Newsweek: "America the Conservative: How President (Obama) will govern a Center-Right Nation".

[Leopolds Ghost]

The forces of evil, neoliberals, "sensible, professional" centrist authoritarians like Thomas Friedman, Larry Summers and Donna Brazile and corporocrats are already trying to claim Obama for conservatism.

They say Obama will spend his first term fighting what Friedman and Stephanopoulos (and other Clinton insiders/free traders?) call the "radical liberal impulses" of the Democratic Party in Congress (meaning anything to the left of Goldwater.)

What will armchair liberals on the net do to challenge these assumptions? Given the blogosphere's passive reaction to dealing with the AIP issue -- and anything else that the Teevee tells supposedly wired bloggers not to think about -- I predict, very little.

Be prepared for a further shift to the right as the Democratic Party becomes the new party of the right and the Republicans become a religio-populist party.

Centrist Dems and the upper middle (over-)class will of course use this development in an effort to further discredit and marginalize populism within the ranks of the left.

WE are seeing the birth of the reverse bathtub argument first used in blue states/cities to advocate for pro-corporate, anti-poor funding decisions such as defunding money for transit after spending it all on a highway that "everyone" will benefit from -- "we don't have any money left to help the poor and working class, we've already bailed out the rich and now we are broke -- but not too broke to help the rich again because we're not socialists. If it's going to the rich, it's going to the people who produce all the nation's wealth, because so much of it comes from abroad."

Also note how it is becoming unacceptable to use the term "working class" except in a cultural sense.

The Reagan Revolution is very much ongoing. Why? Because white Americans blame minorities and hippies for domestic peak oil, when America's wealth conveyor belt dried up and reversed itself. They misidentified correlation with causation, and not a single major Dem politician has challenged them on the validity of the cultural argument for so-called economic conservatism (or as sensible centrists call radical authoritarian Toryism, "sensible mainstream policies").

[LynnTheDem]

1. Which "center-right " nation would this be and why wouldn't he be governing the USA?

???

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Ask Newsweek.

America The Conservative



America remains a center-right nation—a fact that a President Obama would forget at his peril.

By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK

It was a grand evening. On Thursday, Dec. 5, 1985, at the Plaza Hotel, William F. Buckley Jr. rose to toast the president of the United States on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of National Review. Charlton Heston was the master of ceremonies; the audience included William J. Casey, Nancy Kissinger, Roy Cohn and Tom Selleck. Thirteen months earlier Ronald Reagan had been re-elected, carrying every state in the Union except Walter Mondale's Minnesota. "As an individual you incarnate American ideals at many levels," Buckley said to the president. "As the final responsible authority, in any hour of great challenge, we depend on you." Buckley was 19 when America dropped the bomb at Hiroshima, he said, and he had just turned 60. "During the interval I have lived a free man in a free and sovereign country, and this only because we have husbanded a nuclear deterrent, and made clear our disposition to use it if necessary. I pray that my son, when he is 60, and your son, when he is 60 … will live in a world from which the great ugliness that has scarred our century has passed. Enjoying their freedoms, they will be grateful that, at the threatened nightfall, the blood of their fathers ran strong."

You can almost hear the trumpets. The scene from the Plaza, in a ballroom resplendent with flowers, full of guests cheered by wine, is glittery, and emblematic of the days of the Age of Reagan. Buckley's cold-war remarks were primal, reflecting the ancient human urge to protect one's own from gathering dangers.

A month before, in November 1985, Al From, the former staff director of the House Democratic Caucus, had been in North Carolina, flying from Raleigh to Greensboro, on a trip to talk wavering Democrats into staying in the fold after Mondale. "The common charge we heard from voters was that 'we didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left us'," says From, whose organization, the Democratic Leadership Council, was trying to move the party rightward toward the center. Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, Sam Nunn and Lawton Chiles were among those flying with From, and things were not going well. "It was a miserable day, and our trip was about to be aborted," From says. There was congressional business in Washington, and From had already canceled the last leg of the journey, an event in Charlotte. Landing in Greensboro in the rain, the group made its gloomy way to an airport hotel for a fundraiser. "We were sure no one would show up," From says. "But when we got there we saw people lined up out the door." As he recalls it, the message of the occasion was straightforward: "We were trying to reconnect the Democratic Party with mainstream America."

In these two moments from a now distant year—the dinner at the Plaza and the gathering in Greensboro—lie the roots of our politics. It is easy —- for some, even tempting —- to detect the dawn of a new progressive era in the autumn of Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency. ...

But history, as John Adams once said of facts, is a stubborn thing, and it tells us that Democratic presidents from FDR to JFK to LBJ to Carter to Clinton usually wind up moving farther right than they thought they ever would, or they pay for their continued liberalism at the polls.

[depakid]

4. Since when does Newsweek cater to facts- or reality?

The data show that their fluff piece is hogwash.

See, e.g.

The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth.

http://mediamatters.org/static/pdf/progressive_majority.pdf

Summary: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/06/why_a_conservat.html

Pew: Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007.
Political Landscape More Favorable To Democrats

http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/312.pdf

Summary: http://people-press.org/report/?reportid=312

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. See, you are coming from the reality based community.

Time and Newsweek were at the forefront of crafting the science of "soft" propaganda which depends on selling consumer goods to survive. It's why we won the Cold War. The masses choose Moloch over Nimrud not out of love for liberty but out of consumer preference for which rulers they want to live under. That depends on the selling of a lifestyle and a selection of acceptable political/cultural values for each consumer to identify with. The communists didn't understand that.

[depakid]

14. After all that's happened, I don't think the reality based community is going away after January

2009.

There's a lot of work to be done, and the new administration is going to have an almost unpredicented amount of political capital and motivation- which will be coming from the bottom up, like a groundswell.

I just hope that Obama and the new FCC realize that the consolidated corporate media bears the lions share of blame for how we all got into this mess in the first place....

[Waiting For Everyman]

18. I'm sure it isn't going away.

We're just being patient until the election's over. In case they didn't notice, this voting public doesn't want the same old conservative nonsense. Duh! Besides, it collapsed. Or didn't they notice that either?

Do they TRY to be this stupid, or what?

[Journeyman]

9. Thanks for the links. . .

[bluestateguy]

3. Oh God. Here we go again.

Democrats should be conservative, "pro-business", "consensus builders", they should "stand up to the 'special interests'" (which always seems to mean any group that represents workers or minorities), etc.

What a bunch of drivel.

This is why Obama needs to win convincingly and then govern as a transformational figure. He can win big and then tear down the entire infrastructure of what Reagan and the Bushes have built over the last 28 years (with the regular acquiescence of Bill Clinton).

And if the establishment corporate media doesn't like it, then maybe they can see how they would like a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine or repeal of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

[aquart]

23. I don't care what corp media likes. I'D LIKE IT.

[Romulox]

24. The only problem is Obama isn't promising to do ANY of those things...

Instead, he is presenting himself as a "third way" candidate--the putative "progressive" who stands with corporations when they demand trillions of taxpayer dollars (no strings attached.)

I have no idea where you get the notion that the next step will be to "tear down the entire infrastructure of what Reagan and the Bushes built..." :shrug: On the contrary, Obama is vowing to include Republicans in his cabinet. :wtf:

[dennis4868]

5. the country...

is center left....it's the right wing that are a minority and every election year they brainwash people to vote against their interest, especially in the south.

[Captiosus]

7. Center-Right my ass.

Let's name a couple of the biggest "Political Third Rails" during a presidential campaign season:
Ethanol Subsidies. Any candidate who comes out against ethanol subsidies will get eviscerated in Iowa and other corn producing states. Even if a candidate could produce a whole library of studies showing that ethanol shouldn't be subsidized, he'd still get destroyed. What is a subsidy? Oh yeah, government "assistance".

Medicare, Social Security. Come out with any program that cuts or jeopardizes these programs and watch as retirees abandon you.

Veteran's Benefits. If your record is washy on veteran's benefits, military and ex-military voters will quietly fall off your bandwagon.

Oh hay, looky there.. these are three socialist programs. All of them are government assisted/subsidized programs.
And McCain has taken a dump on all three. Net result: Iowa, blue. Virginia, blue. Florida, in play, probably blue. New Mexico, in play, probably blue. North Carolina, in play, maybe blue.

Center-right my ass.
Take away medicare, medicaid, welfare, HUD, social security, farming subsidies, and veteran's benefits and let's see how "center-right" we really are.

[depakid]

19. Subsidization doesn't equal socialism

The VA, for example, is a socialistic entity. The government own the facilities and employs the health care providers (not unlike the British NHS in concept.

Medicare pays out of a trust funded by working people- but it doesn't "own" hospitals- and it doesn't employ providers.

Here's the simple definition of socialism:

A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. AKA we the people, or the federal government- or perhaps state government.

American (or Canadian, or to a lesser extent Australian) Medicare isn't socialism- it's simply a more effiecent and less fragmented means for distributing scarce resourses to private sector- which bears by far the largest burden for "producing health" -generally not via monopolistic means (like the VA) but through competing and cooperating (or collaborative) providers.

[Romulox]

25. "Center-right" means that government's resources are directed at the wealthy.

You're not going to shame corporcrats by pointing out that their philosophy isn't truly libertarian--this is about power, not ideology. :hi:

[glowing]

8. I saw this little lead in from HardBall earlier..

I don't think the country is that center.. Actually, when those little survey's were done to see what candidate you most aligned with.. Kucinich came out with a large lead.. most people's values do lie in that direction... the reason people don't want to pay taxes.. is because they don't see it improving their lives all that much .. like health care and FEMA and Iraq war... and because the cost of living is increasing while their take home pay is stagnant or decreases.

[Leopolds Ghost]

10. On ABC, Donna Brazile, Steph and gang all said "spread the wealth" was a WINNING issue for McCain

They said it was unacceptable for Americans -- a "fundamentally conservative" country -- to tolerate "spreading the wealth" from "the people who created it" to "people who maybe don't deserve it" -- in reference to people making under $250,000. This bit was from Donna Brazile. They also said it was "welfare, and we're finally seeing that issue again"... "in a RETURN TO FORM for a McCain campaign that seemed off track."

They tacitly disagreed with Colin Powell who asserted it was not "socialism" to advocate redistribution

which is of course hated and authoritarian -- unlike the United States of America
where law abiding (white) folks who obey the rules are freer (i.e. richer) than anyone else in the world!!1!

[Selatius]

11. I don't get it. Using their logic, FDR should never have been in the White House.

Because he was to the left of Goldwater. In fact, he advocated wealth redistribution/income redistribution in order to save capitalism from being overthrown and replaced with probably communism, given Stalin's expansionist policies at the time.

[Believing Is Art]

12. WTF, mate

n/t

[EFerrari]

13. I hope a lot of you write back to Newsweek and demand to know

why they're taking the far radical right minority for the mainstream of American life. It's bullsh!t.

[girl gone mad]

15. These commentators are completely out of touch..

with working people and with the younger generations.

The DLCers and neoliberals can try to claim Obama as one of their own. I hope that Obama's past will be prologue. He was never a corporatist. I hope he stays true to himself. If he sells out, he won't get another term because people out here really want change. They see America's promise slipping further away each passing day. I meet so many young people who dream of leaving this country. It's a really sad, dark time. More of the same won't cut it.

[JCMach1]

17. Exactly, we don't need the American equivalent of Tony Blair

[Romulox]

27. Obama, not the media, appointed DLCers to the highest positions in his campaign.

:hi:

[oldgrowth]

16. This is Life on Mars for anybody under 40.nt

[bananas]

20. Obama and Biden are center-right

"When examining the chart it's important to note that although most of the candidates seem quite different, in substance they occupy a relatively restricted area within the universal political spectrum. Democracies with a system of proportional representation give expression to a wider range of political views. While Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader are depicted on the extreme left in an American context, they would simply be mainstream social democrats within the wider political landscape of Europe. Similarly, Obama is popularly perceived as a leftist in the United States while elsewhere in the west his record is that of a moderate conservative."
http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

[Berry Cool]

21. They seem to have decided that the zeitgeist of 1985 is the eternal zeitgeist of America.

Why, I have absolutely no clue. But I think they're nuts.

[summer borealis]

22. Nuts indeed

As for Time and Newsweek? They're dying dead-tree media. They mean nothing.

[mwb970]

26. The *media* is center-right. The citizens are center-left. /nt

[Romulox]

28. Both CANDIDATES running for President are center-right. Who cares about the citizens? nt