Posted by
Andrews on Monday, May 05, 2008 5:08:48 PM
For many years it has been traditional to stick with the designation of the stupid and the evil party. Some more discontented persons switched tot he dumb and dumber parties. A few unhappy conservatives have gone over to "Democrat and Democrat Lite", but that never really caught on. But, in the interest of accuracy, I think it is time to go to a new designation.
I think for the foreseeable future we will be confronted by the angry party and the disappointed party. Or maybe, to be a bit more accurate, if a little unflattering, the tantrum party and the crybaby party.
The Democrats have started to make a career of being angry.And it is not just the province of the professional, rent-a-mob racial grievance mongers or the union goons any more. The entire party is perpetually angry about something. In 2000 it was the "stolen" election. In 2004 it was the "swiftboating" of Kerry. Or the war. Or George Bush. They are in a perpetual snit about something.
And when they can't get angry at a Republican, they get angry with themselves. The Clinton supporters are angry at Obama calling them racists, Obamaniacs are angry at Hillary's "dirty tricks". When they lack another target they will quite happily turn on one another. The sure sign that they have become the angry party.
And the Republicans have become the perpetually disappointed crybaby party. No longer able to comprehend that a political party represents a coalition and that a narrow reading of "conservative" will never win even a single state, each tiny fragment of the conservative spectrum has staked out a set of criteria, and any candidate who fails to meet those minutely specified positions is threatened with having votes withheld*.
In short, they think that compromise and coalitions have no place in politics, and so if they don't get exactly what they want, they are taking their ball and going home.
At least this designation has one improvement over the ones that came before, it disproves all those claims that the two parties are indistinguishable. One is foaming at the mouth, the other weeping and mopey. They might be uniformly childish positions, but there is no way you can argue that the tantrum party and the crybaby party are one and the same thing.
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* I admit to having recently attacked a small segment of the social conservatives, but that is a different matter. I think their authoritarian beliefs are out of step with all other segments of the Republican party. I do not want to give up on compromise or a strong coalition, I simply think that the enforced morality position does not fit with any of the other parts of the party.