Reply #59: I wouldn't insult folks by caling them "unintelligent" for not voting for a backstabber

[depakid]

Indeed- I would say that they're looking longer term than you, and saying "enough's enough" and "decline's decline."

The trouble with your theory is that it doesn't subscribe to any sort of accountability among politicians- which is precisely the process that over time has led the Democrats to essentially become 1970's Republicans and abandon their traditional attitudes, beliefs and values. This is why your nation is in an inexorable decline- you embrace poor public policy, under the impression that less poor is better.

It would also seem that the Obama administration and some Senate Democrats cynically subscribe to this as well, and thus squandered a once in a generation (or a lifetime) opportunity to enact meaningful, if not structural change to one major set of problems (and processes) after another.

Some "change" cannot by it's very nature be done incrementally- it has to involve a paradigm shift, or it simply will not occur.

And this is the sort of change that like or not was expected- if not expressly and explicitly promised. Moreover, this was the sort of expectation that was created- and reinforced throughout the campaign. Once again, it's human nature to be disappointed- and some of that's inevitable, but it's never wise to take constituencies for granted, much less repeatedly insult them, while creating the perception that you're bending over backwards to work with (an for?) their opponents or advancing their opponents issues.

Doing so creates a vacuum- and politics, like nature abhors a vacuum. Create one and someone or some party will come along and fill it.

Perhaps successfully.

Witness the Liberal Democrats in Britain or the Greens in Tasmania.

Obviously, structural impediments to that in the archaic US system (and to some extent in Britain) make gaining power very difficult, but don't mistake that difficulty with the underlying dynamics of the in the socio-political processes.

Want to win? Advocate- STAND FOR and be perceived as fighting for popular progressive values and policies- and for the groups that back you.

Want to lose? Pander to the right and focus on the ephemeral center, which to paraphrase Jim Hightower, is the realm of dead armadillos.