Talk Elections

Largely, the population of the challengers to the president right now are seen as "loons".

In addition, rather than talking about the economy, jobs the national debt and other domestic issues, which are the OBVIOUS matters right now for probably 90% of Americans, we have Bachmann and Perry talking about:

1) Gay Marriage
2) Abortion
3) Ridiculous fiscal goals that are not feasible
4) Other Fringe issues that nobody quite frankly gives a s..t about.

You want to see what's wrong.  This is it.  Currently, I'm in Atlanta, which isn't very conservative, but it's amazing how many times I've heard since being down here that Perry is clearly out of touch with what's important to America. 

Because "they are."

Liberals talk just about their radical positions gay marriage and abortion as much as Republicans do.  Its just that Democrats are not hounded by the liberal media. 

Incorrect.  Not one democrat over the last year has spoken about the "fringe issues" as the economy continues to struggle.  There's the difference.

Somebody must give a crap about them or they wouldn't be talking about them.


The problem is what you call for is exclusivity, complete exclusivity of issues which is completely impossible. No party is going to have uniform opinions on everything and I frankly don't see the problem with talking about Abortion or whatever, as long the economy gets enough primary focus. The beauty of this internet age is you can choose what to listen to and what not to. If you don't want to hear a candidate's social issues, then change the station or pick a different youtube clip when they are on those matters.

When you think about it, you actually risk making it more out of touch.

What's the point of this empty quoting?

An overreliance on social issues combined with a willingness to push for tax cuts for the super rich.

They're not just willing to give the super rich tax cuts. That's their entire raison d'etre.

An expression of agreement. I thought that was done here. Is it not? If so, I apologize.

It's frowned upon by certain people. Some of whom just happen to be Moderators, coincidentally. 

What's radical about legalizing gay marriage? It's not like us liberals are trying to force everyone to attend a gay wedding. And abortion? It's issues that don't concern everyone and only benefit those who choose to use the services.

Yeah, the GOP in general doesn't care about "social issues" except for election purposes.

How did "Party of small government and fiscal responsibility" evolve into "TAX CUTS GOOD, SPENDING BAD, also payroll taxes aren't real taxes/"?

I don't think social issues really has much to do with it. I think it's more the focus on catering to the upper class and 'corporations' that influences people more on this front. The few who deny obvious scientific stuff don't help matters, though.

The GOP is also becoming increasingly defined as anger -reactionary, virulent anger-at liberals, at multiculturalism, at science, at secularism, at anything that upsets the idealized "past."

Thus, you have culture warriors, tax-cut zealots, business aristocrats, and religious fanatics pushing an agenda of "No", which is no agenda at all.

Of course, the Tea Party doesn't help the GOP's efforts to broaden their electorate..which is why the Republicans have a very energetic "base" but almost no power beyond that.

I don't see Obama or Biden bring these issues up... ever.  When the courts turned against the laws the administration did not defend DOMA but it did fight to delay immediate repeal of don't ask don't tell.

Sometimes its actually nice to talk about the FACTS.

Yeah, because repealing DADT was imperative to ensuring economic stability. ::)

Did anyone actually care about that?

There are three branches of government here in the United States.  Obama is the head of the EXECUTIVE branch.

The JUDICIAL branch struck down DADT.  Obama tried to delay the judicial branch's decision from taking effect immediately.

Let's try and discuss the FACTS.

Getting back to the actual topic, I'm getting sick of hearing certain people whine about social conservatives. Yes, the economy is issue number one, yes the deficit and debt are important. However, if you truly believe that abortion is the killing of a child, then by all means, why wouldn't it be an important issue? If it's killing, and I believe it is, then why should I remain silent about it? Hmmmm?????....

That issue doesn't really correlate as much as you'd think with other attitudes, particularly with our generation.

Congratulations, you have a rudimentary knowledge of the "separation of powers". I was only illustrating that it's absurd to suggest that those in the Democratic Party haven't touched on social issues during the economic downturn. Equally absurd would be to suggest that to do so would be indicative of some level of incompetence. Even though social issues are not the primary focus, to pretend they simply don't exist is intellectually lazy and reckless.

If no one cares about it, why the hell does it matter.

Do you not see the problem with insisting the party cater 100% to you demands and 0% anyone else's should they conflict?

It sounds to me like you want to replace one group of arrogant, self-rightous people with another and it's all okay because your group is of course 100% right and they are completely wrong. Personally, I don't see any difference between what you want to do and what Conservatives have been doing to you guys, except reversing the equation. Purification has the same effect regardless of which direction the ideological pendulum swings. It doesn't work. You can't just drowned conservatives in an ocean somewhere and be done with them. You either have to work with them or place yourself in a different party from them. Thats the fact of political life in a polarized world and you clearly don't want to un-polarize the nation because you oppose a big tent party.

The GOP was out of touch in the 1950's when it was viewed as a party of rich northeastern Protestants. They didn't do very well then either. When Westerners decided to seek more influence, the answer from the NE Establishment was "Purge the nuts" and look what happened. They destroyed themselves within the party and the Democrats denied them consistent victory in elections.

Of course the rich northeastern protestants learned their lesson and repackaged themselves as
"conservatives" while basically keeping their core views. Case in point: the entire Bush family.

Ghost_white is absolutely correct: our generation has moved significantly to the left on many social issues, but not abortion. We aren't much different than past generations on abortion.

http://www.publicreligion.org/objects/uploads/62/Millennials_Abortion_and_Religion_Survey_Report.pdf (http://www.publicreligion.org/objects/uploads/62/Millennials_Abortion_and_Religion_Survey_Report.pdf)

Here is a poll that discusses the relationship between age, religion, abortion, and same sex marriage. You'll notice that the age breakdown of abortion and gay marriage are totally different. Oddly enough, while the overall support for abortion is not a function of age (except for the elderly), Millenials are a bit less likely to hold the view that abortion is morally wrong but should remain legal.

Of course they're out of touch, but so is Obama.

Well, some just said it would a good idea, and you complained about it.

Seriously, it is because everyone flocks together.  Liberals and conservatives don't really want to hear new ideas; the only want echo chambers.


Probably, we don't mean the same things, but I think there is an element of truth in it.

While this is true in general, it's not the Democratic Party that has been purging its ranks of moderates.

It makes perfect sense to attack them, because they are wrong and distracting from the real issues which are almost entirely economic. Unless you want to fall into the abyss of relativism, and I sure as hell don't, I will challenge my opponents and not simply leave them content to believe what they believe (what you are advocating here).

You may perceive it as an unfair attack on your privately held belief, but let's face it all these social beliefs no matter how private or individual have some impact on how we deal with each other in the larger sense. So yes people will continue to whine about the distraction that social cons present and they're right in doing so.

They don't need to. The Republicans have been purging their moderates, especially in the south, for them.

This is true, but we have seen this on Democratic side.  Joe Lieberman, the talk of primaring Evan Bayh.  We're seeing "liberal litmus tests."  Bush chose as his Secretary of State someone who was noted to be pro choice.  How many pro lifers are there in the Obama cabinet?  Any?

Gates is a Republican. Geithner is no liberal. Obama appointed Huntsman.

On the left the 'purging' has been to rid us of folks that pretend they're in some imaginary third party called 'centrist' that's more about moving to what ever center the Republican party says there is. Which is one of the reasons the dialogue gets shifted so hard right in this country these days despite most folks wanting something different. Lieberman and company were and are intending on following the Republicans off to the right so they can claim to be moderates when in the end they were becoming nothing of the sort.

As for the actual topic, the answer is painfully simple. When the number one priority is jobs to the American people and you have a party talking tax cuts for the rich which no one who is out of work is buying as a solution, then you have a party that looks more interested in helping their friends then working on the actual problem. And the more you move into social issues the problem just gets worse. Instead of looking to solve problems that people want solved they're trying to do things that people are at worse ambivalent about but for which there is only strong passion about in a small segment of society. And that segment of society is outnumbered by the people who want a better economy. So it starts to look kind of ridiculous.

"Help us out!"
"Ok, tax cuts!"
"Uh... I don't have a job, that doesn't work for me."
"Tax cuts and people will hire you!"
"Yeah, tax cuts for the corporations who defrauded everyone."
"Corporations are people!"
"What? Are you insane?"
"Next topic, ban science!"
"What? What about real solutions to fix the economy?"

The point is that the country is moving towards becoming more accepting of gay marriage, especially the younger (18-34) generation.  A 17 point uptick to 70% since last year.  According to gallup and several other polling agencies since 1996 the support for gay marriage has gone from ~27% to 54% this year.  The fact that the GOP has been taken over by religious zealots that placate that their fundamentalist base AS the country as a whole is becoming less religious and more socially liberal, suggests that today's GOP is out of touch and simply the last strings of extremism.  These strings will either tear in the 2016 election or the GOP has no chance of having another president in office.


^ This

Of course the party that only cares about the well-being of the top 1% is going to be out of touch with the other 99%. If anything, the fact that the party also has a bunch of theocrats and economic cranks/conspiracy theorists (Ron Paul), masks this "out of touchness", as those two groups surely comprise a good 20-40% of the U.S. population.

I think you mean corporate media, so I'll bold your mistake. I would love to hear from an advocate of this asinine phrase, "liberal media," to give me a convincing argument in favor of their position. Why would the media be left of center when it's financed by the wealthiest corporations the world has ever known. I would ask for some common sense, but that's perhaps too much from the party of paranoia and demagoguery.

The kind of people who want to work in media tend not to be right-wing. At least I think that would be the main explanation.

Only a typical out of touch coastal wannabe radical would make this "argument". I guess you think anything short of Castro's Cuba is basically "rightwing" but almost nobody would agree with that.

The media is left-wing and the wealthiest corporations the world has ever known became the wealthiest corporations the world has ever known due to left-wing policies.

Nope. MSNBC has a liberal bias, but it's a flimsy one and really more based on sensationalism, because Palin stories get ratings and therefore money. FOX is not only right-wing and creating useless stories (like that Common thing) in order to try and bring down the president, but is the largest and most influential. Obama would have won an extra 2 or 3 states if not for their propaganda and Rove's blatant lies to get Democrats out of the voting booth (remember recently when the Wisconsin GOP sent absentee ballots with instructions to send them back after election day?)

Why are the "real issues" only economic? Leftists want to push a homosexual agenda on the country that would discard basic values held for literally thousands of years. The irony for the left here is that they push hard on these social issues while saying in the same breath that it really isn't important and the right should just shut up. Why do they push so hard on something that supposedly isn't important?

I'd like to point out that the Democratic controlled Congress spent most of last December debating the Repeal of DADT (and the START Treaty) rather then passing a budget. Clearly, homosexual rights is just as important an issue to the left as it is to the right.

Most of the push on this issue right now is by the left. Efforts have been to grant legal recognition to relationships currently not recognized and very little if anything has been done to remove sexual freedoms already guarenteed. The status quo here is the conservative  position and to ask for anything else does require a touch of activism.

According to Wikipedia: Activism is "intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change".

I would have thought that DADT and START were military/defence issues, no?

I think this is backwards.  I think the current perception of the GOP is less out of touch than extremist and it's primarily because of economic issues.  And I think Perry's presidential campaign will surely be focused on economic issues in the long run (if it is a long run), though it may mix in more social issues to try to secure wins in Iowa and South Carolina.

GE got stimulus and government contracts in Iraq so it's understandable MSNBC would have certain biases. Take of that what you will.

START was (it was also still a pointless waste of time in my opinion but that's neither here nor there). I just mentioned that because they spent a lot of time on it as well. You could call DADT a defense issue, but it is a defense issue about LGBT issues.

Um, okay. I'm not entirely sure what my geographical location would have to do with my perspective; other than some silly attempt to go ad hominem on your part.

Most media produced and consumed in the United States is created by the private sector - newspapers, televisions stations etc are mostly owned by corporations hence my characterization of the American media as corporate. It seems fairly obvious and not terribly controversial.

The term corporate doesn't even denote a political ideology, as clearly "liberal" (in the American sense) stations such as MSNBC are still owned by major corporations. There's always going to be some bias in favor of the capitalist perspective when media is privately held; especially by major corporations. I can't believe this idea has provoked a reaction in anyone.

I think first and foremost DADT was a defence issue, as the effect of DADT putting aside rank and file, was significant in other fields, particulary in military strategy, interpreter positions etc. This was having a damaging effect on the armed forces.

Damn Harry Truman pushing his liberal agenda on the military.

You said there there was no liberal media because it was "corporate" and I pointed out the idiocy of that statement. Liberalism and corporations are not incompatible, nor are liberalism and capitalism.