I’m not looking forward to these next four years of politics
It’s more likely that today’s majority party is going to adopt a different strategy, which you might call Kill the Wounded. It’s more likely that today’s Democrats are going to tell themselves something like this:…
“Then, wedge issues. The president should propose no new measures that might unite Republicans, the way health care did in the first term. Instead, he should raise a series of wedge issues meant to divide Southerners from Midwesterners, the Tea Party/Talk Radio base from the less ideological corporate and managerial class.
“He’s already started with a perfectly designed gun control package, inviting a long battle with the N.R.A. over background checks and magazine clips. That will divide the gun lobby from suburbanites. Then he can re-introduce Bush’s comprehensive immigration reform. That will divide the anti-immigration groups from the business groups (conventional wisdom underestimates how hard it is going to be for Republicans to back comprehensive reforms).
“Then he could invite a series of confrontations with Republicans over things like the debt ceiling — make them look like wackos willing to endanger the entire global economy. Along the way, he could highlight women’s issues, social mobility issues (student loans, community college funding) and pick fights on compassion issues, (hurricane relief) — promoting any small, popular spending programs that Republicans will oppose.
Blowback
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Brooks, you’re clueless.
davidk on January 18, 2013 at 9:04 PM
The Obama regime is based on common sense pragmatism. He fundamentally transformed the nation’s capitol. No more lobbyists, no more big money, diminished wall street influence, on and on.
tom daschle concerned on January 18, 2013 at 9:06 PM
Well, I’m not looking forward to 4 more years of Dear Leader and Moochelle.
Dingbat63 on January 18, 2013 at 9:08 PM
If you don’t like it, Brooks, why don’t you lock yourself in a closet full of well-pressed pants for the next four years and think things over?
trigon on January 18, 2013 at 9:15 PM
I’m not looking forward to these next four years of Mr. Brooks’ mendacities and whining.
Rebar on January 18, 2013 at 9:16 PM
Magazine clips… He couldn’t take five minutes to read teh interwebz and not continue to look ignorant? Judging from the increasingly pro-NRA/standard capacity mag suburban soccer moms on my FB feeds, I think the split is between democrats, urbane RINO elitists and beltway types and just about everyone else who lives at least twenty minutes outside of a major metropolitan area.
deepdiver on January 18, 2013 at 9:25 PM
Good, hope it makes you puke like your columns do to anyone with a brain.
arnold ziffel on January 18, 2013 at 9:44 PM
GFY, Brooks. Douches like you gave us this nitwit President and his kook-fringe Democrap supporters.
Jaibones on January 18, 2013 at 9:59 PM
Maybe Brooks is just concerned about the effect Obamacare will have on people who press pants for a living.
malclave on January 18, 2013 at 10:10 PM
I thought he was talking about short video excerpts from shows like Dateline and Entertainment Tonight.
malclave on January 18, 2013 at 10:12 PM
Uh-huh. Suuuuuuuure you aren’t. Anyone who bases the success of a candidate by the crease in their pants and believes this:
is thereby declared a clueless idiot.
conservative pilgrim on January 18, 2013 at 11:12 PM
I see that comments are closed at NYT so, for what it’s worth, I would like to post my reponse to Mr. Brooks here.
Dear Mr. Brooks,
Of all the mindlessly infantile things you’ve written since your politically-astute “creases” epiphany, this article is the most idiotic. With all due respect:
First of all “polarization” is a fictitious term. The distancing of progressive political players from conservative norms is not a matter of ideological groups moving farther and farther apart. It is about one group moving away, relentlessly seeking to fundamentally change the status quo of American government and society.
“Special interests” are not too strong, but rather political corruption is too great.
Negotiators are not “rusty”. In fact there is little to compromise on. Like a mugger with his hand on your wallet, there is no compromise possible; only resistance or capitulation. Mediation and fairness are only benefit the thief and deter justice
Republicans do not have a “vision” of a low-tax America. It has a memory of a low-tax America. It has a vision of a vastly different America coming; different from, for example, the people and culture and capitalism than mobilized to win the Second World War.
Democrats are indeed willing “to change the current entitlements program”. In fact, they are working to expand spending, increase programs and recruit more recipients.
“Learning to Crawl” is long past. The government has crawled walked run and beaten the competition is the foot race of nations. Now it is suffering from a palsy that must be treated with strong medicines. There are no “incremental laws that would rebuild habits of compromise”. There is only reason and passion. Reason is on the side of those who would conserve that which we have in this country that works. Passion is on the side of those who would rule by demagoguery and dictat.
And finally, when the Republicans had a 50/50 Senate, they could have taken the full control, but they chose not to. Now you fear that the Democrats may march on a Kill the Wounded stratagem. This is not representative of two intransigent sides, or of polarity. It is the example of violent amoral usurpation of civil power by an aggressive and corrupt political group.
flicker on January 19, 2013 at 8:45 AM