The more the democrats caved, the more contempt republicans had for them. It’s pretty simple. And as I’ve said before, it all begins in the school yard. Bullies don’t want your lunch money, they want to be bullies. Give them something easily and they’ll want more, and hate you more. Bullies are cynics. Caving to them easily confirms to them that principles mean nothing.

And of course liberals are divided between the powerful who make money the same way the republicans do and the “intellectuals” who think that if only the people understood they would rise up on their own. Democrats haven’t known how to lead in years. Leadership smacks of authoritarianism doesn’t it?
“And we’re interested in Ideas!”

Ideas mean nothing if you’re not observant.

Don’t reach out to “right-wing netroots”; every indication has it that it’s a waste of time. Reach out to swing voters.

Well, if you think that asking a question like `why’s Clinton still the Great Satan when he’s tried so hard to look like Reagan?’ is merely “preaching to the choir”, then you clearly have a huge problem. It should be abundantly clear at any rate that such a question is a lot more useful than spewing boilerplate fluffies like “the right is far from having a monopoly on stupidity and arrogance” (even if Levine’s answer to the question isn’t totally satisfactory).

I only made my comments about Levine’s the blog because I’ve been spending a lot of time arguing with the right-wing “netroots.”
Arguing, trying not to fight: you have to remember not to take anything for granted; insults and generalizations are counterproductive. And the right is far from having a monopoly on stupidity and arrogance.

What, to you, will be a reason to pay close attention then? For me, a “Democrats Now” blog is worth paying some attention if it tackles existing social issues in interesting (and relevant) ways, and brings new, important questions to light. I mean, have you ever wondered why Reagan is the Great Saviour and Clinton is the Great Satan, even though their policies are similar? It’s an important question which has ramifications for campaign policy—lots of folks keep talking about “rushing to the middle”—but isn’t it surprising that most people, like, haven’t even given this question much thought?

“statements are not those facts to which they refer.”

Wow, more fact-free profundity. So your logic is, because phrases like “cruel and unusual punishment” and “consciousness is immortal” exist, therefore we should avoid all things associated with concrete facts (like, say, “number of people killed”) in our discussions! Seriously, what? (One doesn’t need a Ph.D. in Philosophy to know that our resident Wise Man just made an elementary philosophical error—confusing “is” for “ought”.)

As objects among objects we live in a world of facts but perception places us in a world of ideas.

OK, so what you’re saying is that the Constitution gives people the right to bear arms in order that there may be a “well-regulated militia”, therefore people should have the right to bear arms in such a way that there’s an unregulated mass of random gun-toting blokes? Plain meaning of the Constitution indeed.

(And yes, it’s high time to redo the 2nd Amendment. The times when a sizeable militia can—or will—defeat an oppressive federal government are long past, and this original rationale as espoused by the US founders needs a good hard relook.)

= = =

Seth Edenbaum:

No, I still don’t get what you mean, and I’m not even sure what you’re saying now has any demonstrable relationship with what you said further up. Then again, maybe that’s just because I’m a pedantic brute who gets down and dirty with those things called “facts”, unlike those high-falutin wiseguys, I mean wise men, who have long transcended the world of “fact” and entered the world of “meaning” (and “truthiness”).

How about, like, pointing out some actual factual errors in what Levine writes, instead of dwelling all day long on generic general generalities? That’ll help those poor, fact-oppressed, unwashed masses like us understand what the heck you’re on about.

I’ve heard this story elsewhere, but is it actually true? My recollection from actually watching those broadcasts in and before 2000 is that the networks generally used different conventions from one another other, with no regular pattern. Sometimes, they used green and blue.

My own theory is that the modern red/blue identification comes not from what any TV network was using on election night 2000, but from the USA Today county-by-county map that got so much attention in the aftermath—the one that seemed to show a solid red nation with tiny blue flecks in it, an image very comforting and justifying to Republicans.