I think if you look at election results over time, it's clear that a large number of non-white or non-Anglo Americans seem to have the sense that the Republican Party and the conservative movement don't have their best interests at heart. And when people see conservatives not just saying "well, I'm a conservative and Sotomayor isn't, so I'm not happy about the choice" but engaging in bizarre tirades against the "unnatural" pronunciation of her name and the evils of Puerto Rican cuisine while suggesting that the kind of resume that was suitable for Samuel Alito doesn't cut the mustard for Sonia Sotomayor, well then I think that tends to reinforce the sense that conservatives are very interested in white people's problems and not so interested in anyone else.One problem with the GOP is that when you build your brand on Willie Horton, "white hands" and the Minutemen, you end up with a party that, well, believes in those things. People keep saying that the GOP is playing into Obama's hands. I've said similar. But as I think about this, that takes chess-match thinking to a rather silly extreme.
More likely, when you have a party, in which people feel comfortable coming to rallies and saying on camera that they won't vote for a black guy, then that party will have people asserting the right to mispronounce Sotomayor's name. That party will have people arguing that Sotomayer's food choices are evil. It's highly unlikely that that party will have some sort of sophisticated tolerence game at the ready. They are who they are.
That said, it's interesting to note the difference in tone between GOP figures with something at stake (people who have to win elections) and those who have nothing at stake. Newt has a megaphone, but he has no real responsibility. He can yell whatever he wants. He's got books to hustle, dog--not Senators to elect.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Your last paragraph suggests something that has dawned on me recently (I'm a slow thinker).
Gingrich is emerging from his 1990s chrysalis as Limbaugh Lite. Neither men have any real interest in winning elections. Both are doing what they are doing for their own thrills and their own cash. This is what now passes for GOP leadership.
The talking heads are saying it's a cycle, the Democratic Party had the same sort of problems in the Reagan era, mumble mumble mumble. But I don't remember that the Dems ever had it this bad. The Repubs are much more mindful of the Know Nothings... racist, sectional, Christianist, politically doomed group of folks who are certain they're correct.
It's kind of hard to feel sorry for these folks (gingrich, tancredo...)...i mean the League of Enemployed White Men is growing, but the only thing they've done is to make it hard to root for them. Who would want to see tancredos crusty face on cnn again? there's a reason he was voted out of office...not even his own district is interested..so why should the rest of the world be? Btw....the KKK analogy? I mean WOW...that's a hard sale...i mean a REALLY hard sale. Yes, this:
is equal to the KKK...what an ass...i mean really, what a complete dumbfuck.
Bringing us back to where TNC started yesterday... the post "Especially Blacks and Latinos" made the point that completely non-equivalent things are discussed as though they are equivalent. As a controlling mechanism.
And the rhetoric gets even worse today - talk of menstruation, more blather of racism, lack of intelligence, affirmative action, bullying. Sandra Day O'Connor did not go through this.
Meanwhile, the MSM publishes stories about a post-racial society.
I remember having a conversation with a man who grew up in the 1950s in a well-to-do white family in Mississippi. He was gay, and had fled to Greenwich Village as a young man. I was struck by his comment that his family's mindset was so mired in bigotry that they were even prejudiced against food that wasn't familiar to them. This gave me an increased appreciation for the diversity of cuisine that you find in New York and other cosmopolitan cities. Sometimes narrow tastes in food reflect more than just uneducated palates -- they reflect closed minds.
Interesting post. Thank you. And getting back to what Judge Sotomayor actually said, I think what she said about food is just absolutely true. If I grew up eating lutefisk or andouille sausage gumbo or whole hog barbeque instead of my grandmother's pierogi, I would be different.
Food is not destiny. But it is a metaphor for the culture that raises you. People who don't understand that may have grown up eating Chef Boyardee. Culturally impoverished and racially myopic.
My girlfriend had a co-worker who said her sister-in-law forbade her to bring a sweet potato pie to Thanksgiving dinner because "that's what black people eat."
How racist do you have to be to take it out on the pastry?!
Does that make me racist for not liking sweet potato pie? (I like greens and cobbler, though.)
You'd only be racist if you rejected sweet potato pie for its association with a particular ethnic group. If you reject it because you don't like the way it tastes, then that just makes you crazy.
speaking of substantive analysis of the Sotomayor appointment:
paging sgwhite... i saw your sparring match with some guy in the Swampland (Time) blog that had video of (and a little commentary on) some people discussing a brief C-SPAN clip of Sotomayor last year grilling a lawyer over some case involving the scope of some previous court decision called Bivens and how/whether it applied to the case of "Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen detained during a layover at J.F.K. Airport, alleged he was tortured and released after one year without being charged". Can someone explain Bivens and the decisions on it, and how it came into this particular case?
it's frustrating because the C-SPAN clip cuts off right when it seems like it's about to get more interesting (yes, you can adjust where the main video starts and stops, but after that the clip-within-the-clip stops and the commentators start talking) - Sotomayor goes "so it's the govt's position that if the executive raises the specter of national security, then government agents can torture anyone, including citizens, and those people would have no redress?" and the lawyer (kind of exasperated) goes "no, that is NOT the government's position, your honor"... i was like well wait, i want to hear what its position actually IS! It seems Sotomayor had expanded the scope of that Bivens thing to include corporations (like prison-management companies) to which government work is contracted out, and the then Supreme Court had overturned that expansion.
my favorite comment from that thread, which was filled with rudeness and legal jargon without enough clarity:
"sacredh Says:
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 10:26 pm
I developed a superiority complex just reading this thread."
I saw that thread too, and i was like "damn!" the way that chump was writin' at you. He was completely out of control!
Good for you for not giving into the hate.
The exchange you are probably referring to is my daily tormenting of a troll commentor named spob. He quotes National Review religiously as if he knows what the hell he is talking about when he doesn't. That's why if you ever come over there you will notice I never refer to him/her/it by name and that just drives them absolutely crazy. As for the actual clip I thought it was great because it wasn't that Sotomayor wasn't getting what the lawyer was trying to say. What she was doing was putting what he was saying in plain terms but he didn't like that she was doing that. He was trying to hide behind legalese. The thing about the case in the clip was about the government contracting out torture basically to remove liability. But most liberal judges would agree that Bivins wasn't meant to allow for that distinction. It was supposed to allow for redress should a person be wronged by the government. And if the government farmed their work out to a contractor then in theory the law should still apply. Now in the other case which I quoted for spob the problem again was that it was a contractor who had committed the crime but he did it while basically working for the government. So the overturn by the Supreme Court meant that even though the contractor was working under the umbrella of the government at the prison, the person who was wronged could only sue the contractor themselves not the government. You have to remember that the court is controlled by conservatives right now and then go back and read the dissent where all 4 liberal justices agreed basically with Sotomayor's position as I bolded.
Thanks man. This was my basic reading but you filled in some blanks.
Btw: I don't know what the beef was that your nemesis was referring to, but here is an online-dictionary Austrian to German:
http://www.oesterreichisch.net/woerterbuch-A-oesterreichisch.html
It's not an official languague but to say "I don't speak Austrian" is not nonsensical and I think most Austrians would even find it charming.
It's a bizarre form of myopia. When one's whole town seems to lean toward a single political POV, when all one's friends have the same opinions and prejudices, when people form little media cliques and religious cliques and teabag rally cliques, it's really easy to fall into the mindset that ALL OF AMERICA sees the world in the same way. Or at least all REAL AMERICANS do. I wish there was a word to describe the post-defeat feeling that an electorate feels - "How did the other candidate win? Everyone -I- know hates that guy." For now, 'myopic' will have to do.
This small-mindedness is not exclusively the province of the right; it can affect the whole spectrum of communities. Certainly, it's really tough for anyone to wrap their mind around the entirety of America. I was a transplant liberal to a very liberal, small college town in Vermont. I loved it, and appreciated the culture and the intellectualism there... but some people there are still waiting for the Communist Revolution to happen, so it's not hard to understand that provincialism sets in when there's no one to stir the pot. However, the majority of libs live in cities, where one is immersed in a constantly shifting multiculturalism. It challenges one's worldview on a continual basis. It's not that everyone in a city has become grey, but at least most people in a city would know not to complain about someone's name without coming across as an asshole, or not to be afraid of a cuisine, or not to question someone's intelligence without having any specific argument in mind.
Tolerance is practiced, and I mean 'practiced' in the original sense of the word. Your community either encourages that practice, or it does not. (or it does a spotty job of it.) As long as the GOP continues to consider itself in sole possession of the nation's true soul, rejecting all auslanders, it will continue to slip away into the past.
ditto.
Excellent final paragraph.
Only thing I would add is that any major city has a few neighborhoods that are as provincial as anywhere in rural Vermont or Appalachia. They have to work harder at keeping the walls up, but they manage it. I'm not talking about any particular racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group either -- cliquishness knows no boundaries, and even urban hipsters have been known to form clannish subcultures.
But the sort of people who like geographical mobility and shifting world views do have an easier time in big cities than in most small towns. College towns excepted, maybe, but only if people get out after a few years.
Having lived in both, I'd say that cities have similar problems as the provincial areas, but city-centric. It can happen that people from the cities only encounter other people who like that "constantly shifting multiculturalism." Personally I happen to prefer that myopia to the myopia of smaller towns, but that's an informed judgment on my part. I have met people in cities that really have no idea what it's like to live in anything other than a city, and don't even try to understand it. They're just as prejudiced towards rural people as the rural people are towards the multiculturalist cities.
Greeks and barbarians, all over again, I guess.
Tel, Jingo, zacksback, all yall.
Some great observations - and I really thought I was the only one. You guys really hit the nail on the head.
To illustrate perfectly what you are talking about - pop quiz... who has gay marriage?
A. California - home of the "elite" San Fransico, HRC gays, Hollywood liberals, vegans, pot smoking hippies
B. Iowa - flyover state that grows corn
The answer, of course, is B!
Why, I don't know. I'm just a midwesterner.
Hey sorry zacksback... I didn't read your whole post - I pretty much repeated you
Excellent point that this cuts both ways, to the political right AND to the political left.
Look at Prop 8. Everyone complains about this week's court decision, and no one mentions that if gay-rights supporters in CA didn't do such a piss-poor job of fighting Prop 8 to begin with, we wouldn't be in this mess.
"Well, I'm a vegan socialist who shops at the Berkeley Co-op and I think the idea that California **of all places** would pass such a thing is ridiculous! And my friends, all of whom are vegan socialists living here in Berkeley, think so too. Proposition 8 is destined to fail!"
You know why New England and Iowa have gay marriage? This is why:
CONNECTICUT: I was debating gay marriage with my Republican friend, trying to convince him it's a civil right. He supports civil unions instead.
CALIFORNIA: You have a Republican friend?
I think it's unfortunate that the opponents of Prop 8 in California have become such fair game in the comments on this site. God forbid, some of them certainly fell short of perfection in fighting for their rights, but you are disappearing a lot of others from the story. You could make your point without being quite so nasty about it.
In fairness, that goes for about every liberal interest group
@Zacksback,
Ok, I have to go there. I wish that I could craft a better response, but I just do not have enough time. I live in Berkeley. I have lots of Republican friends and relatives. Everyone I know who lives in Berkeley has Republican friends and relatives. Berkeley is a liberal city, but it is very diverse, and Republicans in Berkeley do exist (although they tend to be libertarian leaning Republicans - at least the ones I know). In fact, it is pretty hard to live in California without knowing or working with Republicans. California is just not as liberal as people think it is.
Having said that, you are correct that the opposition to Prop 8 did a "piss poor job." That is an understatement. There are several reasons why prop 8 passed (which I won't go into), but to imply that it was entirely do to some snobbishness on the part of CA Dems who never speak to any Republicans is just wrong.
Hey sorry Fighting Words, I think Zacksback is right.
Berkley? Libertarian Leaning? What kind of Republicans are you hanging around with?
I live in Michigan. Here Democrats are mostly union and Republicans are the rich white dudes.
I'm sorry Fighting Words - when you say Berkley is liberal I believe you. When you say it is diverse I laugh. I've been there. Liberal does not equal diverse.
Its hard not to be liberal when the sun is shining all the time, you have the country's biggest economy, and all the movies and TV shows flow from your general vicinity.
Diversity is when you are a white gay dude from Detroit and you have to deal with the black homophobic dude from Flint who is a hard core country music fan.
Zacksback may have divided the states wrong, but he's divided winning and losing well--and a joke always makes the lesson stick.
My running line is "Republicans are not orcs. They're fellow hobbits with strange opinions. We should talk to them and maybe have tea."
(My children keep a running list of exceptions. Cheney? Orc. Rumsfeld? Orc. Wolfowitz? Orc. Ashcroft? Looked like an orc, but he smacked down Gonzalez from a hospital bed, so maybe he's better than we thought.)
Cheney = Sauron
Rumsfeld = Saruman
Wolfowitz = Wormtongue
Ashcroft = One of the Nazgul
Guilty chuckle.
I'm actually pissed at Tolkien about orcs because they were genuinely unhuman and genuinely without a mother who would grieve their death. It made a good story, but it was a terrible model for real war.
Plus, it's a terrible model for putting the country back together: we can't do it if we say and really believe most conservatives are that different from "us."
And yet the temptation to yet another joke is almost irresistable. Having enemies to mock is fun. Fun, but bad for the soul and the shire.
Must stop it.
Ted Olson ≠ Orc
John Cornyn ≠ Orc
John McCain ≠ Orc
Charlie Christ ≠ Orc
Steve Schmidt ≠ Orc
I'm trying. I'm trying. Really.
You're not the only one there, sporc - Tolkien himself went back and forth on the subject. In one of his later letters, Tolkien did say that there must have been orc women, but he'd been retooling his orc origin story for decades at that point.
I think it's important to note that no ballot initiative favoring gay marriage has passed. Nor, do I think, has a single ballot initiative rebuking gay marriage failed (though I could easily be wrong about that one).
I'm not making an argument about gay marriage (which I support). I'm just saying that it's kind of apples and oranges to compare Prop 8 with a Connecticut Supreme Court decision. I mean, the California Supreme Court came to the same decision as they did in Connecticut a year ago. Once the people of a state (any state) begin to vote in favor of gay marriage, then you can make the Prop 8 comparison. Until then, you're talking about two very different things.
What's that? Plain spoken honesty?! How terribly refreshing. The GOP has nurtured the ugliest social tendencies of the American psyche since FDR -- first, they helpd office in the name of the party, now, they hold the party's megaphone and shout aggressive drivel that makes nearly everyone, except and angry mostly white, mostly male rump, deeply uncomfortable (even if they could agree on points). And they just keep going down that road. It's spectacular to watch.
Not because it spells the demise of the GOP -- eventually they'll get their act together and get someone young, appealing, and not so uniformly extreme (think Megan McCain who describes herself as a pro-sex, progressive Republican. She's the only one in the public view so far, but there are boud to be more as the old gaurd continue to recreationally shoot each other in the face) to hold their banner aloft -- but because the puzzled, timid, toleration of this kind of rhetoric by moderate Republicans and the pass given them by MSM, points to how deep racial animous still goes and how widely our political discourse still allows it to range.
So many typos! Sorry, I should have hit preview.
Hey deva, it happens (the typos). More importantly, your first paragraph strikes me as perfectly correct - it is indeed spectacular to watch.
I'm not certain I agree as fully with your second para. This might be what it feels like to watch a fundamental political shift. You correctly point out that the Repubs need some fresh young face (not to mention fresh thinking). But a real problem is the degree to which they are turning off younger people with their rhetoric.
As you say, other than Megan McCain, I can't think of anyone under 50 who's a potential leader in the party. I mean Jindal??? Eric Cantor wants it but, like Jindal, has not impressed. And Megan McCain of course earned her position via nepotism. Bleak vista right now.
It just feels like that famous Diane Arbus photo of a young fellow at the 1968 (or was it 1972) Republican Convention. Wearing a straw hat and looking like someone from the 1930s. That's where the Republicans are -- thirty years behind the times we are in.
So much of the Sotomayor reaction is pandering to America's worst demons. During the Bush years, and it must be said on Bush's behalf, he was a far more tolerant man than those who went before and have come after, it was blatantly obvious to all but those who blindly wished to believe, that if there were ever a case of Freudian projection in politics, the right and the Republicans continuously indulged in such nonsense.
Despite their continuous objection to identity politics, no political group in American history quite matches the greater part of the Republican party who only seems to care about their right to power.
There's no real objection to Sotomayor, who for all intents and purposes appears to be anything but liberal--oh for a William Douglas or Thurgood Marshall. It's just she's not them, and in the abjectly disgusting fashion folks like Limbaugh have gone to the bank on, they pander to America's fears of "the other."
Moreover, I do think there is somehting else afoot. In fact, this element of our society should be marginalized; most Americans are not inclined to kneejerk every issue, and find the current batch of Repucliana odious. Perhaps, what this--the right to sound like a gringo and eat cucumber sandwiches--is more about gaining and consolidating control of one of America's two parties, rather than even intended to be part of the wider national discussion, which they don't recognize to begin with.
They don't really care if they lost the last election. But they have their fingers crossed that Obama will fail and meanwhile they wish to demagogue their way into owning the Republican party, so if he does fail, and given the mess we're in all around there's no guarantee that anyone could reverse the tide of history, they will be ready to take the reins of power.
Fine post. It makes sense of what the Republican rump is doing. The pinch of fanaticism makes their nonsense clearer.
Especially since, demographically, with the increasing numbers of Hispanics in America, opposing Sotomayor for stupid reasons such as food and the pronunciation of her name are self-defeating. Fanatics don't care that they have lost in the past. And repeat their losing strategies.
I may be wrong in detecting a tiny whiff of pessimism in your last sentence. Certainly there is no guarantee. But I believe it very unlikely Obama will fail. The tide is now on his side.
The conventional wisdom says voters lock in their feelings about the economy by the June before the election. After that, the economy can improve, but they will still punish the party in power. Obama could succeed, but without making enough improvements in the next year, and have a tough 2010. That I could see happening.
I can't see the Rebublicans either house of Congress, then using it as a springboard to victory in '12, which seems to be part of their game plan. In any case, right now the party has no one but the mostly-male rump, so they're letting them set the agenda.
Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight has charted this very well. Of the top 7 competitive Senate seats open in 2010, 6 are held by Republicans. Chris Dodd is the only real chance for Republicans. And of course the Dems are now at 59 soon to be 60. No way, unless something truly catastrophic happens, that there can be create a shift of 10 seats toward the Republicans.
And the Democratic lead in the House is historically huge. 80 seats. Comparison: in Newt's Contract with America win in 1994, one of the most decisive shift elections in history, 54 House seats shifted.
As you say, there is almost no chance that Republicans will gain control of anything in 2010.
I am not sanguine about the bnnking industry, nor our 2 wars. I am holding my breath on healthcare and a meaningful energy policy. All big ticket issues. As a Californian, it makes complete sense to me that our economy could take a lot of the rest of the country with it. So while the political tide seems on Obama's side, the trough we're in (I am for the stimulus, but by god how much does each and every American owe on our national debt?) financially, internationally, environmentally leaves me with pessimism, certainly.
You want us to think about actual governing? Man, you just ruined my day with your reality fixation. (And you're right, of course.)
paging sgwhiteinfla (see above)
Sorry I was late getting over here but I responded up above.
Great point. I was listening to an interview with Michelle Rhee (chancellor of DC public schools) this morning. It got me wondering why her "conservative" views on education (ie: merit pay, abolish tenure, less power for unions, etc.) were so much better received than the same views have been from the Republican party.
I think the answer has something to do with the fact that relatively rich, white men who haven't spent any time in the inner city have no authority to talk about what's best educationally for poor brown/black kids. Couple that with the dog whistle racism the Republican party has trafficked in for the last few decades and it makes it verrrrrryyyy hard to believe that they have the best interests of poor kids at heart.
The fact that it's people like Rhee (I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume she's an Obama supporter) and Geoffrey Canada who are owning the conservative ideas, at least when it comes to education, goes to show how far the GOP has to go to get back their credibility.
To answer the question the reason is because the "liberal" media who are tired of being called liberals have created a myth with Michelle Rhee. She hasn't really done anything to merit all of the attention she is given. So far all of the supposed ideas she has for education haven't come to fruition. Not only that some of the things she has done as Chancellor in DC like firinng Principals and teachers have backfired and thrown some schools into chaos. There have not been any appreciable difference in the achievement of the students under her leadership. However the "liberal" media continues to promote her as the best thing since sliced bread. And because of that some Democrats have taken to trying to latch on to her undeserved star. But notice that after having her be mentioned in a Presidential debate, she wasn't seriously considered for the Sec of Education post. If you want to see how the myth of Michelle Rhee was created pretty much out of whole cloth go to www.dailyhowler.com and put her name in the search engine. It will trip your head out.
Andres Alonso in Baltimore has been getting a lot of good press, although there's plenty of people that don't care for him.
@Catherine,
First of all, I just want to make a point regarding education. I know it's off topic, and I don't want to start a flame war, but I just have to say this. I don't know who Michelle Rhee is, but the reasons that those ideas (merit pay, abolish tenure, less power for unions, etc.) were probably not well received is that they are just really, really bad ideas.
Okay, now that I got that out of the way, on to your main point. I disagree. I don't think the issue is one of race. I mean, a lot Democrats are relatively rich, white men (and women) - even in large cities. I think the issue is that Republicans are just really bad at actually governing. Especially after the last 8 years, they have a credibility problem when it comes to governing. Their idea of "limited government" just does not really work well for education, and they have a lot of problems with working with teachers.
Coates,
here's one for you:
Tancredo: Sotomayor Is A Member Of The ‘Latino KKK Without The Hoods Or The Nooses’
Seizing the opportunity to vilify a female, Hispanic Supreme Court nominee, noted bigot Tom Tancredo has emerged from obscurity to denounce Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Earlier this week, Tancredo declared her to be a “racist” who should be “disqualified” from serving on the bench.
This afternoon on CNN, he went further, attacking her affiliation with the National Council of La Raza as equivalent to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/28/tancredo-latino-kkk/
They are who we thought they were.
TNC led off with "That said, it's interesting to note the difference in tone between GOP figures with something at stake (people who have to win elections) and those who have nothing at stake."
Is Tancredo's seat so safe he can mouth off like Limbaugh?
Meanwhile, John Cornyn stunned me by talking sense against Gingrich for twenty seconds: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/28/john-cornyn-repudiates-gi_n_208915.html . Might be all about votes, but it's strong enough that it might even have some actual respect for non-white voters in it somewhere.
Totally safe, since he's no longer in office.
Excellent. I've been trying so hard to ignore the guy that I missed the absolute basics.
We need more Justices with good American names...like "Antonin".
Dude. *William Gibson* just name-checked you.
Feh. I question his taste!
taste in what? Food? have u seen him? i don't think he has a taste in food...
Parcells' Rule always, always applies: you are what your record says you are.
It follows that, in light of the GOP's record, none of this should be terribly surprising.
It is a chess match....but sadly for the soon-to-be-extinct-as the-Whigs-GOP it is a chess match between a ranked grandmaster and the chessplayer equivalent of Sarah Palin.
Obama stresses inclusiveness...the GOP is now the Noble Yeoman Conservatives club, "pointy-headed intellectuals" (ie, anyone with a college degree), scientists, brown people, black people, ghey people, young people, need not apply.
This, for example, is a stone brilliant move.
Checkmate!
The Diaz decision recognizes who the Pope is. I disagree with much of the conservatism of Pope Benedict. But he, like Diaz, is a scholar. Sending another scholar to represent our interests is ideal. You cannot win an argument with the Pope; Catholicism is not a democracy. But you can attempt to win him over with scholarly debate.
Add the politics of the growing Hispanic vote and you have brilliance.
There have been many such decisions (Hillary Clinton at State, Rahm Emanuel, keeping Robert Gates at Defense, Ray LaHood, Eric Holder, Eric Shinseki, Christina Romer etc etc). You can argue with individual choices. Overall, we don't credit them as quickly or as often as we should because we are all witness to the inept presidential decision-making of the last 20 years. We've been dulled by mediocrity. We expect stupidity.
Republican leaders are stunned. Like us, they do not seem to know how to react to intelligence and thoughtfulness. This is what it feels like to be witness to a political paradigm shift.
Obama is not a liberal.
He is a machiavellian pragmatist.
All sapient well-read humans know who George Bush was.
Machiavelli wrote that the two primary attributes of the good prince are prudence and the strength to use force when necessary. If that's what is meant by machiavellian (often misinterpreted these days), then yes. And thank you very much to gods who grant us a prudent president.
Back in the philosophy graduate school day, I was American personalist rather than pragmatist. But as wife would attest, I've asked for a president who would solve problems (and not create them) for several decades. We have a helluva lot of pragma to do.
Machiavellian pragmatist. Feels just right to me.
Come to think of it, Green's Rule also applies: They are who we thought they were!
No....Maya Angelou
I like that. But I love Denny Green :)
@Acromion,
Don't want to spend too much time on this issue because it is not the main topic of this thread, but...
Like I said before, California is just not, and has never been, as liberal as people think it is (and the sun doesn't always shine - try working in San Francisco). Yes, we have San Francisco and "Hollyweird," but we also have some of the reddest areas of the country (Central Valley, Orange County, etc.). Second, even those areas like the Bay Area and Los Angeles have a sizable Republican minority. And even the Democrats are not 100% behind gay marriage.
As for Berkeley itself. Like, I said before, it is liberal, but we do have Republicans. I don't know if the same holds true today, but when I went to Cal, the largest club on campus was Berkeley College Republicans (in fact, we supposedly had the largest college Republican club in the nation). Another thing is that a sizable number of people who live in Berkeley come from somewhere else, and that "somewhere else" probably was more politically diverse. Finally, I live in South Berkeley - near Oakland, which is very racially diverse, and is predominantly Democrat, but not everyone there is pro-gay marriage.
OK well I don't know that much about Cali. I suppose we all have stereotypes.
One stereotype that people hold about the midwest is that we are culturally irrelevant. Politics, news, and publishing flows from the big east coast cities. Entertainment comes from sunny California. When people think of the midwest, they think "flyover," like we have nothing to offer besides corn, cows, cheese, and cars.
I think Dennis Green, former coach of the AZ Cardinals had it right (re: the conservative morons that seem to be hijacking their party) "They are who we thought they were."
And if I might add ... "who we thought them to be." Their ignorance is nothing more complicated than that.