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And the gloves come off..
by Rattle at 4:41 pm EST, Nov 3, 2004

First off, I'm not one of those "not my president" people. He won. Game over. Time to get on with it. Put in the second coin, hit continue, let the man go through.

The Republicans now have the Senate, the House, and the White House with mandate. The Bush White House no longer has to worry about election year politics. The gloves can come off. There are a number of questions about what they will do now that they do not have to worry about the electorate.

Will he pander to the fundamentalist right, now that they have nothing more to offer him? I can see that one go either way. I hold hopes that Bush/Rove drop their interest in issues such as prayer in schools and amendments on the court house walls. They no longer need it to inspire the christian right to transform their group fanaticism into a demographic with a strong supporting vote. Join me in my blind optimism for a minute, it will help slow your heart rate and bring on some of that hope for the future many are lacking this November 3rd.

The Republicans do have full control of the government by a wide margin. This is either their time to shine, or their last time to hold this much power. There are a number of issues that they must make ground on, or their power will sunset in less time it took to rise. Now is the time to start making some of these issues clear, so there is a full four years to make it sink in the big collective head of the 2008 electorate. All I can think of are double edged swords.. Energy policy, and its other edge, making the various energy and vehicle companies bind to it. Health care policy, and its other edge, making the various health care and insurance companies bind to it. Isn't this the type of stuff that the Republicans should be able to triumph at? I mean its all policy wonk bullshit and dealing with big corporations, and who does that better?

The Wars. I'm not entirely sold that Iraq is going to become a complete disaster. I still see much hope there. Its necessary to look at Iraq with the decade eyes, not the election cycle eyes. It will start off looking like a fundamentalist state. This is a culture war, and it will be a properly fought culture war. If as our first strike, we replace the authoritarian structures in place with courts, laws, and an electorate, we have already won most of the battle. Let there be no mistake, our goal is to bring the working parts of Western culture to the Middle East, and I'm not talking about pop culture, McDonalds, and Mickey Mouse. The authoritative structure of Iraq started with a vicious dictator and wound its way down to the goon squads that took people who disagreed with actions of the state to places where they "disappeared". In Afghanistan the authoritarian structures in place consisted mainly of Mullas dressed in black who immediately punished people for any action they did not like, trivial or otherwise. The trivial often wound up resolved in public executions, as ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: And the gloves come off..
by Decius at 5:58 pm EST, Nov 3, 2004

Rattle wrote:
] Will he pander to the fundamentalist right, now that they have
] nothing more to offer him? I can see that one go either way.
] I hold hopes that Bush/Rove drop their interest in issues such
] as prayer in schools and amendments on the court house walls.
] They no longer need it to inspire the catholic right to
] transform their group fanaticism into a demographic with a
] strong supporting vote. Join me in my blind optimism for a
] minute, it will help slow your heart rate and bring on some of
] that hope for the future many are lacking this November 3rd.

There are some things I disagree with in this post, but you are right about this. My prediction about rapid Constitutional amendments is wrong. If they did that they'd be unloading all their future ammo in one shot. Its not going to go down like that.

The Fundamentalists have handed them two major electoral victories, one in 1994 and one in 2004. The first was based on a series of promises. What they actually delivered for those promises had a particular shape. What they offered in this election had the exact same shape. Its a pattern:

1. Find a small liberal group with little political power. (Geeks with the CDA, Gays with the marriage amendment.)
2. Kick them in the teeth as hard as you can.

There is absolutely no political risk because the victims have no real power, and the fundamentalists eat it up! They love kicking people in the teeth. It makes them feel morally superior.

Now the CDA didn't work out the way they'd hoped for two reasons: 1. It didn't actually work. 2. It was quite a let down from the grandious promises made in 1994. The Republicans learned from this experience and adapted their strategy. They hauled out the teeth kicking before the election and asked their constituants to come out to specifically vote on it.

The people who fall for this are tremedously stupid on every imaginable level. They are certainly more motivated by the opportunity to actually vote on a singular instance of teeth kicking then they are by a complex "Contract with America."

Now, the grandious promises are still there, but they are in the background where only the people who care about them see them, and they are unlikely to see the full light of day, simply because the Republicans have what they want and have no motivation to do anything else unless pressured.

Some stuff will be voted on. You might see a federal Gay marriage amendment. They will only give enough that they won't totally piss off the fundamentalists by openly screwing them over. But come election time in 2008 you can rest assured that another teeth kicking will occur. Could be any number of things. But the process toward a fundamentalist state will be only fast enough to keep the fundamentalists from abandoning the Republicans and not a drop faster.

This is the new Republican party strategy and it is this what the Democrats need to respond to. The most obvious response is to attack it directly, by presenting the dead obvious truth that kicking people in the teeth is not Christian, and there ought to be more important things that people of faith focus on, like poverty and war.

We shall see...