Reflections on the Brown phenomenon: we the people against hypocrisy
The Brown phenomenon continues to surprise.
For example, yesterday I went to Firedoglake, a lberal/lefty blog, and saw a post entitled, “Progressives, please help to defeat Coakley.” Once I recovered from my astonishment, and had finished reading the piece and many of the comments there, I think I understood better what’s going on with this group. They feel betrayed.
They are really really really angry at Obama and the Democrats of the 2008 Congress—every bit as angry as most of the commenters on this blog are. And although the reasons for their anger are almost entirely different, they are not completely different.
These people had believed Obama to be a true “progressive,” and he’s disappointed them. Not only that, but the entire Democratic leadership has angered them by being so tight with lobbyists, Wall Street, pharmacy companies, and other entities the commenters thought the Democrats should be fighting against. They think that if Martha Coakley became a senator she would just become part of the gang they would like to disown. And they believe that, if they help to defeat the Democratic Party as they know it (and have come to hate it), the party is likely to implode. Afterward, a new party will rise from the ashes, purged of double-crossers and run by true progressives.
It’s not a goal I share. But do I agree with their outraged perception of the base hypocrisy of those who are in charge right now. That’s one idea on which left and right can unite.
Read the comments to get a flavor of what I’m talking about. Over and over, there are remarks to the effect that the Democratic Party has abandoned its core values, principles, and constituents, and that it desperately needs to be sent a message. These people feel used, and they were. Many of them had an idealistic belief in what the Party intended to do. They had felt ecstatic just one short year ago, when they were on top of the world. Now they’ve come to earth with a crashing thud, and they don’t like it one little bit.
Something is stirring in the land. A goodly part of the motivation on both sides is outrage at the hypocrisy of our elected officials, and the ignoring of the people’s voice and the people’s wishes. Almost no one, whether on left or right, voted for their candidates in order for them to design a bill as bad as the current health care reform legislation now appears to be. It offends both left and right, while satisfying neither.
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have managed to profoundly betray the majority of the American people in one short year. It’s quite a feat.
At one point a few months ago, a public opinion poll in Israel said 96% of Israelis didn’t trust Obama, with a plus or minus 4 margin of error. Which meant that no one in Israel, possibly, trusted him.
Anyone who knows about Israel know that is a miracle, that ANYTHING could unite that fractious crowd, but Obama, the Miracle Worker, sure did it.
Again, he’s working miracles, bringing the Right and Left together in a strange way…but he’s doing it!
He might be the best thing to happen to us all in years! Snark fully intended, of course, but maybe there is a grain of truth in it; We’re now fully awakened to the threat of the slow encroachment of socialism. Obama et al went TOO fast and scared the crap out of us, with good reason. Let’s hope we continue to follow through and work towards reestablishing good governance and bringing more freedom and opportunity back to this great country.
What’s a bit scary is that there are people in the Democratic Party who think Obama is too moderate.
A Democratic Party purged of what’s left of its moderates and true to its progressive principles is not likely to be successful on a wide scale. One would think this would be obvious, as Obama’s administration may not be ideologically pure but it’s much more progressive than any Democratic administration within memory.
What I would like to see, but have no expedctations, is a party that combines the centrist Democrats, those like me read out of the party, and the centrist to slightly right of center Republicans. Unfortunately experience shows that it’s hard to create a surge in the center.
Maurice; Obama also managed to unite the Israeli left wing parties behind Netanyahu’s rightists, another miracle.
Alex, I am ambivalent about progressive disillusionment with Obama. On the one hand, I admire them for sticking to principle, even against practical partisan benefit. There is surely something more noble about supporting someone because you believe he can do good than supporting him because that is the best way to power.
OTOH, these principles they are loyal to are dangerous.
There IS something important happening in our country. People are sick and tired of the “old school” politicians in both parties. And sick and tired of too much government spending and huge debts.
The Tea Party movement is valid but it would be a big mistake to try to field a 3rd party candidate in 2012. That would guarantee relection of Obama.
It would be far better for the true Tea Partiers to work to gain control of the Republican Party.
Ohhhhhhhhhh, I FEEL the pain & agony of the Lefties. Luv it. Luv it. Luv it ! The more the Libs & Lefties and DemoRats bite, snarl and bleed each other, The Better.
Go, Scott !
It’s not over yet.
While I hope he wins, the ONLY poll I believe is the one taken on election day and these days, I only half believe that, if it’s close.
A reminder from an Instapundit post:
While I admire those on the far Left that are willing to attack President Obama and the Democrats for abandoning their principles, I, too, think that many of the principles that they find attractive simply do not work and are dangerous to the Republic.
I would also remind them that they were incredibly foolish to believe the soaring yet empty rhetoric of the past election and to ignore their party’s sordid history for the prior two years when they ran Congress. They abandoned their principles to get political power in the first place. Once you do that, you have to be pretty naive to expect the party to give up their advantages and govern honestly.
I would also extend an invitation to those on the far Left: if you find that the power of Washington lobbyists is corrupting the process, then why not join with those on the Tea Party movement that actually have ideas to attack that problem? Instead of dishing out hate and contempt against the “Teabaggers”, how about listening for a change and actually working to fix the problem?
RE: MA Senate election
The old saying goes that “the only poll you should believe is the one on election day”. Not in a state like Massachusetts. Once the Not-So-Democratic machine gets finished cooking the election results, you may not be able to believe those poll results either.
If Scott Brown can’t win big and demoralize the Democratic base, carloads of fraudulent ballots will turn the election for Coakley.
What progressive principles are you talking about? Progressives don’t have principles, they have postures. Not having principles let you say, without any embarrassment or shame, that, “I voted for that bill before I voted against it.” Progressives want power. They don’t want big business at the table because they are smarter and don’t want to share power once they get it. They were for the war in Iraq until they determined that it was in their political interests to be against it, even though our country’s tradition was that politics should end at the water’s edge and not intrude into foreign wars.
So, the anger is not in Tonedef’s lack of principal, it is in his lack of purity.
I suspect their feelings could be encapsulated in this speech of Oliver Cromwell’s when he dissolved Parliament in 1653, saying…
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
“Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth
“Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d; your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean Stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings, and which by God’s help and the strength He has given me, I now come to do.
“I command ye, therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. You have sat here too long for the good you do. In the name of God, go!”
In Cromwell’s case, this presaged his rise to dictator.
In the present case, I think it is a call for a long overdue house (and senate 🙂 cleaning.
–
Everyone would agree on this — except for Pelosi, Reid and their acolytes in Congress:
Subject: HR615
Whatever your political affiliation, I think everyone would agree on this
one!
It takes 30 sec.
On Tuesday, the Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page
amendment, courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn which would require all Members
of Congress and their staff members to enroll in any new government-run
health
plan.
Congressman John Fleming has proposed an amendment that would require
Congressmen and Senators to take the same health care plan that they are
proposing on us. (Under proposed legislation they are exempt.) Congressman
Fleming is encouraging people to go to his Website and sign his petition.
The
process is very simple. I have done just that at:
http://fleming.house.gov/index.html
If it doesn’t get you to the home page right away, go to
www:fleming.house.gov
Fill out name address, etc…click “YES” and submit!! *
I think it is basically a sign that a good chunk of the democratic progressive base are just big children… but we knew that…
Progressives have always always always tried to work with big business. It’s part of their argument that they are not socialists. We don’t need to own the means of production, just regulate it enough to be ‘fair’. Back to FDR, they’d try to work with big business to achieve what they wanted…
But anyway, it’s just karma for the democrats. They allowed so much nonsense to fester on their side when it seemed to help (like cultivating the adbuster’s corporate conspiracy crowd types) and now it is biting them on the butt.
I think, its good to look back why Coakley and Brown got into this mess. In this manner, one could discern more fully that in politics, one should stand tall what he believes to be true and appropriate. thus politics is taken to be an idea and it can only defeated with the best principle one has to hold on in a particular situation. After all, its not about hypocrisy, its not about betrayal. it is about political principles.
Soon, this controversy will be over. The election result will tell us who deserves. it does not mean that the winner is the best but he/she is given opportunity to serve his/her contituents. God Bless America!!!!
In this election in particular ,it would be well to remember the quote attributed to Stalin:
“It’s Not the People Who Vote that Count; It’s the People Who Count the Votes”
Hey neo, I’m pretty sure you won’t mind me copying and pasting your following analysis to my esteemed Sen-a-tors, followed by Paul’s great Cromwell summary:
Something is stirring in the land. A goodly part of the motivation on both sides is outrage at the hypocrisy of our elected officials, and the ignoring of the people’s voice and the people’s wishes. Almost no one, whether on left or right, voted for their candidates in order for them to design a bill as bad as the current health care reform legislation now appears to be. It offends both left and right, while satisfying neither.
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have managed to profoundly betray the majority of the American people in one short year. It’s quite a feat.
I’ll refer to you as a very competent observer of things.
It’s too late for any objections, the deed is done. I’ve been trying to strike them with truth, spoken definitively. This thing ain’t gonna pass. If it does, things only get worse for them, which is one of my messages that they can “take to the bank”. Your statement perhaps gives the individual Senators another out.
My Rep. rep. is against the Bill. My Senators are both Dem..
If Brown wins – and I really hope he does – I will start being a good boy and looking forward to next Christmas and all of the presents Santa is going to leave me….
God I hope I’m wrong about what I think is going to happen in this election.
Via Instapundit, the Daily Beast says Romney played a big role in Brown’s campaign.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-17/mitt-romneys-man/full/
A Democratic Party purged of what’s left of its moderates and true to its progressive principles is not likely to be successful on a wide scale.
I know a ‘Jane Hamsher.’ I worked with this person for many years and she is one of my oldest friends. My Jane has always forgiven my non-Progressive views because she has always had affection for me(and I for her) — and also because I am artistic. A couple of my landscapes and a double-portrait of her 2 children hang on her walls.
Many folks will forgive artists for their political and philosophic views — a habitude which I believe is more prevalent on the Left than on the Right. For whatever reason they put artists in a protected status. Thus, I am mostly exempt from the more vituperative aspects of her scorn. “Poor man — totally wrong in his politics, of course. But what can we expect? He’s an artist, after all. And his heart is in the right place.”
I tolerate her beliefs because I have never considered politics to be important in personal relationships. Politics, I believe, are significant only on a macro level, not on a micro level. Also, I know for sure that my Jane is sincere in that she truly believes the Progressive Way is the true, good path to societal salvation. She means well and doesn’t realize that her fervor is driven mainly by a neurotic personality.
My Jane’s viewpoint consists ostensibly of a refried Marxism. These folks have usually never read a book on the subject of Marxism, have usually not been exposed much to the actual principles and tenets of Marxism but instead derive their beliefs from the decadent version of Marxism that has become inculcated into Western culture through the years since Marx wrote his books — the phenomenon known as Progressivism.
My Jane, like Hamsher, has intense anger at what she considers the ‘Evil Right.’ But like Hamsher, she is now very angry at Obama and is willing, indeed, EAGER to destroy Obama and the Democrats in order to prove a point. In this way the ‘Hamshers’ on the Left are the mirror image of the ‘Coulters’ on the Right. Their hatred and ideological rigidity is so strong that they are perfectly willing work against their own side’s cause if all of their pet political peeves aren’t catered to. Compromise is not in their vocabulary. They possess no sense of finesse. I’m grateful that this time it is the ideologues on the Left that are helping to pull down their own house.
This new non vulgar Obama Hitler parody touches on the Coakley race.
“Obama tipping point: Coakley (Hitler parody)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP7GJRYiZ14
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Paul_In_Houston: great speech by Cromwell; quite apropos.
But it’s not an accident that this paved the way for a dictator. See this.
Say, today is Martin Luther King Day; it’s not for no reason that Dr. King was a REPUBLICAN!
Neo:
Just read your link, and I get what you are saying.
That doesn’t change the fact that Cromwell’s speech seems to perfectly describe the current bunch in charge, and most of the MSM for that matter.
There are dangers in Howard Beale’s “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” rant, but nonetheless…
I think it kinda boils down to “Throw Them Out!!!”, but be damned careful what you replace them with.
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Paul_In_Houston: agreed!
I think of Beale as well.
Thank you, neo:
Hate to cut this conversation short, but LIFE intrudes; have to get ready to go to work. 🙂
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You can only stay in a hypnotic trance so long and eventually you wake up.
POTUS – part time hypnotist and full time propagandist just had his slight of hand and mouth tricks exposed.
Speaking of Obama’s hypocrisy, here’s Bill Clinton on Obama during the primaries:
Then, of course, both Clintons became part of that hypocrisy.
Retread of old MA joke:
Q. Which MA city is named in honor of Martha Coakley?
A. Marblehead!
grackle Says:
“My Jane’s viewpoint consists ostensibly of a refried Marxism.”
I think Marxists call these strains of thought ‘vulgar Marxism’. Works for me.
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Coakley is going to win,simple truth for appearance sake, it will be close,but the Dem machine is just doing a trial run to steal future elections later in 2010
Rufus…afraid you are right although I hope not.
You cant poll dead people and all the registered voters that don’t exist. Every dirty trick possible will be used.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/59993
Darrell,here is how :As reported by CNS News, “In Massachusetts, 116,483 registered voters are dead, 3.38 percent of the state’s total of registered voters. Another 538,567, or 15.6 percent, had moved to an area outside of where they are registered to vote.”
Sounds like it’s fecked up, doesn’t it?
Probably makes the Democrats happy. So many, many, many opportunities to vote fraudulently!
I’m starting to worry. I’ve been hanging out over at Blue Mass Group, having fun using the Concern Troll methods. My alter ego, Robespierre, has been doing what he can to sow pessimism but the Libtards seem awfully confident today.
They’re pushing Youtube footage of Scott Brown nodding, saying “We can do that,” when a voice in the crowd mentions sticking a curling iron up Martha Coakleys rear end. They’re realling pushing this, as well as Brown chuckling about the President’s mother not being married. They claim their Get Out The Vote is digging in because of these videos.
Anyway, I’m wading back into the fray for a while. I won’t be long. There’s only so much cognitive dissonance a man can take.
We are in a populist moment.
It can be used to restore structured liberty or it can be used to storm the gates and create another 60’s style degredation.
Lets help these young progressive to see the lesson: Power will always sell you out if it can. So you have to run a system where it usually can’t.
We divide power, or power divides us.
A righteous post. Superbly thought provoking. Well done!
grackle Says:
This is very close to my view of today’s left. I woundn’t say that everything the 20th century Progressives put forward was all wrong, but since the McGovern era of the early ’70s, it seems as if any sense of pragmatism and reason has left them. They are driven by an unreasoning rigidity, and an intense loyalty to osolete, shopworn leftist ideas from the ’30s or from the ’60s. (Hence the enomous government power-grab health care deform that they tried to ram through.)
And when rigid adherence to ideology no longer works, throw in some senseless emotionality and sentimentality… as the commenter cited by Neo in her E.J. Dionne post said so well:
The lefties irrationally thought that Obama would come in, and that all would be well… bad old Bush would be out of office, the sun would shine in the sky, flowers would grow, and all would be well.
Well, it seems like all the irrational leftist exhuberance has now backfired, and the rational common sense of most Americans is coming to fore. I do in fact believe that a victory for Brown will be a victory against hypocrisy, and against a democrat power grab. On that basis, I will be celebrating such a victory, as I will also be celebrating what I truly believe will be a monumental Democrat defeat in November.
And as for today’s left, as one who has been familiar with some of its practitioners on a personal basis, I look forward to witnessing the weeping and gnashing of teeth which will occur in their ranks when their chosen one loses his glow.
Grackle came close to what is really happening here.
Today’s progressives have no idea what they are talking about. Therefore, they are very easy to confuse. Confused, they are.
Today’s progressives believe in what you may call “free freedom”. Its a world where they can have everything they have now, including all of their freedoms, plus have society turned upside down and all the problems (poverty, health care, etc) solved at the same time.
Obama and his team know how contradictory that is. They are going for the classical form of progressivism which is essentially totalitarianism, just short of the pure socialist version. The “pure” supporters don’t understand this. They think Obama can truly create miracles, and not use power in a destructive way. They may be upset, but they are such a small portion of the population, they probably don’t matter much.
James
Jim Sullivan, blessings on your head. Don’t wear yourself out, but do a little each day with persistence.
My sister is one such. Last year, as I kept sending her damning information about Hussein (though only every fortnight or so), she said at last, “Don’t waste any more time on me; I’ve already voted by absentee ballot for Obama. I just feel like it’s Nicer to be part of a Community and for all of Us to Pull Together. I don’t want to vote for a bunch of rich people.”
This is my Sister, the Political Idiot. But a very lovely person in other respects. The pathetic thing is, she and my other friends of that ilk actually believe this tripe. (There’s very little Thinking going on.)
I’m an artist, too. And I almost never “out” myself to my lefty friends as a neoconservative. Though sometimes I just have to say something: such as when an ex-Catholic actress and secular Jewish artist I know were talking excitedly about Protestant Christians “all secretly admiring HITLER.” I called bullsh*t on that one, and added, sweetly, “I did have a problem when Anita Dunn, one of Obama’s czar[ina]s, said that she greatly admired Chairman Mao as a philosopher. I mean, he did butcher some fifty million people.”
They were gobsmacked. Here they’d thought I was totally down with them and hatin’ on the Christians. Arseholes.
I really don’t know how much longer I can dissemble. I have fantasies of getting a job on Fox News, where only HALF the staff donated to al-Gore and Obummer.
Beverly,
First, excellent job on responding to these lefty idiots and their knee-jerk hatreds. Excellent comeback.
Further, this is a perfect example of the irritating nonsense that I’ve run into personally when I’ve encountered some of my lefty acquaintances. This same knee-jerk BS that passes
for “enlightenment” among that crowd. This is precisely the reason that I’ll be glad to see their weeping and gnashing of teeth (a Bible reference, hehe) when their Obama parade gets rained on, and their feel-good “yes we can” nonsense goes under.
Schadenfreude: it’s whats for dinner!
It’s a theme that must be repeated because it’s so hard to believe: liberals really do hate America. It sounds over-the-top, it sounds impossible, it sounds downright silly. But try talking to one. Have a conversation — on ANY SUBJECT AT ALL — and count the number of times they say something insulting or demeaning about America or Americans. It’s startling. Throw in the tally of cracks about Christians and white people and it’s alarming. Apparently liberals spend every waking moment stewing in hatred.
I’m not a psychologist so I have no idea where this comes from. Is it simply unthinking parroting of what the media repeats in every way, hour after hour of every day? Is it some kind of Freudian resentment of Mommy and Daddy? Is it something to do with their own inadequacy?
Whatever causes it, it’s real, it’s widespread, and it’s very very dangerous. Unless we can reverse this, we’re headed for times which will make us look back fondly on the Obama Administration.
It’s a theme that must be repeated because it’s so hard to believe: liberals really do hate America.
America is the most benign and free great power the world has ever known. An open-minded reading of history is all it takes to realize this simple truth.
I think many of the America-haters suffer from a neurotic self-loathing that is projected into a hatred of America. It becomes easier for them if they confine their reading to history written after the 60s when a revised version of history began to be written by Lefty professors.
Afterward, a new party will rise from the ashes, purged of double-crossers and run by true progressives.
This should be encouraged. They’ll never get enough support to be a contender, and they’ll never accept compromise to move their agenda forward by inches.
Theres an excellent Peter Wehner article in Commentary magazine , which I think is quite well written and very much on point. Here is an excerpt (with some deletions):
I recommend reading the whole thing .