Originally posted by: PJ Stroh
I dont know that a left wing tea party serves AMerica any better than a right wing one. Wouldnt it be nice if Congress represented the majority common sense group of people in the country instead of just the fringe?
I agree California should match Texas' redistricting plan - not because I think its a good idea but because you cant let one group cheat while the other plays fair. So I guess we're stuck with two groups of cheaters. OK then. I cant imagine how anyone thinks thats good for America.
Well, the fringe is always MUCH louder...so they will always have a disproportionate voice. The Republicans are far, far better at exploiting this basic modern fact than the Democrats. Poke some random idiot awake, hand him a few thousand bucks, and have him start a podcast about how Barack Obama is a space alien or the 53 billion ILLEGULS who cross the border every three seconds. The Democrats just laugh and say, "That's just some nutjob's bullshit," which is manifestly true, but that doesn't matter at all--it has VOLUME.
So that's why we have a drastically polarized political system dominated by the fringe(s). The ordinary folks don't have the time or inclination to spend all day screaming--so their voices aren't heard. This unfortunate phenomenon was referred to decades ago--I forget by whom--as "the silent majority."
To give you just one example: polls have consistently shown that 70% of Americans want universal single-payer health care, like most of the rest of the modern world. But it took a heroic effort to get the inadequate system we have now, and the Republicans have spent billions of dollars and man-hours trying to destroy it.
You might expect that given the existing system's popularity, Republican efforts to destroy it would be costing them at the polls big time. Their crusade to slash Medicare and Medicaid benefits likewise won't cost them anything, even if they succeed beyond their wildest dreams and manage to cause the deaths of millions of people (all of whom, they tell themselves, will be Democrats).
As far as what California should do, I agree. Democrats are like a prize fighter whose opponent has just kicked them in the balls. We look at the referee in disbelief, and he responds by doing nothing, with a bland expression on his face. So what do we do? Quit fighting? Spend the rest of the fight defending ourselves? Or should we shrug and say, OK, if fighting dirty is legal, then we'll do it too?
We've been losing because we're clinging to our "fight fair" ethical standards while the other side chucked their ethics into the toilet long ago. It's as if one army decided to use mustard gas while the other said "No, that isn't right." Guess who wins?
