Tag: optimism

There’s no point in trying to do something good if it’s met with enormous resistance from a lot of folks.

Howard Dean, on the Park 51 Islamic community center

If this is what he truly believes, then really, to hell with him. (via savingpaper)

Agreed. This quote is so astonishing, it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been Breitbarted. But it hasn’t. If this building which, amongst many other features, also contains a prayer room isn’t broadly popular, then it shouldn’t be built and the First Amendment can go fuck itself along with the spirit of most of the rest of the Constitution.
Remember, this is coming from the man who proclaimed himself a representative of the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” largely in direct response to this kind of horse shit. Assuming that quote is still operative, then we can only conclude that the Democrats now are entirely made up of Clintonian triangulators: never take a stand, never push for an idea, and never, ever lose sight of what is polling well, regardless of how that may fit with what you know to be right. Work instead to make progress around the margins, and always be willing to compromise even that if that’s what it takes to please Our Republican Overlords. And they wonder why Democratic enthusiasm is down. And think we’re all on drugs.
There really is no hope anymore. Total collapse, popular uprising, military coup…whatever it is, something is going to happen, but whatever that future something is it doesn’t seem likely to include a rebirth of a governing philosophy from either side that isn’t based upon rank ignorance and limbic-system politics. This is how empires crumble.

I think it’s ok if gays can get married, I just wish they’d call it something else.

Random NPR man on the street which Atrios refers to as “Great Moments In Random Dumbassery”.
Dumbassery it may well be, but it’s critical for progressive hopes going forward that this phenomenon is understood and planned for. To the vast, vast majority of Americans, marriage as a concept is inextricable from Lord Jesus and their church. Thus, these same people hear “gay marriage” and immediately think Big Government is going to force their church to change its liturgy to include Teh Gay or else seize assets put the whole lot of them into jail.
This is precisely why Democrats should today and forever more be talking about getting the government out of ALL marriage. Eliminate all marriage-based tax benefits and redefine survivor’s and spousal rights to extend to anyone whom you choose to confer them upon. The words “basic human rights” should always be in the sentence, and, quite frankly, such broad and fundamental reforms would be a real boon to both gay and straight couples. This, of course, is why it will never happen. Optimism!

Realistically what I think is going to happen is that almost no significant legislation of any kind will pass until 2017, by which point the GOP will [likely] control both the White House and the Senate and immediately eliminate the filibuster via the “nuclear” approach [meaning 50 Senators vote in favor of an opinion on the part of the President of the Senate that the super-majority is unconstitutional; thus the filibuster ceases to be]. Republicans, to their credit, tend to prioritize their vision of the national interests over issues of process and ego. Democrats, by contrast, seem to have mostly gotten into politics in order to bolster their own sense of self-righteousness and aren’t especially concerned with whether or not their conduct in office is efficacious.

Matt Yglesias, positively bubbling over with optimism for the country. If the filibuster goes in my lifetime, I think this is exactly how it will transpire, though: as the first action of a Republican controlled Senate serving a Republican President.
Yglesias is also 100% right that the credible threat of filibuster reform is more potent and much more likely to end in real reform than the actuality of that process (meaning: pushing a bill to end it with everyone knowing 67 votes aren’t out there). Democrats can never get these concepts through their heads, though. So forget about it.