US POLITICS SPRING 2011: Let's just call off this country.

Es verdad.

Racist wingnuts helped to keep the Democrats viable for about a century, so, yeah.

boehner is losing the ween vote

US POLITICS: Buenos Tardes Amigo

the GOP today IS a Poop Ship Destroyer

Greenwald doesn't have his own thread apparently, so here's where I post a long interview with him published in Out Magazine. Please note: the magazine ran pictures of Greenwald smiling and having a good time.

In his early days as a blogger, Greenwald supported Democratic candidates who shared his pro–civil liberties views. But events of the last two years -- in both the White House and Congress -- have changed his mind. “I just don’t think meaningful change is possible through piecemeal reforms in either of the two political parties,” he says. As for the Democrats themselves, he can barely contain his disgust. “The Republicans,” he says, “have long lived by what they call the Buckley Rule: always support the furthest-right candidate who can plausibly win. That’s because they believe conservatism will work and want to advocate for it. Democrats [by contrast] prop up the most centrist or conservative candidates -- i.e., corporatists -- on the ground that it’s always better, more politically astute, to move to the right.”

One of his hopes for 2012 is that candidates will emerge to take on the red and the blue teams -- he is keeping an eye on Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, who is pro-gay and antiwar, and who could run with a Democrat like former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold. He would also be happy to see a billionaire run without the help of either party, to “disrupt the two-party stranglehold.”

Greenwald believes the same manipulation of the two-party system is essential in the fight for gay rights. He says he is encouraged by the rise of the Log Cabin Republicans—not because he likes a thing the GOP endorses, but because “it sends a signal to Democrats that they can’t keep using gay voters as an ATM machine.”

“I think gay voters have been too gullible,” he says of their unwavering support for politicians who fail to keep promises. Being predictable, he says, offering advice to the gay community and an unwitting summary of his career, “is the best way to guarantee you’re ignored.”

LOL CARGO SHORTS & FLIP FLOPS

I would think someone like Greenwald would be perceptive enough to see the institutional impediments to breaking the two-party system but eh, maybe not

I'm pretty sure he does.

Greenwald: I was drinking a guarana tea on Ipanema beach; he was playing beach volleyball. His towel was near mine, and we started talking. I was 38; he was 19. I was established in my career; he was poor. I grew up in a South Florida suburb; he grew up an orphan in a Rio de Janeiro slum. So I was sure, especially in the beginning, that everyone assumed it was the classic midlife crisis type of relationship. But our love kept growing, and that made any concerns about what other people thought irrelevant.

Over time, we learned to turn the age difference into an asset, something that keeps our relationship vibrant and mutually stimulating. He prevents me from getting old, cranky, set in my ways, stagnant, and unspontaneous, and I keep him focused on career, future, responsibilities, and avoiding at least some of the bad mistakes of youth. It translates into this: I end up playing video games with a bunch of 23-year-olds until 3 a.m., and he ends up reading the Nietzsche I give him. Being young and from Rio, he’s still way ahead of me in the hedonism department. But I’ve been learning to give up control and be more spontaneous—something you can only do if you have absolute trust in the other person.

lol

had no idea he was gay tbh

greenwald has morbz's political instincts and gabbneb's fashion sense ... ermmmmmm

Okay...

(1) Lived in Broward County
(2) Wears cargo shorts and flip-flops
(3) Reads Nietzsche
(4) Positions beach towels close to Brazilian hottays playing volleball.

Hope for all of us.

greenwald has morbz's political instincts and gabbneb's fashion sense ... ermmmmmm

Admit it: you want it to reverse these.

*wanted

One of his hopes for 2012 is that candidates will emerge to take on the red and the blue teams -- he is keeping an eye on Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, who is pro-gay and antiwar, and who could run with a Democrat like former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold. He would also be happy to see a billionaire run without the help of either party, to “disrupt the two-party stranglehold.”

just... smh

"I would think someone like Greenwald would be perceptive enough to see the institutional impediments to breaking the two-party system but eh, maybe not"

lol "I would think someone like Greenwald would be perceptive enough to agree with me"

i take back the morbz's political instincts a bit after reading this:

He would also be happy to see a billionaire run without the help of either party, to “disrupt the two-party stranglehold.”

been there, tried that and it failed -- see Michael Bloomberg and Jon Corzine.

also Ross Perot like duh

it just occurred to me that i had no idea greenwald was 44; he seems sort of ageless

Wait -- I must have missed the part when did Bloomberg try to run as anything other than a Republican...?

Perot as prez == disaster
Perot as candidate == not such a bad thing, really, given that he didn't win but did broaden the debate

(god, my grammmar's awful today)

lol "I would think someone like Greenwald would be perceptive enough to agree with me"

not exactly...? there are serious, huge, massive institutional barriers propping the two parties up. they are pretty obvious (winner take-all electoral college setup, existing party apparatuses, majority rule in both houses of congress, etc.) and a significant portion of them are WRITTEN INTO THE CONSTITUTION. This is not an ideological position I'm espousing, these are facts.

which is separate from Greenwald seeing hope in tactics that have been pursued and routinely failed over the last, oh, 150 years.

I say this as someone who does not regret voting twice for Nader, btw.

so when is hope confused with "This is what will happen"?

whatever the parties are, and whatever they advocate in contrast to each other (or not!! importantly!!) there are always going to be two of them.

a turn towards libertarianism or, lord help us, personal wealth, isn't going to crack the thing open.

the problems he describes day in and day out are sort of pre-political, whatever can be cobbled together by sourced quotes from the nyt or statements from the hill are only the aftereffects of it. i don't think the solutions he is gravitating towards match the scale of the problem.

Shakey, if you have any interest in serving as my secretary of defense, I need more moxie from you.

the biggest reason we have a two party system is not institutional, it's numerical (Duverger's law)

I think the movement of world history suggests that every structure thought permanent (owing to torts or contracts or founding documents or whatever) turned out in the long view to be extremely malleable

by all means, go ahead and love Russ Feingold (and I do!) and support him in whatever he does, but pretending like his or Ross Perot's or Bloomberg's or Trump's or Anderson's or Millard Filmore's or James Weaver's or Teddy Roosevelt's third party candidacies ever had or will have even the remotest prayer of undoing the essential two-party split of our system - that's just straight-up delusional

xp

like, first things first: amend the constitution

Joking aside, I don't care about GG's political remedies so much as his influence: I often use him as an example to students on how one can hold fast to political convictions, write well and rapidly, and still espouse the best kind of contrarianism. If he's getting his readers to parse a pol's statements, even if he or she's one of your own, then I don't mind his occasional rhetorical excesses.

convince large swathes of the country to just give up their power + privelege voluntarily. This happens all the time in history, right aerosmith?

xp

Shakey, Teddy Roosevelt's third party move DID have an incalculable influence on the acceptance of progressivism (although having been president once already helped).

wanna make a pledge to my politics thread bros: I am not about to go into what I perceive as the merits of third-party candidacies again

not here, not next year, everybody knows my position & it doesn't really need repeated

I just do like to point out to (say) Shakey that his position really is the basest sort of orthodoxy & as great an enemy of progressive thought as any perceived threat from the left

http://dev.out.com/images/204/GlennGreenwald2.jpg

*head explodes*

leftright

Greenwald's about the last political writer I'd accuse of believing in utopias.

Shakey, Teddy Roosevelt's third party move DID have an incalculable influence on the acceptance of progressivism (although having been president once already helped).

this is true, but Greenwald wasn't referring to just shifting the debate (which is indeed possible, as Eisbaer noted re: Perot) he was referring to to “disrupt[ing] the two-party stranglehold". I guess he could mean their stranglehold on setting the terms of debate, but it strikes me more as a reference to political monopoly.

I just do like to point out to (say) Shakey that his position really is the basest sort of orthodoxy & as great an enemy of progressive thought as any perceived threat from the left

http://addictionjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/SerenityPrayer2.gif

Yay! Things had been SO dull around here lately.

yeah honestly i think the only 'way forward' for a guy like GG is just to keep being GG.

really seems like retreating into the full pessimism of a morbz, or just (dis)contentedly plugging away day in and day out on your uphill struggles, like, i dunno, radly balko, just is not a possibility for him. it's not that he's so irascible and dogged that surprises me, it's that he's always got this wounded hope. after obama, sure. "ok, HE crapped out on this stuff... maybe... GARY JOHNSON will do it..."

I would think someone like the abolitionists would be perceptive enough to see the institutional impediments to breaking slavery but eh, maybe not

When was the last time the US had more than 2 viable, powerful political parties? Isn't the big problem that whenever another party rises enough in prominence to become considered a mainstream party, it accompanies the death of a previous party, thereby holding up the 2-party status quo?

(serious question, this is where I am weak in US history)

I just do like to point out to (say) Shakey that his position really is the basest sort of orthodoxy & as great an enemy of progressive thought as any perceived threat from the leftright

yeah Shakes has been real good at that lately

djp: it's been some time but see comment upthread about Teddy Roosevelt. Also, various Civil War-era parties, I'm thinking...?

I would think someone like the abolitionists would be perceptive enough to see the institutional impediments to breaking slavery but eh, maybe not

war fought, constitution amended fyi