"...metropolitan liberalism tends to define center-left politics not as self-help on the part of citizens but rather as charity for the disadvantaged carried out by affluent altruists. "

This statement suggests that even urban liberals see themselves through the distorting lens provided by the Right. "Metropolitan" liberals on the coasts live in cities where it has become all but impossible to live a middle-class existence over the last few decades; they, as much as anyone, see the costs of the anti-egalitarian policies of the GOP.

Populism was an artifact of a given phase of our nation's history. We are no longer transitioning from a rural, agrarian society toward an urban,industrial one; where and how we make our living, house our families, and school our kids is less relevant to our political beliefs than the fact that it is easier than ever to use fear and misinformation to manipulate people of all demographic groups into ceding control over our government to wealthy interests. We're living in the shards and rubble of past systems of economic alignment. Suburbia, the ubiquity of cars, consumerism and its attendant massive debt, our dependence on other nations for virtually all our manufacturing, the breakdown of U.S. education at all levels, the end of the press as a relevant source of information--these have had repercussions that, quite simply, have been more adroitly exploited by the right wing than the center (a.k.a. the left).

The best evidence of how well the Right has manipulated our chaotic situation is the extent to which Reagan-era "conservatism" still determines so much of how the non-Right sees itself. Exhibit A is Lind's own buying into the GOP's caricature of urban liberals as latte-sipping, charity-ball organizing elitists. This, and being wedded to "populism" as a meaningful concept (we're really talking about resentment as an organized political force), mars his otherwise thoughtful analysis.

that facts actually matter in the public forum. The "moderate" Democrats fret over nonexistent government takeovers of health care/banks/Wall Street/you name it, following a script written for them by their owners, who happen to be the same interests that enable the GOP fear mongering machine. Meanwhile a majority of the Senate (but not a super-majority--60 is the new 51) favors a plan that in 1965 would have been, realistically, the middle-of-the-road option. Tear up the script written for you by the far right, Democrats--return America to the center (a.k.a. the "hard left" of 2009). Take the red pill.

Sarah Palin has tacitly admitted that she's not qualified for higher office. She has to choose:

(1) Average mom who had no idea (none!) that Katie Couric would ask her hard questions about politics, current events, etc. simply because she (Palin) was not only governor of Alaska, but a candidate for vice president of the U.S.

(2) Clear-eyed, truth-telling maverick spokesperson for a mass political movement that is going to retake America and its government from the forces of godless secular revisionism and return us to the (presumably fundamentalist) faith of our forefathers.

She can't be/have/do both. And let the record show that she's chosen (1) over (2).

ergo propter hoc.

P.S. Go Phillies!

so beloved of Sen. Lieberman. On the one hand, one gun/one vote anti-gay, anti-gummint zealots; on the other hand, liberals who believe in a watered-down public healthcare option, a social policy of tolerance (coming to the armed forces Real Soon Now), a foreign policy of multilateral diplomacy rather than unilateral wars of choice, and an eventual end to US troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, I can see how a "moderate" like Lieberman might want to order a la carte, with monsters like that on both sides of the aisle. Between the Scylla of frothing insanity and the Charybdis of moderate progressivism, a man's got to choose his friends with care.

so it's time for GOP office holders to run as far to the right as possible. Must woo the base, throw it raw meat and nice, crunchy bones. Plenty of time after the primary to feint toward the center so non-True Believers can swallow their distaste and pull that lever for the Republican, who surely can't be quite so bad as s/he seemed during the run-up to the primary. But what did Mr. Hightower say about what one finds in the center of the road, especially in Texas politics?

that Pawlenty is the only current office holder (I think) to endore Hoffman. (Has Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal endorsed Hoffman yet? He will.) It is clear that the real players in GOP-base politics cannot dirty their hands with the business of actually legislating or governing. Pawlenty excepted, if one uses the apparently obsolete yardstick of who is actually occupying real-world elected office, the GOP bigshots lined up against Scozzafava are all has-beens, media celebrities whose sole success comes in front of crowds of rapid fellow believers. The American electorate as a collection of different interests and demographics doesn't exist for people like Thompson, Armey, Palin, et al. It has already been pointed out a thousand times, but if all politics is local, they are headed the way of the Federalists. They'll continue to hold sway in a few gerrymandered rotten boroughs in the American South and elsewhere, but nationwide they'll end up primarily as a noise machine, the after-dinner speaking arm of Fox News.

It was clear that Broun didn't catch onto what Grayson was doing even on the last go-round. The Right is fat, stupid, and lazy; it has been governing through fear for so long that it hasn't had to defend, or even formulate, its core principles (if principles they be) in decades.

but this new look is very ugly. Red on red--not a good look.

jp

His Bob Dole schtick *never* gets old!