Greg Sargent has two tremendous overviews today: the first an overview of the upcoming budget wars, and the second on immigration.
Both posts, especially combined with this sobering, smart take from Chait on the Dems' small chances of taking the House in 2014, reinforce something I've been saying for quite some time now: Republicans are mostly electorally immune to their extremism for the next long while. To be sure, the Republican Party faces increasingly long odds in Presidential elections, and the 2020 census may be devastating blow in the 2022 elections after the current wildly gerrymandered lines are replaced. But for most Republican legislators staring down the next few election cycles, the biggest threats still come from the right rather than the left or the middle. Extremism, in short, will be rewarded.
You can post this article again in 2015, 2017, and 2019 too. It'll be equally valid. We screwed ourselves over for a decade...unless...and this is a huge unless, we get out there in record numbers to vote. All liberals.
The only way to get rid of extremist Republicans in the House is to vote them out. But if you have a Republican for a Representative, odds are better than 95% they will win re-election. And if your reaction is "well, I'm going to stay home" then that 95% becomes 100%, and then they win the Senate too.
Literally, your choice.
Dude, drones! And the NSA!
ReplyDeleteI can't not-vote for Obama a third time, so staying home in '14 is the only way I have to burnish my progressive credentials.
Running strong campaigns is the best way. There's no excuse for this shit. Gerrymandering talk is impotent whining. Nobody wants to hear that. What they want to hear is what you're going to do about it. I'm tired of blaming others for our fuckups. There should have been no tea Billie winning any district that Obama won in 2012. That tells me people are running shitty campaigns. It's time to stop acting so damn weak.
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