Re: "In contrast to 2008" (and I assume you mean by 'our side' you mean Republicans and/or conservatives - and to be clear, with respect, this is not 'my side') -- my impression so far is that the Republican 'top tier' candidates are virtually the same ones that ran in '08 - Romney, Huckabee, Paul are all going to be in the mix again. McCain obviously won't, and Giuliani and Thompson probably won't either, but I'd have a hard time calling either of the last two 'top tier' the way they ran their campaigns.
I do fully endorse everything written by Mark Thompson; a really good piece of analysis.
I was not aware of the Marshall study or that factoid; in addition to what everyone else already said, as bloody as the 20th century was, it's hard to imagine it being 5 times worse.
The primary difference being is that the electoral college changes come out of the Census *alone*; the reapportionment is a function of both the census results *and* this latest election.
I am not sure though, if states that do not see a change in # of representatives need to necessarily re-apportion (or do they still have to to make sure districts are still the same size if population shifts have altered the districts' population?)
If states with no change in # of reps don't need to reapportion, the only ones with a trifecta shift and a rep # change together are IL, IA, MI*, NY, PA*, and OH* - which all are slated to lose one ('cept OH two) , and the three * are newly minted Republican trifecta
It was actually worse than apathy; more favorable impressions of the Tea Party look correlated with 'No' votes:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#val=CAI01p2 (about half way down)
I've only started reading Balloon Juice again in the past few months on and off after a several year hiatus, but libertarians, particularly straw ones, have these days consistently been the bete noire for him and many of his colleagues on the site these days. (but he also has a specific antagonism toward the entire reason gang - and of course the Kochtopus)
It was a throwaway comment, but the religious right wasn't the reason Rudy didn't get the nomination - Rudy is the reason Rudy didn't get the nomination. If anything, the religious right is what kept Romney from breaking through, but you state that Romney is one in the pantheon of theocon champions and you have the Mormons with the (plurality) right wing Catholics and (majority) Evangelical Protestants as a single bloc in your analysis.
Which is true as far as it goes, but I would submit has *always* been a bloc like this of cyclic waxing and waning influence in American politics (and pre-American politics i.e. the first iteration of the Great Awakening)
So, with the stated assumption that this bloc has always existed, the case to be proved is that it is somehow today a unique threat and/or 'clear and present danger'. My quick dashed off opinion (to be sure from just the Economist interview and without reading the book) is that it has not. Not if their high water mark (and Waterloo) was Terry Schiavo. If that's all they got, the Republic is safe from any particular danger from that avenue. They are, in other quarters, blamed for the Iraq war*, but for one, they had a lot of help from other factions, for two the iraq war wasn't unpopular until it was turning into an intractable stalemate after a year and a half in, and for three, all the way back to the effigies of Jay lit at the signing of the eponymous treaty, we Americans have rarely encountered a war they didn't like. (and have rarely liked a war we've had to endure)
One thing you could say that is unique about today's religiously minded culturally conservative (and for the most part ex-urban) voters is that their political alliance with 'wall street' that started with the Buckley fusion and achieved the presidency of Ronald Reagan (and Bush II) is ahistoric and unprecedented in American history. In other eras, this demographic were the core of Jackson Democrats and William Jennings Bryan's acolytes. But this alliance is starting to signs of cracking up (i.e. Huckabee) and another round of banking shenanigans could provide the tipping point to finally fracture it (which in turn would greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the risk you assert)
*as part of a general pattern of millennial dispensationalism and as a consequence normally has Israel as its focus, but any port in the storm working in mysterious ways and all that
Frankly, I was unimpressed by the Appiah piece. I mean, I agree wholeheartedly on ending the drug war, and have reservations about factory farming (of animals). But the piece about the elderly left me cold - and with all due respect, I'm reluctant to hear about anecdotes about eldery care from a nation whose life expectancy is around 57 years. Finally, the environmental problems he touches are all regional ones borne out of poverty, not affluence.
@Robert Cheeks,
These would be the Spainards that lived under Moorish rule for over 700 years and had the most civilized cities in Europe in the 1000th year of the common era and then in the Reconquista era held the world record for Jew killing until the 20th century.
Having the dual premises that corporations have no power in Europe and that 'Corporations' are a monolithic bloc in the US makes Kuznicki's initial snarky dismissal the right call.
On the second order, that may contribute to the stance in the exceprt, one can note that the shipbuilders that make the US ships that would counter a China blue water navy, as well as the shipyards that maintain the ships*, have over the average levels of unionization, and (naturally) a way under-average of overseas outsourced work.
*additionally a good chunk of the overall supply chain
When a Democrat’s support bleeds south, as it did in ’08, it’s a result of a national popularity rather than a regional realignment
And complementing, as in the case in both '52 and '08, the *un*popularity of the outgoing President who was not on the ballot.
For Jackson, the best argument against the Bank was the outcome, not the Constitutionality (although that was a secondary point for him). Not a great leap from these views to FDR’s views about the evils of “economic royalists
But a significant reversal from the Wilson era chartering of the Federal Reserve system, which in my mind marks the decisive point of the Bryan/ T Roosevelt / larger Progressive era re-allignment. (which is the wellspring of the Paulista faction* of the Tea Party movement - and this same faction, for what it worth, thinks Hamilton is one of History's Greatest Monsters (TM)))
*which prior to the election of Obama, and prior to them being called tea parties *was* the movement. The 'movement' since has been co-opted by more mainstream conservative and explicitly republican elements. The paulistas are still part of the movement, but by my SWAG make up now no more than a third of the 'clout' (defined as some lose amalgamation of people, money, and influence) of the current movements
From what I remember reading, before the 2008 price spike and then the worldwide recession that curtailed demand, all the producers in the world (both opec & non-opec), except for the Saudis, were running full speed and had no excess capacity. Some of this was indeed due to state run enterprise inefficiency (esp in Venezuela) but a large part of it (including Venezuela) is that all their sources were covered down on and they were out of new ones to open up.
Yet we call it a democracy, and by ‘democracy’ we mean ‘a general assent to everything.’”
One of the more provacative assertions by the late Jude Wanniski, when he was doing his poly-nomics proto-blog, was that any society, - regardless of whether the government is polis based or mustelidae based - was that if the people are not in active revolt against their government they have given their 'general assent to everything'.
Can't say I completely agree (mostly because one of his stated conclusions from this premise that that most Arab peoples 'want' to live in dictatorships) but it does raise the question of whether sources of soveriegnty are indeed universal.
IIRC, most Arab Americans that have immigrated to the United States are Christian, not Muslim (something like 2/3). And while they are geographically concentrated like all immigrant groups have been since Plymouth Rock, (there is a large and politically significant Arab American community in Michigan, for instance), they (again IIRC) were as well intergrated as any other 1st or 2nd generation 'white people'. (e.g. in comparision both New York and Chicago have enclaves of 1st generation immigrants from eastern europe; my mother grew up in one of these neighborhoods). And also, IIRC, Arab Americans voted primarily Republican prior to 2004.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Moderating Extremists”
Re: "In contrast to 2008" (and I assume you mean by 'our side' you mean Republicans and/or conservatives - and to be clear, with respect, this is not 'my side') -- my impression so far is that the Republican 'top tier' candidates are virtually the same ones that ran in '08 - Romney, Huckabee, Paul are all going to be in the mix again. McCain obviously won't, and Giuliani and Thompson probably won't either, but I'd have a hard time calling either of the last two 'top tier' the way they ran their campaigns.
I do fully endorse everything written by Mark Thompson; a really good piece of analysis.
On “Whose Warmest Heart Recoiled at War”
I was not aware of the Marshall study or that factoid; in addition to what everyone else already said, as bloody as the 20th century was, it's hard to imagine it being 5 times worse.
On “The Census and the Republican Victory in the House”
The primary difference being is that the electoral college changes come out of the Census *alone*; the reapportionment is a function of both the census results *and* this latest election.
I am not sure though, if states that do not see a change in # of representatives need to necessarily re-apportion (or do they still have to to make sure districts are still the same size if population shifts have altered the districts' population?)
If states with no change in # of reps don't need to reapportion, the only ones with a trifecta shift and a rep # change together are IL, IA, MI*, NY, PA*, and OH* - which all are slated to lose one ('cept OH two) , and the three * are newly minted Republican trifecta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Census#2012_election
On “The Worst Argument against Prop 19”
@Jason Kuznicki,
It was actually worse than apathy; more favorable impressions of the Tea Party look correlated with 'No' votes:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/polls/#val=CAI01p2 (about half way down)
On “Anomie Domine”
To echo the distinguished fellow from Canukistan, these dialogs all well worth the price of admission to the intertubes.
On “Nice to Meet You, I’m a Libertarian”
I've only started reading Balloon Juice again in the past few months on and off after a several year hiatus, but libertarians, particularly straw ones, have these days consistently been the bete noire for him and many of his colleagues on the site these days. (but he also has a specific antagonism toward the entire reason gang - and of course the Kochtopus)
On “Damon Linker is not a pluralist”
Shorter me: we have always had these 'religious nutjobs'. They have even done some real damage in the past (e.g. 18th amendment). But America abides.
"
It was a throwaway comment, but the religious right wasn't the reason Rudy didn't get the nomination - Rudy is the reason Rudy didn't get the nomination. If anything, the religious right is what kept Romney from breaking through, but you state that Romney is one in the pantheon of theocon champions and you have the Mormons with the (plurality) right wing Catholics and (majority) Evangelical Protestants as a single bloc in your analysis.
Which is true as far as it goes, but I would submit has *always* been a bloc like this of cyclic waxing and waning influence in American politics (and pre-American politics i.e. the first iteration of the Great Awakening)
So, with the stated assumption that this bloc has always existed, the case to be proved is that it is somehow today a unique threat and/or 'clear and present danger'. My quick dashed off opinion (to be sure from just the Economist interview and without reading the book) is that it has not. Not if their high water mark (and Waterloo) was Terry Schiavo. If that's all they got, the Republic is safe from any particular danger from that avenue. They are, in other quarters, blamed for the Iraq war*, but for one, they had a lot of help from other factions, for two the iraq war wasn't unpopular until it was turning into an intractable stalemate after a year and a half in, and for three, all the way back to the effigies of Jay lit at the signing of the eponymous treaty, we Americans have rarely encountered a war they didn't like. (and have rarely liked a war we've had to endure)
One thing you could say that is unique about today's religiously minded culturally conservative (and for the most part ex-urban) voters is that their political alliance with 'wall street' that started with the Buckley fusion and achieved the presidency of Ronald Reagan (and Bush II) is ahistoric and unprecedented in American history. In other eras, this demographic were the core of Jackson Democrats and William Jennings Bryan's acolytes. But this alliance is starting to signs of cracking up (i.e. Huckabee) and another round of banking shenanigans could provide the tipping point to finally fracture it (which in turn would greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the risk you assert)
*as part of a general pattern of millennial dispensationalism and as a consequence normally has Israel as its focus, but any port in the storm working in mysterious ways and all that
On “A failure of institutions ctd.”
@Jaybird,
I think the inability to separate it from 'White Man's Burden' is *exactly* what Sam is saying.
On “The Future’s Verdict on Us”
Frankly, I was unimpressed by the Appiah piece. I mean, I agree wholeheartedly on ending the drug war, and have reservations about factory farming (of animals). But the piece about the elderly left me cold - and with all due respect, I'm reluctant to hear about anecdotes about eldery care from a nation whose life expectancy is around 57 years. Finally, the environmental problems he touches are all regional ones borne out of poverty, not affluence.
On “State Secrets”
@Robert Cheeks,
"they seek a restoration, a return to the above mentioned principles."
Like, as you alluded to, the principles of the Spanish Inquisition? Well as strategies go it does have the merit of being wholly unexpected.
"
@Robert Cheeks,
These would be the Spainards that lived under Moorish rule for over 700 years and had the most civilized cities in Europe in the 1000th year of the common era and then in the Reconquista era held the world record for Jew killing until the 20th century.
On “Roads, Serfdom”
@Jeff,
Having the dual premises that corporations have no power in Europe and that 'Corporations' are a monolithic bloc in the US makes Kuznicki's initial snarky dismissal the right call.
On “Is O’Donnell Crazy, or Just a Republican?”
@greginak,
Well, she's still a virgin :)
On “Forget viability. What about competence?”
But in an election over a backbencher House seat, does it really make sense to hold candidates accountable for anything other than ideological purity?
You mean a Senate seat that could very well be the deciding vote on a lot of things the way the Senate is currently run, or am I missing a joke here?
On “The Organized Labor-Neoconservative Nexus”
On the second order, that may contribute to the stance in the exceprt, one can note that the shipbuilders that make the US ships that would counter a China blue water navy, as well as the shipyards that maintain the ships*, have over the average levels of unionization, and (naturally) a way under-average of overseas outsourced work.
*additionally a good chunk of the overall supply chain
On “Our First Cyborg President”
Mr. Kuznicki, It’s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react?
On “On free markets”
@E.D. Kain,
Yes, it's terribly immature, but that one sentence just keeps getting funnier each time I read it.
On “While I’m Engaging In Spittle-Flecked Rants”
Excellent post Mr Thompson; I was thinking the same thing myself when I had come across Kristol's piece.
On “Not Even Joseph Epstein Speaks Freely about the Conservative Movement”
@Mike Schilling,
It's a perfectly cromulent way of putting food on the table.
On “The South, realignment, and the consistency of political parties”
Great post
When a Democrat’s support bleeds south, as it did in ’08, it’s a result of a national popularity rather than a regional realignment
And complementing, as in the case in both '52 and '08, the *un*popularity of the outgoing President who was not on the ballot.
For Jackson, the best argument against the Bank was the outcome, not the Constitutionality (although that was a secondary point for him). Not a great leap from these views to FDR’s views about the evils of “economic royalists
But a significant reversal from the Wilson era chartering of the Federal Reserve system, which in my mind marks the decisive point of the Bryan/ T Roosevelt / larger Progressive era re-allignment. (which is the wellspring of the Paulista faction* of the Tea Party movement - and this same faction, for what it worth, thinks Hamilton is one of History's Greatest Monsters (TM)))
*which prior to the election of Obama, and prior to them being called tea parties *was* the movement. The 'movement' since has been co-opted by more mainstream conservative and explicitly republican elements. The paulistas are still part of the movement, but by my SWAG make up now no more than a third of the 'clout' (defined as some lose amalgamation of people, money, and influence) of the current movements
On “Still Puzzled by This One”
@Simon K,
From what I remember reading, before the 2008 price spike and then the worldwide recession that curtailed demand, all the producers in the world (both opec & non-opec), except for the Saudis, were running full speed and had no excess capacity. Some of this was indeed due to state run enterprise inefficiency (esp in Venezuela) but a large part of it (including Venezuela) is that all their sources were covered down on and they were out of new ones to open up.
But I could be wrong.
On “Weasel Stomping Day”
Yet we call it a democracy, and by ‘democracy’ we mean ‘a general assent to everything.’”
One of the more provacative assertions by the late Jude Wanniski, when he was doing his poly-nomics proto-blog, was that any society, - regardless of whether the government is polis based or mustelidae based - was that if the people are not in active revolt against their government they have given their 'general assent to everything'.
Can't say I completely agree (mostly because one of his stated conclusions from this premise that that most Arab peoples 'want' to live in dictatorships) but it does raise the question of whether sources of soveriegnty are indeed universal.
On “Geography, Politics, and Arrogance”
@North,
Is there at least a Tim Horton's?
On “Richard Epstein on Rand Paul’s Gaffe”
@Rufus F.,
IIRC, most Arab Americans that have immigrated to the United States are Christian, not Muslim (something like 2/3). And while they are geographically concentrated like all immigrant groups have been since Plymouth Rock, (there is a large and politically significant Arab American community in Michigan, for instance), they (again IIRC) were as well intergrated as any other 1st or 2nd generation 'white people'. (e.g. in comparision both New York and Chicago have enclaves of 1st generation immigrants from eastern europe; my mother grew up in one of these neighborhoods). And also, IIRC, Arab Americans voted primarily Republican prior to 2004.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.