Sunday, May 17, 2009

When Democrats start to doubt

While researching a liberal blogger who declared that she could "possibly bring [herself] to link to Robert 'McCrazy' McCain" -- and I'm only too happy to return the favor of non-linkage, Libby Spencer -- I ended up on the Detroit News blog, where I encountered Robert Smith Jr.

Smith is a Democrat, but he's starting to doubt that Hope and Change is going to change anything he'd hoped it would. Here he is reacting to a rumor that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm might be nominated to the Supreme Court:
Can Democrats keep Michigan blue if the president decides to nominate Gov. Jennifer Granholm for the Supreme Court? Some think it will take the spotlight off the office of governor that she has had for eight years as things in Michigan got worse in every way. The economy and the education system have failed completely. The bad or sad part is Democrats no longer have Bush to blame. My, do Democrats miss George?
Notice that Smith (a) bluntly admits that Granholm has been a disaster as governor, and (b) realizes that Democrats have benefitted from the "blame Bush" syndrome, which is already past its sell-by date and certainly won't be electoral magic in 2010.

Then Smith comes up with a post titled, "President Obama Gets More Like George Bush Daily." This is the real seed of dissent, the kind of thought that can lead somebody to re-examine their political commitments. When you vote for Change and instead get More Of The Same, you start asking yourself, "Who do these guys really represent? Because they sure as heck ain't representing me."

The recognition that you have been played -- promised the moon, the stars and the sun by clever political hustlers who were only in it for their own power -- is the kind of lightbulb-over-the-head moment that produces ex-Democrats. A lot of women Democrats felt similarly when the party shoved Hillary aside in favor of Obama, but their hatred of Republicans was enough for them to get over it in November.

If continued, that kind of disappointment, that sense of betrayal caused by political deception can lead a thinking man to ask, "Why am I voting for these people? Why did I ever believe their nonsense?"

One thing's for sure: If Smith ever believed Obama had a magic economic formula to fix what's wrong with Detroit, he's going to be in for a lot more disappointment. It Won't Work. The Fundamentals Still Suck. Economics Is Not a Popularity Contest.

13 comments:

  1. I'm from the metro Detroit area, and the Detroit entitlement attitude is at the root of all that is wrong there. The stories of what many Detroiters feel entitled to would curl any conservative's hair, and the racial politics are just as dirty. Add in the union politics (which of course are just another branch of entitlement politics), and it's a huge mess.

    As much as I love my home state, I'm not likely to be able to live there again because the political environment there discourages business from moving/staying there unless it's a hand-picked deal like Granholm did with Google. My husband's field is interactive technology, and with the exception of Google, such companies are certainly not encouraged to move or start up there.

    Right now I'm living in Texas, and I see ads attempting to attract companies to Michigan every day, and I laugh. I never saw Texas advertising on TV when I lived in Michigan... maybe because Texas isn't run by liberal loonies and doesn't need to?

    My liberal friends hate former governor Engler, but things were better under him in spite of the stupid racist liberal crap going on in Detroit. Michigan was in a one-state recession long before any of the downturn of 2008 happened. I asked my friends if they wanted the entire country to become like Michigan, and they still voted for TEH MESSIAH. Obama was elected, and now looks what's been happening. :( I wonder if there are enough people with any sense left there to take the state (and country) back.

    I say all this as someone who is proud to be from the beautiful, once-proud state of Michigan, but also dismayed at its decline.

    -Erica (wife of Rob at http://rumblepak.net/ - thanks for linking to him before! He tells me all the time how much he loves this blog, so I had to check it out. Love all the posts about pissing off feminists!)

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  2. It wasn't just women Democrats and some of us will never get over it.

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  3. Libby Spencer! Talk about enemies! She rooted for the insurgents in Iraq, arguing that al Qaeda's shift to using Down's syndrome suicide bombers was "brilliant."

    She doesn't link because she's been humiliated so many times it's not even funny!

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  4. "A lot of women Democrats felt similarly when the party shoved Hillary aside in favor of Obama, but their hatred of Republicans was enough for them to get over it in November."

    No, their hatred for the cynicism that put a hack like Palin on the Republican ticket is what got women over it.Not that you guys would ever want to visit that reality.
    But don't get too excited: Republicans/Conservatives will always be there to remind us of the alternative to Obama. There is no real dissent as long as Conservatism rears its ugly head. And let's face it, that is every day...

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  5. Dear Y4E, as is often the case with liberals you touched on the truth re: women and Palin, but you totally failed to grasp the reality. Women who had all these years tied their anchor to the liberal boat found themselves moored at port while the object of their envy, a real woman, took sail. Women of the left, though they don't seem ready to admit it, have been used, badly used. It isn't surprising that they would resent a woman who has succeeded while they continue to fail.

    Aside, "There is no real dissent as long as Conservatism rears its ugly head." Pray tell, when did people of your small-minded ilk start caring about dissent? Liberalism worships at the alter of blind obedience.

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  6. Libby Spencer?

    Don't bother. She's an even bigger fan of Hugo Chavez than she is of Obama. Totally nug bucking futs.

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  7. Just because Democrats end up not liking the thief in chief does not mean a thing. They do not like you, they do not like me, and they do not like each other. They are united by hate, not love, friendship, partnership, or anything but hate. This does not mean that they will, collectively or singularly, come to their senses. I hate to kick the chair out from under Patriotism, capitalism, Christianity, or any of that, especially when it seems the government has put a noose around it's neck, but lets be real.

    While I see a great deal of discomfort among conservatives, libertarians (of the conservative bent), and queasy with socialism middle of the roaders... I do not see hate. I suppose that is why we are less organized and weaker. Nothing unites like hate, except pure love, and that was hung on a cross. *sigh*

    Or, something like that.

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  8. "Pray tell, when did people of your small-minded ilk start caring about dissent? Liberalism worships at the alter of blind obedience."

    Ummm...what's going on here? Have Conservatives been asleep for the last 30 years, or what?

    Dissent? You're kidding, right?
    Oh wait, you think because you guys suddenly found it convenient to whip out your tea-bags that you invented protesting?
    I mean, it's one thing to try to co-opt Liberal/Progressive tactics, and another thing entirely to pretend you originated the idea.
    And do you really want to talk about blind obedience? Reminds me of the vociferous protests you guys mounted during the Conservative/Republican spending spree...
    Oh, that's right. You guys were busy being obedient little Eichman's when the spending had an (R) next to it....

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  9. Cripping Ward Churchill, Y4E? Original. Obviously you haven't paid attention or you would know that conservatives are the ones calling the Republican Party out. Further, when it comes to spending do you really want to compare the last four months to the last eight years? Fifty years? Two hundred + years? Oh, and, throwing around cheap Third Reich monikers isn't dissent. It is ignorant of history and extremely small.

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  10. "Obviously you haven't paid attention or you would know that conservatives are the ones calling the Republican Party out."

    You see, even in that arena you're just following our lead.
    When it comes to spending, I'm just pointing out the alarming inconsistency on your part: not the numbers being spent but the silence when the spending was done under Republican leadership.
    The Third Reich moniker? Yeah, it was cheap.
    But I did get your goat, didn't I?
    You old rascal you...If you weren't so lovable I'd really let you have it.

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  11. There'll be no hiding the damage Obama is doing to the country in a year or so- I

    When all this pork-n-welfare spending fails to create any real economic gains -but stokes vicious inflation and crashes the dollar instead- the Democrats face a bloodbath in 2010.

    And Barack can kiss 2012 goodbye, no matter how hard he attacks the GOP and has the MSM promote manufactured GOP "scandals".

    His foreign policy is headed straight for an iceberg, as well. Ironically, those like Powell and W did a lot of damage to the GOP brand... but Obama-Pelosi-Reid will be the ones to fix it all-up for us- already as good as done.

    Funny how life is-

    http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com

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  12. They do not like you, they do not like me, and they do not like each other. They are united by hate, not love, friendship, partnership, or anything but hate. When I was Vice Consul in Lyon, France, decades ago, that is how I would explain the French to the dozens of US students studying abroad who wondered why the French hated foreigners so much. I explained they hated each other just as much...

    Does that make Democrats the lil teensy-weensy Frenchmen that we all carry inside ourselves, only the Dems have let the little demon take them over?

    Sort of pod people with bad breath, poor hygiene and hairy armpits?

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  13. Dave in Boca,

    Ha, too funny! I remember having felt very slighted when in France. Among other things, I spoke nearly perfect French, and did so for a few days. Somehow, though, they figured out I was not French and started acting like they no longer understood me and would only speak English after that. And, I finally came to your conclusion, only decades later. It is nice to see someone else saw that, someone sort of seriously on the ground there at one time.

    Too funny, I never connected the two, thanks. I will just run over "cheese eating surrender monkies" in my mind, again, but with even more people! hehe Thanks.

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