Dan Scanlan wrote: > > The Right Wing's Deep, Dark Secret > > Some hope for a Bush loss, and here's why > > By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge >
> And that is the fifth reason why a few conservatives might > welcome a November Bush-bashing: the certain belief that they will be > back, better than ever, in 2008. The conservative movement has an > impressive record of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. > Ford's demise indeed helped to power the Reagan landslide; "Poppy" > Bush's defeat set up the Gingrich revolution. In four years, many > conservatives believe, President Kerry could limp to destruction at > the hands of somebody like Colorado Gov. Bill Owens. I don't know about the other reasons given, but I think this one holds water. There is simply no way the DP can _hold on_ to power, certainly not more than 8 years and probably (given the morass of Iraq) not more than 4 years, and then a Republican as reactionary as Bush but more competent and more sinister [pun?] will be elected. We (people, leftists, left liberals) made significant gains under Nixon (despite his intentions) because we had behind us the threatening mass movements of the '60s. The only chance to control (or at least moderate) a really frightful lunge to the right in 2008 or 2112 is the appearance of a mass anti-Occupation _and_ anti-Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act movement capable of creating serious social unrest unless it is at least partially pacified through concessions. (The Patriot Act is mere frosting on the earlier act; and of course the act which outlawed the CPUSA at one time was sponsored by that great liberal, Hubert Humphrey.) E.g., we can't pull it off now, but some really large demonstrations for Lynne Stewart would put a far greater dent in the Patriot Act than will the election, close or a landslide, of Kerry. The ABBs of this election, if they get their way, will have prepared frightful events for us in 2008 or 2112. Leftists _must_ break, permanently and unambiguously, all ties to the DP -- and this includes the leftists of the DP (Wellstone, Obama, Hightower), who achieve nothing for us except symbolic gestures but provide cover for the party's left flank. Carrol
