I hope you’re enjoying the Karl Rove post-mortems as much as I am. Quite a few commentators, James Carville being the latest, have spoken of Rove’s brand of politics “losing a generation of Republicans.”
Which generation is that? Carville points to this Democracy Corps memo that claims that Democrats stomp Republicans among voters under 30. (That’s not the end of the bad news for the GOP.)
It should be no surprise that young people as a whole seem to flat-out detest the Republican Party — which is no surprise, since the Rove Administration hated them. This administration:
- Sent us into an unnecessary war, killing and maiming many thousands of young people, many of whom were barely out of high school; didn’t provide the best possible protection from injury while they were there; and shat all over their sacrifice when they came back home to the good ol’ USA, with inhuman medical “care” and general neglect;
- Fiddled while the global warming issue burned, endangering life on this planet for future generations;
- Allowed student loan companies free reign to plunder young people’s bank accounts, in the face of rising tuitions;
- Did nothing to provide young people with health care, when people starting their careers are likely to have to go without;
- Spent us trillions further into debt on young people’s credit card, while giving tax breaks to
people who don’t need it;
- Left behind a world manifestly less safe from terrorism;
- Exploited hate, fear and division against gay people — an attitude that young people by and large reject.
And on and on. Man, that is some hard-core wedge politics — political cannibalism, really: Pitting the older generation’s interests and prejudices directly against the younger’s.
And that leads us to this moment of great opportunity for progressive Democrats — to keep this legacy fresh in the minds of voters, to remind folks that Rove had a lot of help; and to go beyond mere technocratic solutions to the above problems to a genuine realignment of values, toward empathy, courage, reason and justice. Rove & Co. just handed us this moment on a silver platter; how can we not take it?
A victory gained by default is empty.
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The democrats may have this one handed to them, but given performance I seriously doubt that we can say the have earned it.
The Liberal Democrats in Japan win by default regularly, and it doesn’t seem to bother them.
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Regardless, a victory by default is a far sight better than victory through robbing voters with help from Daddy’s Supreme Court.
…he’ll still be the eminence gris (sp?) just not in an official capacity.
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I doubt very seriously that he will hurt financially for it. How much do those right-wing belief tanks pay for speeches? He’ll make more money in a month than Howie Carr makes in a year.
Rove never built, he destroyed, always seeking not just to win but to destroy his opponent. Thus that is his legacy: a ruined White House, poisoned politics, and a fractured Republican Party.
Let’s pretend for a moment we aren’t in Massachusetts.
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Nationally, YR (Young Republican) and CR (College Republican) membership is up by about 1/3. Young People are not a monolith. Somebody just getting off a CHIPS health insurance program to register to vote at 18 isn’t going to buy the ‘no health care for the young’ argument. As many are upset about Social Security as student loans, and the Democrats refusal to allow individual accounts.
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Saying Young People hate the GOP is like saying that Women will vote for Hillary. The women I know would not vote for her if you set their hair on fire, but are treated as part of that monolith anyway.
I’m not making it up. That’s what the polls say. The kids (by and large) don’t like the GOP.
…Republicans don’t care about their young. They care only about the here and now.
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* so that you don’t feel a need to go to Babblefish, that means “it’s only a matter of money.” A German expression, of course. And a sarcastic one.