Out-Republicaning the Republicans

WITH NATIVE COMMENT THREAD (Highly instructive!)

by Ted Rall  [print_link] Crossposted with CommonDreams.org

The Clinton mob was essentially comprised of center-right opportunistic and fully imperialist corporate Democrats. The notion that such people were "leftists" was seen as ludicrous all over the world, except in politically brainwashed America where Clinton is still regarded by many as a genuine progressive.

Obama is even more of a triangulator than Clinton.

Triangulation can work for candidates in the short term. Clinton got reelected by a landslide in 1996. (It failed, though, for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004.) But triangulation hurts parties, which sell an ideological point of view. Clinton worked so hard to out-Republican the Republicans that he forgot he was a Democrat . He also forgot that Democratic voters expected to see liberal policies.

By the way, Dick Morris is now a Republican. Maybe he always was.

Obama ran as a centrist. It would come as little surprise if he were governing as one.

Obama is a Republican.

A right-wing Republican. Thanks to triangulation gone wild.

In his first year Obama chose to continue  numerous Bush Administration policies, many of which originated in the far extreme wing of the GOP. Each of the following asterisks represents a broken campaign promise:

• Keeping the Guantánamo torture camp open*
• Continuing the war against Iraq*
• Expanding the war against Afghanistan
• Renewing the USA Patriot Act*
• No-string bank bailouts
• Reserving the right to torture*
• love it.

  What they got: zero.

  Deficit negativity helped score votes among Democratic deficit hawks in Congress. But again, think about it: If the healthcare bill is making a profit for the U.S. government, where is that $130 billion coming from?

  Correct: you and me. Our taxes will be higher than they should be, our health benefits will be less.

  The government should not make a profit off sick people.

  Democrats will lose seats in Congress this fall. It may already be too late for Democrats to keep the White House in 2012. But if they continue to follow the Clinton-Obama triangulation strategy, they could destroy themselves for years to come. They might even expose the overall bankruptcy of our two-party pseudo-democracy.

  Copyright 2010 Ted Rall

  Ted Rall is working on a radical political manifesto for publication this fall. His website is tedrall.com.