Point / Counterpoint

Steve Benen makes an excellent point:

If it feels like, rhetorically, the entire political establishment is spinning its wheels, it's because that's true. For a year, the nation has confronted incredible challenged that demanded serious, credible debates. And for a year, we've ended up listening to -- and responding to -- total nonsense.

Instead of debating the stimulus package, Republicans wanted to explore a five-year spending freeze. Instead of debating health care reform, Republicans wanted to talk about death panels. Instead of debating cap-and-trade policy, Republicans wanted to talk about "Climategate." Instead of debating national security policy, Republicans want to pretend the president doesn't use a word he uses all the time.

Our political system has to mature quickly or our collective future is bleak.

And while that's a great observation (the total nonsense has coalesced into the Teabaggers for instance) Digby has an even better one:

None of that surprised me in the least. It's not like the Democrats have tried in the least to make a political argument about this that made any sense. But the Republicans have, and it's a doozy. If things don't improve quickly, a lot more people are going to be listening to it.

When you have a man-made crisis (or even a natural disaster) people will always look for someone to blame. It's human nature. The out of power Republicans have a ready made boogeyman in the government, of course, to which they conveniently misdirect all the fear and anger since they are the ones who both led the charge to deregulate and profited from the excesses. The Democrats, either out of a severe case of regulatory capture or a quixotic political desire to "change the tone" and "look forward not backward" have left themselves holding the bag as the defenders of the one institution everybody now holds responsible for the mess.

What a weird place Democrats have in our political culture these days. They're like the official sin-eaters. They do all the dirty work to clean up after Republican excess and take the blame for making the mess in the first place. What kind of people want a job like that?

More importantly, who wants to vote for them?  The Republicans have no shame, no remorse, no sense of hubris.  The Democrats on the other hand have no self-respect.   It's like the Republicans get how the world works, but they'd rather use it to manipulate everything in their advantage, only they go too far and blow it.  It's like the Democrats don't get it, but like to pretend they can manipulate everyone anyway, and just look bad while doing it.

I know the alternative to the Dems right now are the Teabaggers.  They *will* destroy this country and roll back decades of civil rights, protections for women, minorities and workers, and loot and pillage the country for themselves while laughing at everyone who's not like them.  It's what they do.

And while they lie, cheat, steal and discriminate at will, you can always count on them to do that.  If the Dems don't stand up to the Republicans on this, they're going to lose.