The Line Must Hold - Democratic Underground

Resistance Is Futile

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Sat Sep-27-03 06:09 PM
Original message

The Line Must Hold

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/great-unraveling

Suppose you are a leader of a political party with a radical agenda which is actually quite unpopular (as Krugman notes, many voters refuse to believe that anyone could be serious about some of it), hasn't won a national majority in more than a dozen years, and has the demographic tides running against it. Through a combination of parliamentary flukes and lying about your program, you come to power. What, exactly, is your incentive to not ram as much of your agenda through as you possibly can? Normally parties don't fight everything to the hilt, because of the "shadow of the future", the sense that they'll need to cooperate with other parties and anyway there'll be another chance. But a party in that position, no possible future casts a moderating shadow --- this is its last chance, unless it is able to smash the existing order and build a new one entrenching its power.

Bottom line: hold the GOP until demographics render them irrelevant or democracy is over. The GOP wants a one party state and it's not going to take no for an answer.

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Padraig18

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Sat Sep-27-03 06:14 PM
Response to Original message

1. The coup d' etat of 2000

The coup of 2000 was our FINAL 'warning shot', and if we even HOPE to have an election in 2008, we had better quit trashing each other in 2004! I don't know about the rest of you, but I LIKE the idea of self-governance.

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Resistance Is Futile

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Sun Sep-28-03 04:01 PM
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2. Kick past the candidate bashing

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quaker bill

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Sun Sep-28-03 04:03 PM
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3. I concur

WE need to keep our eyes on the prize. We have to win 2004 and by more than just a little bit.

Kick

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knight_of_the_star

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Sun Sep-28-03 04:06 PM
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4. We can't be busy slitting eachother's throats

If the Allies did that in WWII we'd all be singing "Uber Alles" right now. We have to hold the line, stand firm, and unite against our common foe. To do anything else will be courting disaster.

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