Wait, Carl.... Weren't many of us "single-issue voters" in the 1970s, on the subject of the war in Viet Nam? You suggest that that's the cure once again. Strange, isn't it, that you identify the 1970s as precisely the time when the Democratic Party began its "long right turn"? Can you reconcile the obvious illogic?<div>
<br></div><div>While you're at it, perhaps you can comment on how a LARGER bloc of "single-issue voters" - those concerned with "law and order" - elected Richard Nixon to the Presidency in 1968 and re-elected him in 1972, all while the war in Viet Nam was still going on.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Over-simplification, anyone?</div><div><br></div><div>[Of course I too think that Amerika should get out of the imperialism business. The only thing that will bring that about - if anything - is our ever-declining economy. It'll be the same exact thing that got the Soviet Union out of the imperialism business.]</div>
<div><br></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 2:45 PM, C. G. Estabrook <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">galliher@illinois.edu</a>></span> wrote:</div><div class="gmail_quote">
<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
[Or, how not to be that terrible thing, a "single-issue voter." Tsk,
tsk.]<br>
<br>
<i>The source is "...the long right turn of the Democratic Party
since the 1970s, as financialization of the economy led to
shedding New Deal commitments so as to compete with the
Republicans for corporate patronage."<br>
</i><br>
And the cure is to make the single-issue large enough. ("Be as
radical as reality," said Lenin.) <br>
<br>
Opposition to the war is the necessary if not sufficient first
condition for a serious politics. What is required is "a
revitalization of the founding tradition of civic virtue and
republican values of liberty." And that's what the teapartiers are
calling for, even if they need to clarify their analysis.<br>
<br>
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't need to
worry about answers."<br>
<br>
Imperial war contradicts that revitalization. And avoiding the
question of the war disqualifies any further discussion.<br>
<br>
It's important that the Democrats do that, while the teapartiers are
conflicted on the matter. Although the polity is far from
democratic, a serious defeat for the Democratic party and the
concomitant rejection of their policies is the probably necessary
beginning of an insistence on different - and contrasting -
policies. <br>
<br>
Although it's true that no one - outside of a few Greens - are clear
on the matter. <br>
<br>
There's work for people like us.</div></blockquote></div></div>