I was going to compile a list of everything horrifying about Governor Rick Perry -- but frankly, you people know all or most of that stuff already. Of all the wackos running for the GOP nomination, he may be the most dangerous.
For years, the folks at Corrente have been making fun of those who advocate support for Obama because the tea-stained alternative is too unnerving. I can see the point. Obama has proven to be an even worse president than his opponents predicted. We simply cannot reward so many broken promises with re-election...
...can we?
Let's try a thought experiment: Let us suppose that the 2012 Republican nominee is a handsome, intelligent, telegenic fellow named Dick Gently. Everybody likes him. His politics differ from yours, perhaps, but nothing about him seems particularly threatening. He seems a shoo-in.
But: You shared a college dorm room with Mr. Gently. And at that time, he let you know that his great secret ambition was to become president so he could launch a thermonuclear war shortly after taking the oath. Each night, Dick would lull himself to sleep by muttering the words: "Kill! Kill! Kill for the love of Kali! All life must end! All life must end!"
Under those circumstances, you would tell your friends to vote for Obama, would you not? Even if you hate Obama -- and the man has given me little reason to like him -- you would understand that you have no option. Rotten as he is, Obama would be the only thing standing between the psychotic Mr. Gently and The Button.
So don't tell me that there are no circumstances under which you vote for Obama in 2012. There are. Admit it.
"Yes," I hear you saying. "But Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are not the same thing as your hypothetical Mr. Gently..."
And that's our question for the day. Just how bad does the Republican candidate have to be before you decide to hold your nose and vote for the guy who brought disgrace to the Democratic party?
Where would you place the cut-off? If Dick Gently is a 10 on the Awfulness Scale, where would you place Bachmann or Perry? And what score does someone have to achieve on the Awfulness Scale to make a vote for Obama conceivable to you?
As I've said previously, John McCain did not strike me as so very awful. He is just another politician who adheres to policies I dislike. That's fine. I've seen plenty of those.
McCain wasn't, and isn't, nuts.
But Perry -- oh yeah. The guy is a toon. A total toon. A frightening toon. He makes Dubya seem sane.
Romney, like McCain, does not give off much of a nutball vibe. The guy is impossible to like, no doubt about it. He'd be a bad president. But he definitely ranks low enough on the Awfulness Scale to make it possible for me to advocate lodging a protest vote against Obama, or at least sitting out the election.
Many of you cannot imagine how anyone could possibly be worse than Obama. Well, I've made this historical comparison before, but let's repeat it: In 1932, everyone on the German left despised Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, an arch-reactionary who screwed up the economy something fierce. Worse than that guy seemed unimaginable.
A year later, guess what happened?
26 comments:
I see your POV. But he just might be crazy enough to bring it all down. It can never be fixed. So when do we give it up?
Well, you'd better start drawing up plans for your bunker, because even if Obama wins in 2012, a republican is sure to win in 2016. That's going to happen. A republican will regain the White House either in 2012 or in 2016, because Americans have a grand tradition of throwing the bums out (despite the fact that other bums just end up getting elected). So why get your panties in a bunch about this years' batch of bums?
A year later, guess what happened?
What happened in Germany in 1933, for God's sake?!
I'm not borrowing trouble. Trouble enough has come and it is the Obots' fault/s. I can only advocate and can only control my own actions. That includes never voting for someone who steals other people's votes. Period. Ever. So Zerobama will NEVER get my vote....that is, he can steal it but I won't cast it for him. If some Xtian nutball gets elected president I will live and die speaking my mind as I always have. Fear is a piss-poor reason to vote for anyone. If more Xtian nutjobs get put on the Supreme Court...thank an Obot. Publicly. Annually. Just my O-pinion!
Scared? Me too Joseph. I know it's bad form to link to one's own blog on somebody else's but I've just posted a piece about Christian Dominionists (Perry/Bachmann included)- no astrology in it at all - and I'm saying in a different way, from a different angle, more or less what you've posted here.
http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2011/08/weekend-warning-dominionism-theocracy.html
My list or repubs that will make me do a "hold yer nose vote" for Obama?
Anybody Michael Savage likes.
Is it Bachmann that has raised several foster kids along with her own? If that is the case, and they are normal, well adjusted kids, I would suggest the media is hiding this issue because it would make Bachmann much more human than is being portrayed in the media.
From YAHOONEWS:
"Seven ways Rick Perry wants to change the Constitution":
1. Abolish lifetime tenure for federal judges by amending Article III, Section I of the Constitution.
2. Congress should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions with a two-thirds vote.
3. Scrap the federal income tax by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment.
4. End the direct election of senators by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.
5. Require the federal government to balance its budget every year.
6. The federal Constitution should define marriage as between one man and one woman in all 50 states.
7. Abortion should be made illegal throughout the country.
Click on link for expansion of each.
Here is your problem. There is a bunch of ideas that a lot of people in this country think are self-evident, which are not true. Indeed these ideas are the opposite of the truth.
For example, if you ask Larry Summers why they didnt nationalise the big banks and instead a) handed their incompetent and corrupt management a bunch of money b) condemned the economy to a decade or more of slow growth because the banking system is under capitalised and the banks are zombies (just like Japan) the answer is "but thats communism". He will then say that you are some kind of european fruitcake.
It does not register with a man who is the President of Harvard that he just spoke absolute rubbish. He doesnt see it. Most of this country doesnt see it.
A lot of people think the problem is the deficit, because debt is a problem. It isnt. If you cut it now, the economy will collapse. It doesnt matter how obvious this is, people just dont want to see it. The civil servants kind of see it but they underestimate the scale of the disaster. You will wish for British style recession if they go that way.
So I think that you need to have these idiot views tested. You dont have a choice. If you try and avoid it you will just fail cos people will insist that this leeching and witchery is tried.
I think it is better that the inevitable happen sooner rather than later. But I understand why others might think it better to defer. I just dont think the public mood will shift until prove it rubbish.
Worse still, if you dont have the right leader in the wings, you will get the "wrong" leader. This is a perfect Hitler moment. I joke that this time it will be Mexicans but someone will be seen as guilty of stabbing the Reich in the back. Liberals? Mexicans? Wiccans?
How about Liberals. Lock em all up. They are not real Americans.
Harry
So you are convinced angry liberal bloggers can sway just enough voters to elect Obama if you stick with him, but if some (any) of you defect to some Green or some clone of Ralph Nader that will split the left and let the GOP loon win?
You might be right.
Nobody is reading your blogs but other angry liberals, and they might be just that numerous.
But speaking as an angry liberal I have two things to say.
First, it might be true that if I vote for a minor party liberal so will just enough liberals to elect the Republican and if I vote for Obama so will enough liberals to reelect him.
But in neither case will it be because of anything I wrote, said, or did before the election.
Much less because of my vote.
Far too few people know or care what I will do and nobody, so far as I know, will defect leftward from the Democrats because I will.
And second, in this era of rightward march of both parties of the plutocrat-dominated duopoly the Democrats are not the party of the people and we will never get one unless liberals as a group defect from the Democrats and force the rump Democrats out of strategic voting to join them rather than let the Republicans win.
We have to intentionally and willingly sink the Democrats, repeatedly, and let the others in that party decided which, for them, is the lesser evil: the Republicans or (say) the Greens.
We have to make strategic voting work for us instead of against us, for a change.
We have to stop betraying ourselves and our real political principles every time we walk into the voting booth.
Frankly, I'm advising people to switch parties long enough to vote in Republican primaries to make sure Bachmann or Perry don't come through. I've always been an advocate of switching parties to control who comes through primaries. Used to do it when I was in my 20s all the time. However, I still couldn't stop Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter by myself nor, it seems Obama and a few others. However, I gave it my best shot.
I was almost as terrified as you are of an Obama presidency. We need to clean up Washington. Remember that what "change" was about? Now we have to wait until the Republicans screw it up again when they really change it for the worse. I'm not afraid of Perry or any Republican because it was predictable. By the way, start practicing to say "President Perry" because that's who is going to win the presidency in 2012. The only thing that can change the dynamics in place is if Obama decides not to run and we get a very strong Democratic candidate, someone tested, like Hillary. It's not that she's the only potential strong candidate, but I can't think of anyone who would have as good a chance. 2009 would have begun an economic contraction similar to the Great Depression, but Obama and his Democratic minions used make up to cover the dying economy.
It sounds like a couple of you are so disgusted with Obama that you really would prefer Dick Gently to him. Well, that's your decision. I think you're wacky, but that's you're decision.
I have no illusion that this blog or any single individual can decide a contest like this. But elections turn on millions of people engaging in conversation, and that's what you and I are doing right here.
Besides, Gore lost in 2000 by a substantially smaller number of people than read this blog. So...who knows?
@Alessandro...please don't speculate about the Bachmann's "foster kids." It's sickening. Almost as bad as the "progressives" I've seen sniggering about how they were all female and that meant Michelle didn't trust boys around her husband. They weren't foster kids in the traditional sense...and they were all female because they were young women from the clinic Bachmann's husband ran. It had something to do with preventing them from having abortions and they needed a temporary home...you'll have to look the details up yourself because it's not a topic that interests me, except when I see people running their mouths off about it without having read up on it themselves.
I had thoughts like this when I considered a Santorum vs. Obama race. Perry seems a whole lot like Santorum (sans "Google problem" of course).
How far do the republicans have to go before we say enough is enough? I wish I could effectively answer that, but the goal posts keep moving; as the republicans move further off into loonyland so goes Obama not too far behind them. I feel like I'm being offered the "choice" between a turd sandwich and a turd sandwich with cheese.
Joseph,
I tend to agree with you on this. I practically killed myself working to stop Obama in 2007-2008 (I recognized what he was about very early on, and did everything I could to get the word out - though it seemed that few gave my words credence). Obama's presidency turned out very much like I expected. I understand the Corrente argument and I have a lot of sympathy for it. It's really hard to stomach the thought of voting for Obama. But I've been living through the damage inflicted by Scott Walker in Wisconsin (it will take decades to reverse, and some of it may never be reversed). And Perry and Bachmann are waay further off the deep end.
I voted for Carter in '80, the year of a horrific bloodbath in the Senate where the liberal faction was largely expunged. I couldn't stand Jimmy (met him in Tanzania almost a decade later and he was insufferable during a 5 minute conversation) but I voted for him because Reagan was very scary. RR wasn't Adolf -- he even raised taxes -- but he changed the terms of the debate and they've stayed locked in ever since. I'll vote for Obama this year without illusion to try to prevent something worse.
Here is the Captain Spaulding Method of Conquering Fear:
1. Purchase some liquor (I prefer tequila.) Get the BIG bottle.
2. Pour a shot.
3. State (out loud): "I don't give a fuck!"
4. Down the shot.
5. Repeat as necessary.
It works for me.
Peter of Lone Tree, are you aware that changes to the U.S. Constitution is so difficult and that's why there are only 27 amendments? Amending the Consititution is almost impossible. Perry, unlike Romney and Huntsman, is only a little to the right of mainstream Republicans. I expect him to win the nomination and the presidency. The Democratic superdelegates who chose Obama in 2008 are responsible for that tragedy.
DM
I see Myego can diss your fearmongering with your approval. You need to change your "rules" joseph to say we're not allowed to disagree. My comments weren't "insulting." Now, calm down, go buy some tequila as myego suggests, and stop fearmongering.
Take a deep big boy breath (fine, now this is insulting) and post the comment that wasn't:
@ dakinkat....that's a great idea, but you're right...it would be difficult to get a large number of people to mess with the Republican primaries. Everyone should also remember...McCain came out of nowhere long into the Repug primary season, so we really have no idea how the powers that be will skew or try to skew this race. Haha...I saw that Rove is predicting Palin will take it!
@Joseph...just to clarify, I'm not "so disgusted" with Obama. I knew what he was all along, so disgust is not a factor because I'm not one of those Hopey-changey fools who ever had FEELINGS about their Boyfriend in the White House. I don't vote for frauds, period. That is my core issue. And FEAR is played out. Get real. Who cares about Perry's laundry list? Presidents aren't really "deciders." We are, and we can affect the national dialogue just as much after the election as before. Fear as a tactic is exactly what rightwingers are doing with the stupid code word "socialist" and the progressives do with their screeching about "wolves" and "Palin" etc etc. If progressives really gave a rats ass about wolves they would know, for instance, what's happened to them under Obama. If we cared about transparency and the safety of whistleblowers, etc, we'd be just as "scared" of Obama as anyone else, since he's cracked down more on whistleblowers than anyone. Freaking out is as equally useful as feeling "disgusted." It's pointless and not helpful. Principles are all we have left to champion.
Joseph, no, it's not because I prefer Dick Gently.
My preference order is probably much like yours: a real liberal > Obama > any Republican > Dick Gently, the psychopath who will destroy the world.
And if we think cardinally then I would assign good/bad points something like this.
100 a real liberal.
-10 Obama (Is Obama really in negative territory from the liberal point of view? Sure. War. Civil liberties. Taxes. Entitlements. Abortion. Gun control. Gay rights. Global warming.)
-20 the Republican
- 1000 (-1,000,000?) Dickie G.
But Dickie won't be in the race while some real liberal running for a minor party, Obama, and some real Republican will.
The deal-breaker for the strategic voting argument that liberals ought to vote Democrat so long as the D candidate is the lesser evil in the duopoly and nobody outside the duopoly will win is that both teams in the duopoly are dancing to the right and we will always be dragged to the right with them if we keep voting for the Democrats.
Things are already so bad that the lesser evil really is, in net, an evil rather than, on balance, a good.
So by voting for a lesser evil liberals are already voting against their own values and against actual, liberal candidates outside the duopoly in order to help ensure victory for a candidate and a party opposed to their aims and values.
And what with DLC Democrats dominating the situation will only get worse as years and elections go by.
The only strategy that holds out hope - and it will probably fail, of course - is for liberals to stop playing along and defect to some party of democratic progressives like the Greens (but it doesn't have to be them) permanently.
That may well cause a series of Democratic losses to Republicans.
And that in turn will pressure the rump Democrats to decide who is their lesser evil, the Republicans who are always further to the right from one election cycle to the next and always win so long as they vote Democrat or the liberals who might win if the rumpers stop voting Democrat and vote with the liberals instead.
Sure, this will likely - though not certainly – fail.
But I am tired of voting for lesser evils who openly denigrate me and my political values and betray them regularly.
PS. Dick Gently isn't running.
If he were, then of course I would agree this is a bad time to desert the Democrats.
Cannon says Perry is Hilter vote for Obama
[…]
"Many of you cannot imagine how anyone could possibly be worse than Obama. Well, I've made this historical comparison before, but let's repeat it: In 1932, everyone on the German left despised Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, an arch-reactionary who screwed up the economy something fierce. Worse than that guy seemed unimaginable.
A year later, guess what happened?"
I say fu€k it! Germany is way cooler than America now.
posted: 4:09 AM
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-admit-it-im-scared.html
If there is no Democratic primary for President, switch and vote in the Republican primary for the best of the lot.
I wish more people had done that in 1980 (even though Kennedy did primary Carter -- wrong antidote in my opinion). There were better Republican candidates than Reagan.
djmm
I'm voting for Ferris F Freemont.
PKD
Variations on a theme from Barack -
Vote for Obama because ...
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