sister souljah this
matt welch writes a reasoned and articulate argument on a subject i've long been honestly confused about: why the right seems to think the moonbat left is a) a legitimate part of the democratic party and b) is actually something to be feared:
Michael Moore did not even belong to the Democratic Party in 2000; his candidate was Ralph Nader, and Ralph Nader got a meager 2.7% of the vote. For the sake of argument, if you assume (wrongly) that every single one of those Nader voters, plus the 1.3% or so that defected from him in the last minute, represent "the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party," you are talking about 4% of the electorate, and maybe 8% of the Democratic Party. The real figure is likely much lower.What about this year? In the primary season, Moore endorsed Wesley Clark, who campaigned like a boob, won one primary, and bowed out. Howard Dean, who is assumed (wrongly) to have Moore-like values (despite being a fiscal hawk who supported the four previous U.S.-led wars), didn't win a single primary. The Democratic candidate whose politics most closely mirrored Moore's was Dennis Kucinich, who was beaten like a rented elf. The nomination went to the former prosecutor & War Hero, and he picked as VP the second-most hawkish candidate from the primaries. And the Democratic Party Platform contained few if any of the provisions that the Moore/Nader/Kucinich 8% wing have been advocating for lo these many years.
Look, I used to work for these people, I have covered these people, I have certainly criticized these people, and from this extended exposure I can look you in the eye and say these people do not have a significant voice within the modern Democratic Party.
the michael moores of the world are as loony as everyone makes them out to be, and guess what? most of the democratic party looks at these people with the same disdain one would one feel towards, say, pop up ads on your computer. they're an annoyance; they're obnoxious and loud and can interfere with your otherwise purposeful and noble internet surfing experience; but WE NEVER CLICK THROUGH ON THEM TO ACTUALLY BUY THEIR SHIT AND IN FACT ALWAYS CLOSE THEM IMMEDIATELY OR INSTALL GOOGLE TOOLBAR.
now, that may have been a lousy analogy, but it's more or less truthful. how much actual electoral power within the democratic power does michael moore have? the unwashed hippie protestors of the world? the people making bush-hitler analogies? the noveau communists?
the answer is: absolutely zero. they have an agenda, but it is ignored. they put up their candidates (nader, kucinich), but they are soundly defeated within the democratic party and primaries. and i am absolutely convinced of the fact that moonbat lefties only get any attention at all because republicans seem so utterly terrified of them that they are constantly bringing their stupidity and pointless rhetoric into the limelight. and why shouldn't republicans do it? it serves them well. they can convince moderates that michael moore is actually running john kerry's campaign and once he's elected, moore will be the PUPPETMASTER and totally make abortions mandatory for everybody, publicly execute all returning marines, and install osama bin laden as chief justice of the supreme court.
meanwhile, over back on the ranch, welch elaborates on the fringe of the republican party...except they're not the fringe. they're powerful GOP politicians:
At the Republican Convention, one could find strolling the halls and signing autographs for worshipful Republican delegates the likes of Jerry Falwell. Who, you may recall, reacted to the Sept. 11 massacre by telling a nodding Pat Robertson that:I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen."
Did Bush "miss a Souljah moment" by refusing to allow Falwell his seat at the RNC (which the Souljah-jonesers in the media demanded of Kerry and Moore)? Somehow, this didn't come up.
Anyway, the main point is not to compare competing fringes, but mostly to point out that the Republicans' extremist fringe includes powerful senior elected politicians from their own party. Moore, for all his sitting-next-to-people action at the DNC, was not invited on the podium. Rick Santorum, the senator from Pennsylvania who has described outlawing gay marriage as "the ultimate Homeland security," gave a rousing speech to the Republicans. Tom Coburn, the new Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for abortion doctors, and held up Fidel Castro's forced AIDS camps as a model worth emulating. Jim DeMint, your new Senator from South Carolina, thinks that single pregnant women shouldn't teach in public schools. If Bush wanted to deliver a "Sister Souljah moment," embracing cross-over moderation at the expense of his own party's fringe, he wouldn't need to take a swipe at a non-politician like Ann Coulter -- he could start in the august hall of the Unites States Senate.
so, anyone whining that the democratic party is controlled by the whacky left, you can shut your trap. i am a lifelong, card-carrying democrat of a gal, and i can tell you: these people never have had any power. they never will have any power. at most, they make up something like 5% of the democratic party. you can continued to be terrified that they will one day rule the earth, but if you're actually so afraid of fringe elements taking over our country, you'd be well advised to look inside the GOP and deal with and denounce them there.
Comments
Jesus Christ, Catherine, this is ridiculous. If you want to bitch about prominent Republicans being far right, you shouldn't quote a reference to three politicians, two of whom were JUST ELECTED FOR THE FIRST TIME. Probably not the biggest power brokers in Washington at the moment. Which leaves you with Rick Santorum. Which is fairly easily balanced out by Kucinich.
If you want to make a point about right-wingers being in charge of the Republican Party, why not just start and stop with George W. Bush? It seems like this guy went out of his way to prove a point everyone basically already understood with assy logic.
That being said, I think the "moonbat left" has a little more say than you realize. Kerry, keep in mind, was a pretty liberal guy during his tenure in the Senate. Just because he ran his ass to the middle during the presidential campaign doesn't mean he would have governed that way. And I think any party that's been out of power for a little while is going to look like the more moderate party. When you win, then you start creeping over to your base, because you can. When you lose, you creep to the center to try to win in the future.
give me a break. kerry is not part of the moonbat left, not even close. kucinich is the closest we get, i think, and even then he's not that bad. so you've got santorum bashing gays left and right; you've got rush limbaugh doing senate fundraisers; you've got jerry falwell, who is incredibly influential in the GOP, traisping around at conventions; you've got the right asking us to repudiate michael moore while ann coulter and michelle malkin, the righteous fascist babes of the party, are accepted. the right thinks hollywood and like, bruce springsteen are dictacting policy. it's ridiculous. the fringe element of the right has much more influence than that of the left.
Those people you name on the right have no more influence than those on the left. To you, Kerry looks like he's not part of the moonbat left BECAUSE YOU AGREE WITH HIM. I'm not saying he's totally nuts. But he's a lefty, and if you were born in Kansas you'd probably think he was fucking out there. Of course Kucinich isn't that bad to you, BECAUSE YOU AGREE WITH HIM.
These people you name as incredibly influential on the right, where do you get this crap? Falwell is not incredibly influential on the right. He has some influence on Evangelical Christians. That is a strong part of the Republican base, but it hardly constitutes the whole of it. He doesn't make policy for the administration anymore than Moore or Franken make it for Democrats.
I really think you should take, like, a week off from writing politics and focus on some things you may be able to write clearly about. Like wine, cheese, or whiney cheesey indie pop bands.
kerry's no moderate, but he's not going around bashing groups of people or saying groups should take the blame for 9/11 or that abu ghraib was just letting off some steam. you also continue to make little sense when blaming me for not realizing the people for the true lefty freaks they are because i agree with them. what the fuck are you talking about? i'm a more centrist democrat than probably any person on the left who reads this blog. i wasn't a fan of the more liberal parts of kerry's record. i don't like the moonbats anymore than the next person, but i can at least realize when a politician is reasonable in what they're trying to achieve. santorum, coburn and demint (even though the latter two are new senators) are not reasonable. some of their strongest beliefs represent the fringiest of the fringe.
anyway, no, of course falwell is not making policy. though wouldn't that be fun. my point is that people who are technically fringe on the right, or should be considered as such, are fully accepted into the GOP, speaking at conventions, respected in the party, etc, and no one calls them on it or ever asks major republicans to denounce the crazy ass shit they say. instead everyone gets hysterical about the lefty fringe taking over the democratic party, when no one in the party even really pays attention to them or gives them respect.
Perhaps you ought to take a breath yourself and calm down. Telling people to stop talking about politics is almost as unproductive as what I can only interpret as a puerile attempt to insult Catherine. But both tactics are quite effective in undermining anything useful you might have to add.
it's okay, susan. mark's in a perpetual state of a) hysteria and b) thinking he's smarter than everyone else. i'm very used to it by now.
though i do always appreciate people dictating what i should write on my own blog.
Catherine, I think you should write more about Italy and things you hate.
Just kidding. I kid. I KID!
Let me add that my senator, Bill Nelson, came out of F911 with big thumbs up...and that Terry McCauliffe said he believed everything in that movie to be true. So...are those two mainstream Democrats? Or moonbats?
No, of course they're not moonbats. But the party's "embrace" of Michael Moore did lasting damage. And I cringe everytime I hear or see Falwell anywhere! I think it is an apt comparison. Especially after what was said after 9/11 about feminists and gays bringing this on ourselves. So your point is well taken. But...don't think Moore's damage is somehow a wash. It was real. It helped Bush get reelected.
Just my two cents. Snark-free, I hope. --s
Catherine:
Just because I think I'm smarter than you doesn't mean I think I'm smarter than everyone.
I stand by my main point, that the Republicans and the Democrats are dominated by similar levels of radical fringe elements.
And citing two just-elected Congressmen, in addition to a more tenured one, is not anywhere near enough evidence to change that.
then even if your point is true, why is it almost universally accepted that the left fringe dominates or is about to dominate the democratic party, while the republican party gets away never being called on their crazy ass members, and no one ever asks them to denouce crap that jerry falwell says? there's a double standard with this stuff.
That is a very different point, Catherine. My point is that both sides have nuts on them, and the Republicans are no more dominated by theirs than are the Democrats. If you see a double standard (which I don't think I see as much), there may be a good reason for it. For instance, I think Falwell kept a bit of a lower profile over the course of this election than did Moore. He didn't put out a Kerry-bashing movie, and he certainly didn't win the Palm D'Or (or whatever the fuck Cannes gives out) for it. Or, on the other hand, the Bush political machine probably did a much better job painting Kerry as an effete Hollywood liberal (tying him to Moore) than Kerry did to pin Bush to the radical Religious Right. I don't think there's some media conspiracy out there screwing the Democrats over.
Speaking of the Kerry-bashing movie, did they actually end up showing that on all the Sinclair stations? I lost the thread on that story after a while.
no i don't think it's a media conspiracy, though i do think the media covers the moonbats a lot more than the religious right crazies - but i find it a lot of the time with republican people who say stuff like, "oh, well, i might only vote democrat if they weren't controlled by the loonie left and michael moore, but seeing as they are, they're obviously bad for the country and i'm voting straight republican." i can't count the number of times i've read this on blogs or heard it in conversation. it's the stupidest shit.
anyway, i do agree a bit with scott's assessment that moore didn't help kerry any. hopefully people like him realize this and will try to keep a lower profile in the next election. either that or they'll finally realize that the democratic party isn't going to actually implement anything they want, and they'll vote for another nader, which we wouldn't be too happy about. so i guess we need them after a sense, just like the right needs religious wackos. which is unfortunate.
To Susan:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56028-2004Oct23.html
In summary, they backed off significantly, but did air some anti-Kerry stuff.
To Catherine:
I have never actually heard a Republican say that he wouldn't vote for a Democrat because of Michael Moore. Of course, I live right outside the People's Republic of Cambridge, so I don't hear very many Republicans say anything. At any rate, I think we can all agree that Michael Moore is a tubby, mayonnaise-chugging bitch.
To Mark:
http://www.criticallyinsane.com/blog/archives/000025.html
Real charming, guy.
I stand by the humor content of that post. And of the response.
I stand by fuck you, Mark.
I can't tell if you're pissed or not.
I'd be pissed. In fact, I think I am.--s
"Have a sense of humor. The world is funny"
Why is calling someone a, er.., what you called him, why is that funny? I never understood the comedy behind words that are also sometimes shouted in the process of bottles being thrown, or while you're getting the shit kicked out of you.
Ever had the shit kicked out of you, Mark? --s
A lot of words get thrown around when people get their asses kicked. But I'm going to assume that there's only one (or one and it's relatives) that you don't want used.
Seanbaby puts it a lot better than I would, so I'll just link to it here. The whole article is funny, but the relevant part is at the very bottom. Words are words. You can read anything you want into them, if you want, and you can believe I'm an awful gay-hating dick, if you want, but I think you'd be a little hard-pressed to find any real evidence of that (because it doesn't exist).
The worst part of getting your ass kicked is getting your ass kicked.
I kind of stopped reading this thread, but I just wanted to chime in: Mark, you're an asshole.
So let me just make a few things clear....
It's ok to call me an asshole and mean it (matty). It's ok to call a huge portion of the American population hatemongers when you disagree with their position on a political issue (tom). It's ok to call white women stupid (matty) for voting for Bush. But it's not ok for me to call someone a fag as a joke?
You're completely fucking out of your minds.
Also, Catherine, if it's not ok for me to tell you what to write on your blog, why did you do the exact same thing to me?
hey, you can write whatever you want on your blog. i just said what you had written was lame and pathetic.
Mark, you'd know if I were pissed or not if you knew me. But you don't—which is why it's not a strong retreat to say that calling me anything can be a punchline to a joke of yours.
If you want to say I'm a fag, say it. My opinion isn't very high of you (cf., fuck you), so you might as well. Just don't try to retreat to this wounded stance where you're very lighthearted and gay, and everyone else is so dreadfully dull, serious, and PC. Of course it's offensive to call someone a fag, so spare the mock indignation. It's obvious: call someone a slur with some nonironic intent disguised under the auspices of a joke in order to say something mean without being penalized.
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