Carmen Reinhart

Kenneth Rogoff

Douglas Feith

Larry Summers

Henry Kissinger

* All affiliated with Harvard

Good blog Jon, and I’m glad you’re spreading some much-needed hope, but I’m not 100% convinced that we can make valid predictions about future political dynamics based on where the millennials are at now. I’m a boomer, came of age in the groovy 60′s (pot-woodstock-vietnam-psychedelics,etc.) and we were convinced when our age group came into our political and economic horsepower years that our values would be the dominant values of the culture. Well, that scenario clearly didn’t play out as expected– we produced G.W. Bush, torture, Iraq, Afghanistan, $16 trillion worth of debt, massive environmental degradation, and so forth.

Of course video games aren’t the sole cause of gun violence. But the gun imagery in video games is part and parcel of the broader culture of violence, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that such imagery triggers a dangerous and extreme reaction in those who are already psychologically and emotionally damaged. We have people walking around among us who are ticking time bombs– let’s not give them any fodder for their paranoid delusions.

What puzzles me about the so-called “conservatives” is their inability to understand that if they had exercised the sober and prudent fiscal policy that they claim to represent, they would actually enjoy lower taxes. Waging costly unfunded wars and handing out tax breaks to the economic elites are precisely what drove the national debt up to $16 trillion dollars, which imposes an enormous burden of interest payments on the taxpayer. Duh…

Kerry is on record is stating that even knowing what he knows now, he would still have voted to support the Iraq War. Oy, oy, oy….

I turned 65 this year, and needed a left knee replacement, a hernia repair, and a gall bladder removal. Without Medicare I would have been screwed.

The recent election dealt a blow to the value of the Republican brand, so I’m wondering if the big right wing money might try advancing their agenda by backing conservative corporate Democrats, ala Joe Lieberman and Mary Landrieu. In terms of tax policy and de-regulation, they can get most of what they want from those faux Democrats, which is a lot easier than trying to get Republicans elected in the present political climate. Instead of going up against the Democratic Party with its powerful Latino and African-American constituency, the fat cats might calculate they are better off to simply co-opt the Democrats. The Kochs and Adelsons and others of their ilk are mighty pissed, and not inclined to write big checks to Karl Rove again, so I’m betting that they are going to re-think their strategy and sponsor some puppet D’s.

We need more Elizabeth Warrens and fewer Diane Feinsteins in the US Senate.

I like the way the polls are moving toward Obama because the bigger his perceived lead is going into election day, the more difficult it becomes for the Republicans to pull off some kind of ballot scam and steal the election.

The other thing that is a big positive IMHO is that we’re seeing a lot of GOP stalwarts make pointed and very public expressions of their doubts about Romney. He is getting hammered from the Right (George Will, Fortune Magazine, and many others) for his various gaffes, especially his godawful commentary on events in the Middle East today. What is especially interesting about this is that conservative politicians and TV personalities don’t usually stray off the reservation. They almost always honor the tribal codes, for fear of being banished– Omerta is their highest value. But a lot of them are beating up on Romney of late, which suggests that they have already come to the conclusion that the GOP ticket is toast. They wouldn’t be jeopardizing the coming election with their negative comments if they thought Romney had a decent chance of winning, because they would be putting themselves at risk of sanction.

The 1% who own and manage this country don’t actually care much about gay marriage, abortion guns, or religion. There are not enough rich white guys to be politically competitive, so they need to create reliable voting blocs of surrogate voters, and their strategy has been to use the social issues to rally the cultural conservatives to the GOP side. The real agenda is another tax cut for Mitt Romney and the evisceration of government rules and regulations that might impact the Koch Brothers. It’s a very transparent game, yet their clueless followers still haven’t figured it out. The little old lady in Kansas casts her ballot for GOP candidates because she’s been told she is supposed to hate and fear gay people, but the net result is that a hedge fund manager somewhere gets a reduced capital gains rate.

Laurel,

I hear ya, and agree that their nonsense has to be rebutted. But we should do so with an awareness of the real GOP agenda that underlies the social issues.

The Right doesn’t actually give a rat’s ass about same-sex marriage, or abortion, or guns, or religion, or any of the other social issues. They just use them as bait to draw the cultural conservatives out of their caves at election time to vote for Republicans, the real agenda being another tax cut for the 1%. We shouldn’t make the mistake of engaging them in a good-faith discussion about any of these issues, because they aren’t sincere about any of it in the first place.

The GOP has a political dilemma. That party is essentially an advocacy organization for the 1%, but there aren’t enough rich white guys to build a constituency that can win elections. So the only way for the Republicans to remain politically competitive is to cobble together a party that welcomes all manner of wingnuts who have been whipped into a frenzy over the hot-button social issues (god, guns, gays, abortion.) The little conservatives who form most of the GOP base don’t have a clue that when they show up at the polls they aren’t actually voting on their culturally conservative agenda– they are voting to insure that people like Mitt Romney get another tax break, and that government regulation of business is eviscerated.

Jon,

Appreciate the article, but let’s stop calling these goofballs “conservatives.” This is an enormous tactical error that a lot of smart progressives continue to make. The term conservative confers a mainstream legitimacy to what is really a radical agenda.

I’m betting that Romney is going to win this election, mostly because the Democratic base is discouraged. Obama isn’t going to enjoy the fanatic level of support he got in 2008. All those students and unions and enviros and progressives who hit the streets and worked hard just aren’t going to make the same effort this time around. Plus, the GOP has had four years to rig the system and exclude a lot of voters from the electorate. And, Romney will probably pick a Latino running mate to tap into that demographic, he won’t be burdened with a loser like Sarah Palin.

Been following elections for a long time, and I can’t think of a single case where the Republicans have ever advocated for more inclusive voter participation. Their agenda has ALWAYS been to exclude as many voters as possible from the process.