your understanding of government process really this weak? There is nothing new about regulatory agencies, etc., setting rules by which laws are enforced. This is simply the way it's done. Congress, as always, has the power to review these rules, and to circumscribe the authority of the agencies' rule making authority, and it has used this authority in the past, so this is no abstraction. Again, this is business as usual, and is constitutional, legal, and has copious precedent in the administration of both parties.
the continuing crony-government nexus
Again, this was a pervasive feature of essentially every past administration. People know who they know. To a first approximation, GWB and BHO know different people. One man's friend is another man's crony. It's the same relationship being described in either case.
Don't hear a lot of complaining about Obama's policy on Guantanamo
But you do hear some. And let's tackle Guantanamo, because it is an important issue. Let me argue that it's important to distinguish Guantanamo as a place, from the particular and perverse role it had in Bush's legal theories.
Briefly, international law distinguishes between combatants and non-combatants, and as the words suggest, these are intended to be (a) mutually exclusive, and (b) exhaustive. Bush's legal argument was that the Guantanamo detainees were neither, and therefore were not subject to the well-defined legal rights of either class. If you can't see the dangerous and radical overreach implicit in "unpersoning" these people, and placing them under the unconstrained authority of the government, then you're no liberatian.
Obama has accomplished a lot at Guanatanamo, mostly by way of clarifying the status of various prisoners. This has meant that trials are going forward where evidence warrants, and it also has meant the release of most of Guantanamo's population simply because there is no credible case against them.
But the sense that Guantanamo is some sort of legal limbo in which the US Government can do what it damn well pleases with people who have come under it's power is largely gone. Instead, the sense is that Obama inherited a truly awful situation, and he's done the hard work required to extract us from it in an orderly manner.
civilian trials for terrorist suspects
What's your beef? That the Constitution provides legal process, which is being followed? That residents at Guantanamo have the right to habeas corpus? If the government, facing a forced choice between classifying a certain individual as combatant or non-combatant, and lacking a legal justification for the classification of combatant, classifies them as non-combatant, then they are subject to a civilian trial under our Constitution, which you claim to admire.
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extra-legal killings of citizens
Oh, there's a lot of debate on the left about this. Let me point to Erick Holder says... from the front page of the Daily Kos, from Monday. You'll find plenty of debate, on both sides, some informed, some not, pretty much what you'd expect in any open forum. This is also a point I raised explicitly in my earlier note.
I liked the suggestion made by one Kos reader that Congress set up a FISA-like Court with the authority to authorize/review such actions. You guys control the House, and I'm sure that as soon as you finish the job of repealing the right to contraception, you'll get right to it.
We agree, Obama's position on this question sucks. So you have one point.
renditions
OK, so a policy that was created during the Bush administration, and used willy-nilly, and which has been continued, and evidently used in a far more limited and circumspect way by the Obama administration, is now somehow evidence that the later is more radical than the former? Remember, you're defending the claim that Obama is the "most radical."
drone strikes
This is controversial, but its undeniable that there is a political calculation to be made here between our ability to project military power (particularly in politically unfriendly contexts) vs. our ability to accept casualities. In this, Obama is doing what most of his predecessors have done, using whatever technological advantage comes to hand, and that is in trying to have his cake and eat it too, i.e., to continue to use military force, while trying to mitigate (or even avoid) casualities. This may not always be wise, but it is not radical.
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stu's efforts to defend the Obama regime is noted in the details, but I can't help think that it's jusy the old "blah, blah, blah" defence, as delivered by Obama's petulant, lying press-punk, Jay Carney. If one disliked Gibbs, one is sure to clutch one's throat in disgust at the lying Carney.
JADL,
So, you acknowledge the details of the argument, but deny the conclusion. Can there be any more compelling proof that your beliefs are not held rationally?
New Black Panthers, for a start. Guns for Mexican drug cartels (Fast and Furious.) Lying under oath about the latter.
I'm not the least bit interested in entering the debate as I know you love details like I love porterhouse, but if you are interested in knowing about a corrupt/incompetent DOJ, there is plenty of material out there.
WB,
I'm not the least bit interested in entering the debate as I know you love details like I love porterhouse,
I'm really only interested in the truth, but often find the details are the best way to get there.
You raise two, quite different issues, both of which were news to me, and so I've had to do some research.
The first regards the NBPP, and seems to center on (a) an incident of voter intimidation by members of the NBPP in Philadelphia during the 2008 election, and (b) the decision by the DOJ to drop prosecution, evidently after several of the defendants had defaulted on defense.
A major question regards the severity of the alleged (and I think, probable) intimidation. On one hand, there's a former DOJ official who describes it as "the worst ever." On the other, the Bush DOJ dropped criminal charges on this matter, and then re-raised this as a civil matter later. The demotion of charges from criminal to civil is telling to me, as it involves a lower standard of proof and/or less serious charges, and I think this is a useful perspective.
As regards the dropping of charges, clearly there's a he-said she-said political fight taking place between the DOJ and the Bush-appointee dominated Civil Rights Commission. The tie breaker may well be an internal DOJ investigation, which has obtained the blessing of Republican representatives Wolf and Smith. The real question here is over the possible involvement of political appointees (perhaps going as high as Halder). I'd argue that a wait-and-see approach makes more sense here than racing to pre-judge a case that both the DOJ and CRC have been trying to fight in the court of public opinion.
Like you, I also think the integrity of our elections is a high priority, and that attempts to undermine them (be they black thugs or Brietbart's shills in New Hampshire) ought to be prosecuted.
Indeed, the New Hampshire case raises a number of tangential questions that I think are worth asking. The first is why the Philadelphia case (evidently) had federal jurisdiction, whereas in the New Hampshire case (which involved undisputed voter fraud) the jurisdiction seems to lie with the state. Why is it one way in one case, and the other way in the other? I'll also point out that (so far as I can tell), the New Hampshire State Attorney is not pursuing criminal charges against Brietbart's shills, despite clear admissions of guilt by the perpetrators. To me, this argues against racial bias, and for the notion that the government (both federal and state) do not see voter fraud/intimidation as worth pursuing. I disagree, but you don't see me claiming that the New Hampshire State Attorney is complicit in Breitbart's felonies.
The second regards "the Fast and Furious," an attempt to trace the higher membership of Mexican cartels by injecting traceable (but very real) weapons into the gun running system that feeds American weapons into the Mexican Drug War (which really deserves to be called such). At some level, this is a riff on the Narc strategy of trying to get a police officer into a gang's hierarchy, even at the cost of having the Narc commit capital crimes as a means to entry into the gang. There's a brutal cost-benefit analysis involved, the sort of thing that Abraham Lincoln referred to as "the arithmetic" in a slightly different context. My take here is that the right is pissed mostly because they didn't think of it first, because this is the sort of thing that appeals to law-and-order types. What I'd like to know, though, is who burned the operation, and why, because doing so means that we've paid all of the costs, while obtaining none of the benefits.
I get that you see this through different lenses, but I don't see a "there there." Cop cars speed, and if they hit you, it's your fault, whether there's a Democrat or a Republican in the White House.
Aha! I knew it. Stu, with you I am faced with a choice. I can either try to argue details with you and get cranky or I can smile and accept that you will come to different conclusions than me on political questions. You say that you are interested in truth (and so am I), but I can't help but think it isn't so simple as that. It's as if we exist in remarkably similar universes. And whatever the little differences are, they make all the difference.
I don't know if Obama is the most corrupt and inept president of my lifetime. I'm not sure the label matters much. And whether it is true or not, it's probably a question that is better answered with some perspective that can only come with time.
I do know that I dislike and distrust him. This has less to do with his political viewpoint than his manner of speaking about others. If he is re-elected I will be sad for my country, but I will be happy to go on living my life. If he is defeated, I will be modestly cheered, but it won't solve any of our problems, because we are the ones who are responsible for them.
WB,
Aha! I knew it. Stu, with you I am faced with a choice. I can either try to argue details with you and get cranky or I can smile and accept that you will come to different conclusions than me on political questions.
I would advise against getting cranky. At the same time, though, I really am interested in the truth. If you think I've got the details wrong, I'd like to know. I'm really not trying to spin here, but am taking the account of what I believe to be a generally neutral source (Wiki), and applying common sense tests.
As I said, you're interpreting many of the same facts through different lenses.
You say that you are interested in truth (and so am I)
I know that I am, and I believe that you are.
I do know that I dislike and distrust him. This has less to do with his political viewpoint than his manner of speaking about others.
OK, maybe we can go with that. Can you give me some examples? Is it possible to have a reasonable discussion that doesn't degenerate into crankiness?
My perception here is that Obama's done a lot of reaching out, and he's gotten a lot of rejection for his efforts. He's lashed out a few times in consequence, and his tongue has gotten out ahead of his brain at least once (in the Crowley-Gates affair, although I think there was a considerable amount of hubris by most involved parties there, including Crowley, Gates, Obama, and Obama's critics, but at least the first three have acknowledged and repented of their sins), but certainly not more than other Presidents of recent memory.
I suppose at the end of the day, it doesn't bother me if Republicans see in Obama someone who is more liberal than they are, and therefore they naturally prefer more conservative candidates. What bothers me is when they perceive him as being more than that, and on the basis of what strikes me as little more than echo-chamber hyperventilation, unconstrained by critical thought. Surely we can do better than that.
Can I give you examples of Obama speaking of others in an objectionable way or in a way that is beneath his office? Sure.
This first comment came in a speech about energy policy. He suggests that his opponents criticize his policy not because there is honest disagreement, but because....
"If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail," he said, "they must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society -- they would not have believed that the world was round."
Another example was in the 2010 State of the Union address which he used to criticize the Supreme Court. An ABC story notes:
A noted Supreme Court historian who “enthusiastically” voted for President Obama in November 2008 today called President Obama’s criticism of the Supreme Court in his State of the Union address last night “really unusual” and said he wouldn’t be surprised if no Supreme Court Justices attend the speech next year. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/01/supreme-court-historian-after-presidents-insult-wont-be-surprised-if-supreme-court-doesnt-attend-next-year/
The speech to the joint session of Congress last September shows us a characteristic bit of rhetoric:
He framed the debate over the economy as a tug-of-war between mainstream American values and a radical, antigovernment orthodoxy that holds that “the only thing we can do restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everyone’s money, let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they’re on their own.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/us/politics/09payroll.html?pagewanted=all
This is classic Obama. In this particular example he sets himself up as Mr. Reasonable because his opponents want to "dismantle government." The implication is that his opponents are extreme and want to dismantle the whole government. Frankly this is bearing false witness. Some Republicans in Congress surely want to shrink the size of government. Tea Partiers are pushing for this, obviously. But "dismantle" it? " And the implication of "tell everyone they're on their own" is that his political opponents wish to rescind the entire social safety net. Which of his political opponents has proposed this? None of them, of course. They have proposed reforms of these entitlements.
Now you might say that this is garden variety political stuff. He's simply criticizing his opponents. I don't see it that way. He has a habit of mischaracterizing his opponents in order to pose as the reasonable one.
Here's another example of him denigrating his opponents:
"What the American people saw is that Congress didn't care – not just what I thought; they didn't care about what the American people thought," Obama said, referring back to the fractious debate over raising the national debt limit. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/obama-news-conference-jobs-bill_n_999019.html
Is it really true that "Congress" didn't care what the American people wanted? Or is possible that they just disagreed with the president? He frequently does this. Instead of assuming disagreement, he assumes that his opponents have some other purpose. Needless to say, this other purpose reflects poorly on them and casts the president in a more reasonable light.
Now I should note that I am not accusing the president of inflammatory speech. I am saying that I cannot respect the man because as President of the United States he speaks poorly of others, mischaracterizing their positions, questioning their motives. Political candidates might be expected to speak in such a way, but the POTUS should not. In addition to demeaning others he demeans his office.
You may not find these few examples persuasive. That's fine. I'm not saying that Stu should dislike the president. I'm saying that I do. And I've got entirely rational reasons for feeling this way.
Picklesworth's logic is impeccable as are his quotations. Dinesh D'souza argues much the same thing about Obama in his book The Roots of Obama's Rage (he pretends to take the middle road, by mischaracterizing his opponents) but I think OPicklesworth's citations are even more germane.
WB,
I am writing with all respect. I am absolutely perplexed by your argument and reasoning. I don't doubt that you believe it in good faith.
You view Obama's deferential disagreement in re: Citizen's United as inappropriate. Let's recall his exact words: With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.
As regards the factual content, I leave you to contemplate how the Citizen's United decision is making it possible for Mitt Romney to purchase the Republican nomination for President. In terms of overall tenor, it is much milder than language Abraham Lincoln used to characterize the Dred Scott decision.
Now, let us recall Joe Wilson's words, from the Obama's previous speech to a joint session of Congress, you lie!.
Indeed, the Tea Party has been indulging in one long scream of outrage, doing its best to undermine Obama's legitimacy by casting him as liar, murder (e.g., Sarah Palin's "Death Panels"), Muslim, Kenyan, Socialist, Communist, not a "Real American." These claims have not been made by marginal figures, but by central figures in the Republican Party and Tea Party. Indeed, Michele Bachman recently claimed that Obama's policy on contraception could lead to government mandated limits on the number of children a couple can have. Incivility? False witness?
Can you name a single major figure in today's Republican Party who has not used far more outrageous language against Obama than anything you've attributed to him here? This is a serious question.
It seems to me that what offends you is that Obama has not chosen unilateral liguistic disarmament in the face of a massive onslaught of language that is far more extreme than that which you claim to abhor.
Stu, you seem to have missed the point. Nowhere did I speak of the president using inflammatory, over-the-top language. Read my comment again. I'll wait.
.....
The president speaks ill of others while using rhetoric that is not extreme. It sounds measured and responsible, while demeaning and misrepresenting others. If you think that is appropriate for the President of the United States, then you are welcome to your opinion. For my part, I think he demeans himself and his office.
Stu,
I should perhaps make one point more clearly. I am drawing a distinction between POTUS and other politicians. When Debbie Wasserman-Schultz accuses Republicans of wishing to go back to Jim Crow, that is repugnant, but it's not surprising given her position as Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She is supposed to use brass knuckles because she speaks on behalf of Democrats and her job is to seek advantage and win.
The president, on the other hand, is not the president of the Democratic party. He is the President of the United States and he should treat the people he serves with dignity. To use rhetoric that merely avoids coarse language is not good enough.
I understand that the president is a human being and that every one of us can sometimes say things that we think better with the benefit of hindsight. In the examples I cite, however, these were prepared remarks.
WB,
I did misunderstand your point, and I thank you for the clarification. On one hand, I think better of it, but I also think it is naïve and inconsistently applied.
You say that the President is the President of all of us. I can only agree. You argue that this requires a different kind of rhetoric on the part of the President. I'll concur, but I might add that it also requires a different kind of rhetoric about the President.
But I think you're naive to posit a President who is above partisan politics and the rhetoric thereof. Such a President has never existed. Presidents need to slip between the dual roles of leader of nation and leader of party. And I all have to do is come up with a different kind of example, e.g., of past Republican Presidents saying partisan things in ways intended to demean or marginalize their political opponents. Once I've put it that way, I'm sure you'll anticipate that this isn't hard to do.
I'd ask you to consider the following speech by George W. Bush, Call for a Constitutional Amendment Regarding Marriage. It's easy to find exemplars of essentially every kind of speech that you objected to in Obama. They may be a bit harder for you to pick out, because I'm sure that you agree with him on the issue at hand. But note the discussion "activist judges and local officials," "arbitrary decisions," and of Boston and San Francisco almost as if they were Sodom and Gomorrah. I can well remember Ronald Reagan's repeated demonizing of the Democratic Party, of specifically of his efforts to excise the word "liberal" from the American political lexicon.
Perhaps I'm less easily scandalized by this sort of thing that you are. I agree that It would be nice to have higher standards, and I believe that Obama himself would agree and aspires to higher standards himself. And fails as humans are wont to do.
But it does seem to me that you're applying these higher standards inequitably, in expecting more deference from Democratic Presidents, and more deference towards Republican Presidents. I say, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and from that perspective, I find the claim of exceptional partisanship on Obama's part to be incredible -- he's well within recent historical norms.
You are entitled to your interpretation, of course. I do not share it.
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