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WB: The 51% Solution
Billmon:
[T]he important lesson (one the Ronald Brownsteins of the world will never, ever mention in print) is what Rove’s 51% strategy says about the America’s future. Because if Turd Blossom is right (and he may well be) then this isn’t really one country any more. It’s a battlefield divided between two bitterly hostile partisan armies, with an indeterminate number of undecided or uncommitted voters — "the civilians" — left stranded out in no man’s land.
[…]
But while Karl may be OK with this, and the pod people of the authoritarian right may be OK with this, and I may be OK with it, I don’t think the indeterminate number of uncommitted voters who are stranded out there between the partisan lines are OK with it. They seem to want something more than a 51% solution, and they don’t seem to understand why they can’t have it.
The 51% Solution
But the irony is that 9/11 also thrust upon the Rovians what they had deliberately not sought at the polls: a broad, sweeping majority. If they had adapted accordingly, and revised their fundamental strategy (or at least done a better job of camouflaging it) we’d probably be a hell of lot closer to the GOP equivalent of the thousand year Reich (well, twenty years, anyway). …
Yes.
The invasion and bombing of. Afgh was decided on before 9/11 and was given the nod. The Russkies would be trumped and the West would crush, take over, secure pipelines, make noises about the Taliban, etc. It would be a money maker, as it has been, and no problem with ‘the people.’ After the success in Yugo, (destroyed forever) it was considered a natural progression.
The Iraq invasion was before 9/11 still hanging in the air; a surety for some that I spoke to, a non starter for others, such as the xxx of the Foreign Legion, who believed Chirac and Shroeder would stop it easily. And a top Swiss pol. Same.
After 9/11 it seemed inevitable, but old Europe, Russia, and China were against it. (India, I don’ t recall precisely..an established US ally by now, at the time.. ?) New Europe, hustling for bucks, legitimacy, and reacting against their old enemies and oppressors, were smarmily for it, used as they were, and are, to taking BS public stances to get gold spoons. They were warned, and warned again, and hit over the head, but for them it was an opportunity to side with some entity and show muscle, play a role, be someone. South America kept quiet. I remember an e mail from a friend, oh she said, it is awful, I am ashamed, I weep, N, please call, but if the US could be busy elsewhere, maybe I can save 1000 lives. But then, probably more would die elsewhere…
9/11 was in a way an unexpected, surprising gift. It was exploited politically, but clumsily so, in a short-term way. It provided and easy, flag-waving, sentimental patriotism, recruits, etc. The emotion was ersatz; who today knows who died at the Pentagon? And who survived? Say, Uncle Scam. Me – A European. Others – far less than one thousands of a % in the US. Who cares? Nobody. Are they buried at Arlington? Heh – go find out. No books were published in the US about those victims – nor about the terrorists for that matter. (Of course, there are reasons for that, but they are not to be examined.)
The return or backlash of that kind of fakery is inevitable. At some point, the hype rings thin; people intuitively understand they have been duped.
Posted by: Noirette | Oct 31 2006 19:15 utc | 12
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