(I originally wrote the following as a reply to a portion of a comment by n1cholas on Oui’s recent post ABC News and Russia Witch Hunt. It grew, and I am now posting it as a stand-alone.)
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n1cholas wrote:
When sane conservatives are forced to operate as Democrats, then liberals and Democratic Socialists break off and can begin dragging the country forward. And not one moment before.
Outside of the impossibility of a good definition of the word “sane” in this context, it appears to me that you have hit only half of the nail on the head here.
A more complete statement might go something like his:
When sane Republicans are forced to operate as Democrats and sane Democrats are forced to operate as Republicans, then the Democrats can shove troublesome liberals and Democratic Socialists to the side (as did the HRC/DNC forces with Bernie Sanders during the primaries); the sane Republicans can do the same with their own troublesome members and we can once again can begin dragging the country toward the bipartisan neocentrism of the Bush I, Clinton I, Bush II and Obama years. And not one moment before. Only then can the American Empire even possibly continue to reside in its important world position.
Of course, even if that were to happen…a result regarding which the mass media are working more and more feverishly with every passing day…Russia and China would still have something to say about it.
It’s 1984, people.
WTFU.
Oceania covers the entire continents of America and Oceania and the British Isles, the main location for the novel, in which they are referred to as ‘Airstrip One’. Eurasia covers Europe and (more or less) the entire Soviet Union. Eastasia covers Japan, Korea, China and northern India.
1984.
Permanent (nudge-nudge/wink-wink) “war,” which serves to keep the world’s population in a such a permanent state of fear that they can be fairly easily controlled.
1984 came a little later than Orwell imagined…I’d say around the time that Russia and China became sufficiently capitalist/oligarchist to be trusted in this latest version of the Great Game…but we’re in it now.
Up to our necks.
Is there a better solution?
I don’t think so. Not anymore. The system will continue to function just as it is functioning now, at least until it breaks down. (And when might that happen? Years? Decades? Months? Next week? Tomorrow? All bets are off on that subject because the whole system is too potentially volatile. One outside extremist force could…with a single successful WMD attack…change everything.) All “extremists”…and the Trumpers are most definitely that in eyes of the U.S. neocentrist/bipartisan control system, as are the Sanders supporters…all extremists of every stripe will be if not totally eliminated at least reduced to buffoonish cartoon characters that can be thoroughly non-personed by the media and thus laughed off. Trump’s recent success was simply a failure of the U.S. control system. It was not ready for the power of social media, and Trump and his allies (Controllers?) took advantage of this mistake.
That particular error will not be repeated.
They will either totally get rid of Trump and his allies (by any means necessary, hopefully non-violent) or failing that, at the very least cripple them, probably through some sort of change in one (or maybe even two) of the majorities in Congress over the next several years.
Watch.
The center will hold.
This time.
Watch.
Meanwhile, the neoconservatives seem to be ginning up a quorum for war on North Korea.
You didn’t read what I wrote, or stopped reading it. One of the two.
The Republican party, which currently operates 3 branches of the Federal government, most state governments, and local governments, is clearly the worst evil. Full stop. Disagreeing and stating that the Democratic party is just as evil is bullshit, and disagreeing means that it is absolutely pointless to even attempt to communicate further on the matter.
As long as the current Republican party is able to control 3 branches of the Federal government, most state governments and local governments, it is absolutely a mistake to destroy the current Democratic party. Doing so will only strengthen the Republican party, as the first-past-the-post electoral system we have here in objective, observable reality rewards political parties that have the numbers, money, and platform to get people out to vote. Full stop.
So, first and foremost, the Republican party has to become toxic for “sane” Republicans. By sane, I mean Republicans who -gasp- I disagree with on almost any policy, but aren’t actual right-wing authoritarians who will cheer on the destruction of the Republic if it means they’ll be able to have a little more power and a little more money for themselves.
Yes, those Republicans do exist. And they should be on the right-wing of the Democratic, big-tent, party.
There are already right-wing Democrats, and centrist Democrats. And I disagree with their luke-warm at best “liberalism” and status-quo-ism; yet they are also sane, in that they don’t want endless war, Empire, and a theocratic state run by oligarchs. If you are unable to acknowledge this basic state of reality, then we no longer have any reason to communicate further on the issue. Full stop.
And, while in my dream world, Democratic Socialists and liberals who want single-payer, the end of US Empire, and a basic income for everyone, should be the right-wing conservative party, with anarcho-syndicalists leading the way to the next step in self-governance (yes, 99.9% of the people who read this site are waaayyyyy to my right, politically), unfortunately, that is not realistic here in objective, observable reality.
So, first things first. The Republican party has to become toxic, so that “sane” conservatives join the Democratic party because of the stigma of the Republian party. And in objective, observable reality, the Democratic party platform is much better than what we have now. Full stop.
If – horror of horrors – the Democratic party becomes the majority party in the Federal government and can start retaking state and local governments, the “centrist” Democratic party platform is a great starting point. Because, unfortunately, Democratic Socialism is a non-starter at this particular time. First, let’s restart the country back towards basic liberal policies, then we can work on moving it towards Democratic Socialism.
But, none of that happens as long as NeoprogressivesTM continue re-litigating the 2016 primary and minimizing Strongman Trump and the current situation because Ukraine, Emails, and the 1953 Iranian coup. Full stop.
One of the sanest comments I have seen on this blog in recent weeks, period. Right now, the Democratic Party is for all intents and purposes the main opposition party. Imploding the main opposition party would be disastrous for any of us wanting even mildly progressive reforms, let alone making such basics as health care universal. Right now we are in survival mode. Assuming we survive this dark chapter of US history, we can deal with cleaning up the mess left behind, and then can actually hash out policies that may be more genuinely socialistic, etc. Until then, building up the major opposition party and turning it into the governing party strikes me as the sane move. The rest we can deal with later. I’m sympathetic to a good deal of theory well to the left of many here, and would love to see some of that put to practice. But it will never happen in this environment. There might be a fighting chance to see some of those changes in the next decade or so depending on what happens the remainder of this one. And that is where my focus will remain.