Say What?
Via skippy you will discover a Driftglass response to a Kevin Drum post.
First off I would like to commend Kevin for knowing the difference between ‘rein’ and ‘reign’ and using the proper word. Then I would make a minor correction to his numbers – Zero received 51% of the popular vote, Rmoney received 48%, and other candidates received 1%.
First off the popular vote totals are not relevant to the election of the President. Zero received 62% of the 538 electors who actually get to vote for President, while Rmoney only received 38%. Winning the popular vote looks good on your resume, but isn’t a requirement to become President.
Apparently Kevin thinks that winning the election makes this an ideal time to surrender to the Republicans, rather than pushing Democratic programs.
The problems facing the US are all solved if you get people back to work. Tax revenue increases and the cost of support systems like unemployment insurance and food stamps go down when people have jobs and paychecks. Government is the only entity that can kick start the system, and strengthening and rebuilding the infrastructure is the fastest way of getting the economy moving again.
People didn’t vote to continue the charade of the ‘Grand Bargain’, and if that is all the Democrats offer them, don’t expect them to vote for Democrats again. The Democrats will lose seats in Congress and the Senate in 2014 if they don’t do something in the next year. The ‘Grand Bargain’ and austerity will push the US back into recession, just as has happened in Europe. This is no time to play nice with the whackoes.
5 comments
Given that Obama won with a landslide among everybody except white males, listening to a white male like Kevin Drum do data-free blovination about what Obama should do strikes me as just so much blithering from a marginalized population attempting to justify its relevancy. It’s a new era. Time for us white guys to stand aside and let the new kids take over. They just elected themselves a President despite 65% of us white guys voting against Obama, after all…
Of all times, now is NOT the time for a “grand bargain” with the devil. Now is the time to advance a progressive agenda. One can only hope Obama a) knows that, and b) acts on it. It’s b) that I’m worried about.
Texas has been “majority-minority” (I hate the term, but there it is) for some time now; Republicans’ failure to acknowledge that rightly cost them dearly. Let us not make the same mistake.
It’s like Kevin doesn’t understand that 3% of the popular vote is millions of people, many of whom had were dealing with the loss of their houses, others who had to wait in lines for hours to cast their vote, and more who were scared away from the polls through the disenfranchisement laws passed by the Republicans. They are owed a hell of a lot more than the whackoes.
Damn it all to hell – California voters just agreed to raise their taxes to pay for government and the fundies in my area just voted to raise them to support the fire department. People don’t mind paying for what they get, but they need to understand what they are getting.
A colleague of mine some years ago said that the GOP is the only entity in America that attempts to increase its market share by continually and publicly deprecating the only product of the only business it’s in. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Consider – would you use an auto mechanic who didn’t believe that cars work?
That’s what Republican voters are doing.