Two Americas; two Power Lines
Our readers consider to dazzle us with the analysis they provide on our forum pages. For example, Scott's post on John Edwards produced this response from HMacDougald ("Buckhead" of Rathergate fame):
I agree completely that the narrowness of the victory in 2004 was quite striking and worthy of study. The race should have resembled the blow out of Dukakis. Kerry was no less ridiculous on national security than Dukakis, and that was the preeminent issue. Plus, we were in the middle of a very robust economic expansion, which strongly favors the incumbent, and Bush is a good and likable candidate, whereas Kerry was a clown on the order of Thurston Howell, III.So why was it so close?
My guesses are roughly: 1. It’s not the same country it was in [1988]. It’s demographically much more favorable to Democrats than it was [then]. 2. The whole of the left’s cultural machinery was fully engaged in the demonization of Bush 24/7/365 for two full years leading up to the election. Movies, TV (news and entertainment), newspapers, magazines, party machinery at every level, political ground game, PACs, 521s, Soros millions, etc. etc. were all fully mobilized against Bush. 3. The Bush White House’s failure to treat the domestic political front as an extension of the battlefield in the war on terror - despite the enemy conspicuously declaring that it was one of their strategic centers of gravity. Consequently, the Bush White House left unanswered for the most part the constant demonization from the left, and this tilted the playing field against them.
And this one from Jim Addision:
[T]hat Edwards can run a “two America” campaign in 2006 and be taken seriously, and that Democrats were not routed in 2004 and 2006 are both due to the same phenomenon.In the late ‘60s, it was called “radical chic.” This meant that mainstream citizens, beginning with college students and professors, adopted the positions of the radical anti-American groups, and attempted to justify them. It was a social test: you couldn’t be truly anti-war and “chic” if you didn’t also oppose American “colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism” and support Marxist ideals, if not actually and directly supporting the USSR and PRC.
Radical chic never left our college campuses, even as every tenet of radical left philosophy was disproved in the real world. The emergence of the Iraq War as an issue provided the medium for the festering cultures of radical chic to be quickly regrown into a widespread infection.
It became “cool” to hate Bush, hate the War, and believe the worst of America once again.
This is the real reason Iraq has been touted as “another Vietnam.” It’s not because of any tactical similarities; it is because it is the first war since Vietnam which lasted long enough to allow the anti-American left to foment an antiwar and anti-capitalism movement among those who are slaves to fashion.
Maybe it's time for the three of us to quit our non-day jobs and let our readers carry us.
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