They're trying to tell each other and their base that things aren't so bad. They're trying to get the moderates and independents who swung the election to think that the "Tsunami wave of Democratic victory" was barely a ripple.
They're saying that the Democrats didn't win. The Republicans lost.
They're saying that the Democrats don't have a mandate because two to one, people polled report that they voted against the repugs rather than for the Dems.
They're saying that the reason the Dems took both houses is because people voted for moderate and conservative democrats, republican-like democrats.
The goal is to minimize the perception of success by the left, to decrease the public's impression that the left has won, that Democrats are weak, unpopular, with no momentum.
Even the venerable Wall Street Journal is getting in on the act, suggesting that "Populism Loses Appeal for Latin American Voters. I don't buy the WSJ's claims, which include the Mexican presidential election (a theft in my mind) as evidence.
The fact is, come 2008, unless the Democratic congress people are total idiots and fail to clean up the e-voting mess, the right wing extremists will experience a further, perhaps even deeper route, losing even more seats.
The smart Republicans will start acting more like independent Bernie Sanders, becoming Populists, protecting consumers, the elderly-- their constituents-- instead of corporations and religious extremists.
Oh, there will be a few die-hards. Big Pharma is searching now for replacements for drug company whore Ricky Santorum. They'll find a few, maybe even Democrats, or Joe Lieberman, who knows no bounds for how low he will go.
That makes the big losers the big corporations-- pharma, energy, banking-- the same industries that gave the most to the right wing congress. They're in trouble and they are the ones that are pushing this framing attack on Democrats.
While they're at it, expect them to be unbelievably brutal on Nancy Pelosi. If she butt's with a woman it'll be labeled a catfight. If she is appropriately outraged, she'll be labeled as hysterical, overly emotional or menopausal. It will get truly ugly. Expect women working for the mainstream media (MSM) to deliver the nastiest attacks.
Meanwhile, enjoy listening to and watching Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and the rest of the right wing talk radio echo chamber mouthpieces go into meltdown mode, functioning so idiotically, they will routinely help the left.
There will be centrist invertebrates- spineless DLC types, like James Carville, who will encourage avoidance of the use of the words left, liberal, progressive. F*** them. The right tried that game, accusing hundreds of candidates of being liberal, of being supported by moveon. And people voted for those very candidates.
Take Thomas Edsall, for example, who Atrios calls "Wanker of the day." Edsall writes, as guest columnist for the NY Times,
Can the Democratic Party become fully competitive? Is American liberalism dead, the 2006 elextion a last twitch of live before rigor mortis sets in? THe answer to both questions is yes.
For the Democratic Party to revive, major tenets of American liberalism, economic and sociocultural will have to be discarded. The party can join Studebaker and the Glass Bottle Blowers union, it can trudge along as No. 2, or it can undergo a painful transformation-- without guarantee of success.
This writer, whose bio reports, "holds the PulitzerMoore Chair at Columbia University, should be an embarassment to Columbia U. and all its grads. His unfounded and unsupported comments are pure propaganda, not for the Republicans, but for the DLC and perhaps some of the ne(anderthal)ocons who crawled out of the same academic swamp he lives in.
Atrios comments, ..."Poor Thomas Edsall, He just wrote a book called "Building Red America. Then America turned Blue. Still he clings to his script, as they always do..." Edsall is typical of the Republican talking bobbleheads. They failed miserably in the 2006 elections because they embraced their petrified, no longer viable talking points (tax and spend liberals, cut and run, extremist Pelosi) even though they no longer resonate with the voters, or worse, resonate as the dishonest, empty, hollow, devoid of ideas or integrity messages they are now seen by the electorate to be.
Matt Stoller, at MYDD.com, comments, in his blog, Democrats Won. We Won. Get it?
"His sources are obviously heavily stacked towards neoliberal insiders on the Democratic side, and he dismisses progressive activists and voters alike. Even though voters rejected an anti-labor anti-choice political party, the lesson for Edsall is that voters embraced an attack on labor and more restrictive abortion laws. It's not hard to figure out why Edsall believes this - peer pressure. Edsall's crowd is that of Harold Ickes, Rahm Emanuel, and Steny Hoyer, people who live in a rarefied world of Democratic elitism. On the Republican side I assume his sources are equally DC establishment; that's where he lives and that's what he knows. I remember his reporting on subjects I know a little bit about, like Democratic data infrastructure, were informed by people who knew nothing about the actual tools being developed."
and
"So even though the Republican Party was soundly repudiated at the polls in favor of a strongly populist Democratic Party backed by labor, and a touchstone abortion ban was popularly rejected in one of the reddest states in the country, Democrats have no choice but to reject unions and pro-choice groups, or they will face judgment at the polls."
Edsall comments, that only Rahm Emanuel and Stenny Hoyer are attuned to the "problems" he identifies." That's good news to me-- only two out of 280+.
Edsall consludes, "The Democratic Party can secure its 2006 gains, but to do so will require abandoning a decades-long willingess to indulge pressure groups on the left that no longer command broad popular allegiance."
Frankly, this is such dishonesty, it reminds me of Richard Nixon. I remember watchin his lips move and assuming anything he said was a lie. He could stand up and state to the world, "I am sitting." The DLC and it's mouthpieces, like Edsall, are going to be maintaining this onslaught of dishonest, distorted propaganda, regardless of the damage it does to the Democratic party. They had a few people who lean their way swept into office on the "wave" that carried in so many. WIth bad logic and a lot of media clout, they will be trying to claim credit for the whole wave. Or worse, they will be using myopic or dishonest (you choose which Edsall is) spokesmen to trash the real winners of the wave of 2006-- the populists who call themselves progressives.
The left won the elections. The Blogosphere and the progressives who energize it won both houses of congress for the Democrats. So don't let them try to turn THE LEFT, or progressive or liberal into dirty words to be avoided. Don't let them try to use weak, avoidant words like non-conservative or un-conservative.
Democrats may not have won. The polls do say that only something like 28% voted FOR Democrats, compared to 60 some percent who voted against repugs. (In 1994, when the Repugs won big, only 18% supported them.) But any way you look at it, the left won. THe country took a major move to the left. The leaders of the religious right were clearly repudiated. The military were repudiated. Big pharma was repudiated.
Watch your local daily newspaper-- probably owned by a wealthy REpug family or part of a megacorporate syndicate-- start spewing the same garbage-- that local Democrats won by acting like Republicans, so that really, it was a win for conservatism.
But don't buy it, and don't put up with it. Call them on it. Send letters to the editor, call in to complain. Let them know you know. And keep the positive talk up between your local grassroots networks.
The Left won massively. THe effects of the wins are barely beginning to be felt yet. THey will be magnified like an explosion, come 2007. It will not be a totally smooth road. Some Dems will neat to have their feet held to the fire. That should happen fast and tough. Dems who sell out Populist, progressive values and issues should get clear messages that they're on probation.
The Left is ascending. Its power is building. The MSM can't stop it, no matter what they say.
And don't let the DLC or those on the right characterize the progressive, populist movement as extremists. We want honest govenment, fair economics, the same health care that all the other developed nations have. We want workers and the environment treated right. There's nothing extremist about that, except to right wing extremists who have gone so far right that the rational moderate policies of progressives now seem extreme to them, and their DLC sellout counterparts.
We are on the verge of bigger and better victories. We have begun the process of taking back America and the planet. There's a long way to go, but now, we have momentum, and a strong advantage.
And let's be clear, we are the hope for the future.
We are the people who will restrain corporatism.
We are the people who will save the environment.
We are the people who will make the development of renewable alternative energy happen.
And it is because we are the winners and the right wing, extremist, Republicans were soundly rejected.
They failed. They lost. They are, actually, hated and despised by billions around the planet. THEY didn't play nice. They played dirty. They are still playing dirty. Still losing, but still dangerous and nasty.
Remember, cornered rats can be that way.
