Think of this...

[pbrower2a]

I know we're all battening down in our partisan hatches as November approaches...but serious question for American Democrats on the forum...

What happens to theparty IF the most popular Democratic politician since Kennedy loses his re-election bid?

And while it may sound like a trite question...seriously to the Democrats. Where do they turn?  

(Sorry mods, again. Feel free to move it. There's so many forums it's hard to figure it out!)

Albania. Andorra. Argentina. Belgium. Botswana. Brazil. Bulgaria. Canada. Chile. The Republic of China (Taiwan, that is). Costa Rica. Croatia. Czech Republic...

It may be that secular liberalism has lost its relevance in national elections for several decades and can survive only locally as a political influence, perhaps in urban areas with political machines that serve the pariahs of the political order -- like Irish Catholics during the Gilded Age. It may mean that if you are a 66-year-old teacher of biology or earth science you choose between retirement and selling out evolution and the fossil record to the officially-mandated interpretation of science. If you are a teacher of history or social studies you learn to ignore the Civil Rights Movement and focus attention on the 'Reagan Revolution' because power is the ultimate reality in political life -- or retire or find another occupation. If you are a preacher you learn to preach subordination to tycoons and executives as if that were the Gospel -- or find another way of making a living. If you are a police officer you learn excuses for harassing dissidents or find another career.  Maybe the personalities of Karl Rove or Grover Norquist go beyond question.  Separation of Church and State is understood again as a myth, and women will be subordinate to their husbands as employees will be to their bosses.

There will have to be incredible economic growth to take the sting out of the injustice and inequity -- but the government will have no responsibility for such.

It means that the Republican Party can marginalize secularist types indefinitely especially because it has sure and permanent majorities and can probably change electoral laws at will to its convenience. Media of course will defer because the owners know what is best for churning out at the least a meager profit.

[pbrower2a]

Pbrower seems to have articulated the new Democrat philosophy of giving the farm away to white college women, minorities, welfare kings, and government unions while telling everyone else to go pound sand.

I suspect their next guy will do so but not as openly.

Strange interpretation of what I said. It's that liberalism will have died as a political force, at least on the national scale. That's why I had the list of countries with democratic government and didn't have Zimbabwe, Zambia, Yemen, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Syria ... on my list. Zaire and Yugoslavia of course no longer exist.

If President Obama fails to win re-election without an economic meltdown as severe as that of 2007-2009, a diplomatic or military debacle, or a personal scandal, then no liberal can. The political order can then freeze, and conservatives can then tell liberals "My Way or the Highway" and mean it. Heck, Mexico might become a better place to live once American addicts can no longer afford the illegal drugs that make much of Mexico a combat zone. After all, honest work will bring only poverty.