’)If Sen. Obama wins, and Democrats increase their majorities in the House and Senate, will conservatives/Republicans still incessantly try to lecture those of us on the left about what “real” and “patriotic” Americans believe? I honestly thought they would tamp it down a little bit after the “thumpin’” of 2006, but they still lecture us about everything under the sun. Would losses across the board really shut their pieholes?
Short answers: yes and no, respectively.
Would losses across the board really shut their pieholes?
No. This is a party with plenty of members – I’m not going to put a percentage on it, I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush – that believe they own patriotism. They will claim they were unfairly blamed for the economic crisis, they will claim that the Democrats increased their numbers with blue dogs by acting like conservatives, and they will claim that their batch of conservative candidates were not conservative enough or did not push the agenda well enough. The relevant mantra here is ‘conservatism wins whenever it’s tried.’
In short, the usual suspects (Rush, et. al.) will argue just about anything that makes them feel better about getting electorally punched in the mouth, allowing them to continue to lie about owning patriotism.
Your question assumes that Republicans in Congress have the capacity for self-reflection, irony, or personal accountability. I have yet to see any evidence of this whatsoever.
Look for them to learn all the wrong lessons and nominate Sarah Palin in 2012.
Btw, for the resident wingnuts who like to tout the low Congressional approval ratings every time we bring up the fact that they support the worst and most unpopular president of all time: If your point is to show that people hate Dems in Congress even more, as opposed to both parties, then wouldn’t that mean that voters will be sending the Dems packing in November as opposed to punishing them with nearly a filibuster proof majority?
There’s gotta be a reckoning eventually, no? I’m thinking we’ll see some post-election drama between the fundies and the financial conservatives. Reagan brought them together, Bush II has sundered them as an effective political bloc.
So maybe a third party? The Palin/Huckabee crowd taking over the reigns of the Republican party, and the “intellectual”/Goldwater type conservatives (Brooks, Will, Buckley Jr., etc.) starting the “Freedom Party” or something like that?
Not even Bush and Cheney’s arrest and trial for war crimes would give them pause.
The answer is of course not. Their spin on it will be (already is) that the problem isn’t conservatism but that Bush and McCain weren’t real conservatives.
They’ll be back, with Palin – she’ll have learned her lines better by 2012 and all the blunders of the last six weeks will have been forgotten. The “party of ideas” will once again rally around a partisan pit-bull with nothing between her ears but a pretty smile and the instincts of a piranha.
Unless Barack is extremely lucky in his first term he’ll have quite a fight on his hands for re-election.
“America is fundamentally a center-right country.”
Expect to hear that a lot, and also a lot of wishful thinking that the Dems will screw everything up the first two years, and it’ll be 1994 all over again.
And without any obligation to defend their own party, since they’re no longer in power, expect wingnuttery and conspiracy theories to bloom like a thousand points of lameness.
They will continue with the Us (Real, Conservative, Patriotic Americans) vs Them (Socialist Liberals) talk. They won’t believe what they are saying, but they know that this tactic works on some voters — those who are both patriotic and bitter and who are looking for some ‘other’ to hate.
Unless Barack is extremely lucky in his first term he’ll have quite a fight on his hands for re-election.
Luck has nothing to do with it, as Barack has continually proven.
God I hope so.
They could turn on each other. There are signs that is already starting.
Look for them to learn all the wrong lessons and nominate Sarah Palin in 2012.
Oh, wouldn’t that be sweet?
I’d love to see the debates.
Luck has nothing to do with it, as Barack has continually proven.
Hercules himself would need luck to succeed in cleaning out the Augean Stables that Bush has left behind for the next president.
Barack is good, but he ain’t Hercules. And sorry, Oliver, Hercules would kick Superman’s ass anytime, anywhere.