Terminal niceness

[phantom power]

As a result of their retreat from populism, Democrats have spent the last several decades systematically extinguishing opportunities to broaden the base of their support.

They did little, for example, as their former best friends in organized labor were scythed down by organized money. This was no ordinary misstep, by the way. Labor is one of the last institutional bearers of an ideology capable of countering the market-populist faith; had its voice been strong in 2009, things might have played out very differently. Instead, Obama and Company pretty much sat on their hands as the percentage of unionized workers in the private sector sank lower than at any point in the 20th century. The fatuity of it all, one would think, has surely become obvious to Democrats: They have permitted nothing less than the decimation of their own grassroots social movement; the silencing of their own ideology. Thanks to this strategy, large parts of America are liberal deserts, places where an economic narrative that might counterbalance the billionaire-pitying wisdom of El Rushbo is never heard and might as well not exist.

The effects of a wrenching recession, on the other hand, aren’t likely to touch the new, well-to-do Democrats directly. They know bad things are happening, yes; they express concern and promise to help the suffering, of course; but the urgency of the recession is not something they feel personally. It is not a challenge to their fundamental values. It is, rather, an occasion for charity.

Oh, but a country where everyone listens to specialists and gets along – that’s a utopia these new Dems regard with prayerful reverence. They dream of bipartisanship and states that-are-neither-red-nor-blue and some reasonably-arrived-at consensus future where the culture wars cease and everyone improves their SAT scores forevermore under the smiling, beneficent sun of free trade and the knowledge industries.

http://spkent.tumblr.com/post/21903864177/this-quote-from-obamas-book-explains-it-all-and
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/problem-in-nutshell-by-davidoatkins.html

[applegrove]

1. Happy people are nice, open and pollyannaish. This means they are a little delusional and don't see

Happy people are nice, open and pollyannaish. This means they are a little delusional and don't see danger. Angry people are a little out of touch with reality so they can defend their territory to the nth degree or grab little more territory. It is sad people who are the least delusional. You can't be sad all the time but every so often you should be, just so you can touch base with reality and put yourself on a better path to get what you need and dream of. Being sad will allow you to see your weaknesses as well as how to better judge your foes. Explains why the GOP keep their base ANGRY. They gain territory in the public sphere that way. Dems need to get angry to they can fight back and take the country back too. They did with Occupy and it worked. Why we see the GOP trying to dial down the anger on the left by labeling them (being against the 1% buying government is class warfare). Labeling is a tactic psychopaths use to fool good people into changing their behavior & thinking on how they are acting. So Dems you need to be angry, sad and happy in this elections season.