Fasten Your Seatbelt
by digby
We’re about to hit a huge amount of political turbulence and some of us are going to get sick. Greg Sargent reports:
Some interesting findings buried in the new Pew poll suggest Republicans and Democrats have starkly different expectations of their leaders: Republicans want their leaders to be less moderate and less compromising, while Dems want precisely the opposite.
I’m not kidding. The poll finds that 60 percent of Republicans and GOP leaners want their leaders to move in a more “conservative direction,” versus only 35 percent who want them to be “more moderate.” By contrast, only 33 percent of Dems and Dem leaners want their leaders to be “more liberal,” versus 57 percent who want them to be “more moderate.”
Meanwhile, a big majority of Republicans, 66 percent, want their leaders to “stand up to Obama,” versus only 29 percent who want them to work with him. But Dems, by contrast, are divided on this point, with fewer saying Obama should stand up to GOP leaders (43 percent) than say he should work with them (46 percent).
Maybe this just reflects Dem demoralization in the wake of last week’s shellacking. But whatever the cause, GOP leaders know they have no reason to blink in the coming showdowns. Rank and file Republicans want their leaders to eschew moderation and to refrain from backing down, while Dems want their leaders to do just the opposite.
Now I have very serious doubts that most Democrats want him to cut taxes on the rich, repeal HCR and destroy social security. But since nearly every American now recoils at being associated with liberalism — as Beck and Limbaugh say, it is an infection that must be removed from the body politic in order that it be healthy — they naturally assume that their disappointment at Obama’s failure can be attributed to the fact that he had too much of it.
The Republicans spent the last two years hysterically screaming that Obama was a leftist radical while watering down or totally obstructing any programs that might improve people’s lives in the short term. The suffering people see the results and follow the narrative that’s been laid out.
In the end, the Republicans told the story people could understand and the Democrats …. just didn’t tell one. So now we are going to move further rightward with our “too liberal” president and when his austerity plans don’t work either, they’ll be blamed on liberalism as well. These disaster capitalists know what they’re doing.
I keep hearing Villagers insist that the Republicans are going to have to move to the left over the next two years, which seems ridiculous. But I get it now. The Republicans are going to continue to move right and the Democrats will chase them. But when the policies fail miserably, it will be because the Republicans weren’t conservative enough. That’s another good story.
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