CDZ Do you remember when liberals sounded like today's populist conservatives?

[usmbguest5318]

​

Maybe I'm just old, but watching that performance, I couldn't help but notice how liberal sounding today's so-called conservatives are. That's not so for every segment of the routine, but it is for enough of them to have triggered the thought.

To the Moderators:

That clip is from the early 1980s. Copyright has long since expired on it.​

 

[SYTFE]

lol, nope

 

[Luddly Neddite]

"isms" are fluid. Beliefs change constantly. There was a time when it was Repubs who were for equality for all Americans and Dems who were racists. Now its the other way around.

For that matter, the North Star has not always been the North Star. Nor will it always be the North Star.

Ya just can't depend on anything anymore. Know what I mean?

 

[usmbguest5318]

"isms" are fluid. Beliefs change constantly. There was a time when it was Repubs who were for equality for all Americans and Dems who were racists. Now its the other way around.

For that matter, the North Star has not always been the North Star. Nor will it always be the North Star.

Ya just can't depend on anything anymore. Know what I mean?

Ya just can't depend on anything anymore. Know what I mean?

Yes and no.

 

[MisterBeale]

​

Maybe I'm just old, but watching that performance, I couldn't help but notice how liberal sounding today's so-called conservatives are. That's not so for every segment of the routine, but it is for enough of them to have triggered the thought.

To the Moderators:

That clip is from the early 1980s. Copyright has long since expired on it.​

What would today's campus SJW's do with this leftist radical from the 60's?

 

[Toronado3800]

"Do you remember when liberals sounded like today's populist conservatives?"

I have had this thought as well. The Republicans have done a great job marketing themselves, or Rush did it for them, since the mid 90's as the outsiders against government over reach. I find their love of the Patriot Act and smashing of civil liberties odd but whatever.

It may coincide with when the "Keaton" generation of hippies got some power during the Clinton Presidency.

 

[usmbguest5318]

"Do you remember when liberals sounded like today's populist conservatives?"

I have had this thought as well. The Republicans have done a great job marketing themselves, or Rush did it for them, since the mid 90's as the outsiders against government over reach. I find their love of the Patriot Act and smashing of civil liberties odd but whatever.

It may coincide with when the "Keaton" generation of hippies got some power during the Clinton Presidency.

Observing the similarities and recognizing that liberalism was never a monolithic model of unanimity among its adherents, one must necessarily conclude that significant numbers of today's populists want to think of themselves as conservatives, all the while not knowing what conservatism is. IMO, that has happened largely because Ronald and Nancy Reagan, with their apparent suave patrician sophistication and unabashed joie de vivre juxtaposed against Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's down-hominess, made conservatism at once look cool, comfortingly avuncular, and "not what you are" thus aspirational, and yet, one could in fact, freely, literally, append the label conservative/Republican to oneself and, voila, one was in some way like one's idols. The Reagans brought with them, in an age of excess, "Camelot, Act II."

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but I can remember the sea change and its form in Washington. Throngs of my friends' and their younger siblings, kids who were still in high school or college, went from, in opposition to their parents, detesting everything Republican -- something they felt largely because of Nixon, who was followed by Ford's pardon of him and subsequent biennial of falling and bumping his head around the world -- to being resoundingly uninspired by the Carters' innocuous drabness and political bumbling. What with the Carter years' fuel shortages, "skyrocketing" gas prices and Iran Hostage Crisis that by popular reasoning could have been avoided by simply not propping up a despotic monarch and not kowtowing to Israel -- which often enough was appreciated because it gave American Jews, for whom WASPy had no particular affinity, someplace to go and because its contretemps with Arabs provided a distant proving ground for American weapons against the Soviet's -- people yearned for a return to sanity, normalcy and grandeur similar to that of the Kennedy years, and, quite frankly, it didn't matter who gave it to them.

Along came Ronald and Nancy Reagan. They were the glamorously affable aunt and uncle with whom one could relate. They were movie stars, and Ronnie in his stylish brown suits and Nancy in her couture dresses and gowns looked every bit the part to a pre-Internet America that was every bit as starstruck as it was in the WWII years and 1950s. Furthermore, he'd been a very successful California governor who'd brought "good sense" to the land of inveterate wantonness. He'd cracked down on the hippies, yippies and gays. He and Nancy were Father Knows Best made real and placed on a ballot. (That Reagan had once been married to Jane Wyman served only to bolster the image.) In the Reagans the nation's "unwashed masses" were, by the GOP, delivered a warm and caring savior, a protector, a plain sense guide and, equally if not more important, an American idol.

Reagan - Inaugural Ball, 1981

Could Ron and Nancy have looked any more Kennedyesque and any less obviously not the Carters?​

For all their glamor, the Reagans were still Americans "just like you and me," or so it seemed.​

Immediately upon taking office, Reagan delivered. The hostages were freed during his inauguration and the Reagans spent the entire evening and the following eight years cultivating the Camelot metaphor that had won over all but the most diehard of Democrats. It was cool to be Conservative and everyone knew it.

The Reagan left a legacy of "conservative as classy cool" that endures even today. Yes, the Clintons were cool too; there're no two ways about it. (One need not like them to know they were.) Bill and Hillary with their MTV Ball, complemented by Bill's sax skills and Hillary's manifestation of the women's movement dreams brought millions of young adults and women into their fold, and frankly, they were cool, and very smart.

The Clintons' coolness differed from the Reagans'. Whereas Reagan cool was aspirationally unachievable for all but a very few, Clinton cool was approachable and accessible. We all could go to school, do well and rise to the highest office in the land. One didn't have to have movie star looks or be born to wealth and position. "Dot com" came along and made that all the more cool, especially since it made millionaires of many a morsel. That was coolness for which the Clintons got credit because as POTUS, no matter one's actual role in it, one just does.

All that came crashing down. For all its professed cultural tolerance, the nation quite simply could not overlook the imagery and moral turpitude of Bill kicked back in the Oval Office getting a blowjob from a barely post-baccalaureate "bimbo." [1] Despite the salaciousness of Dallas, Dynasty and other bawdy nighttime soaps, "Mayberry" more aptly described national morals. The Clintons' handling of that debacle, though it saved them then and got Bill through a second term, marred the image of Democrat and made people yearn once again for a Reaganesque, Kennedyesque, president.

"W" seemed like the one, but he didn't anywhere nearly as fully deliver as did Reagan. George looked the part, and truly was more like Kennedy than Reagan ever was or would be, but he couldn't or wouldn't play the part. He meant well. He was a reasonably honorable man of faith. He had the "everyman" appeal that worked so well for Bill and Ronnie. But "W" just didn't have Reagan or Kennedy's polish. His lack of sophistication, I think, is why (as a personage) he for the GOP lost the nation's approbation. People want their POTUS to be both "everyman" and "the better man," or better than they, at least. They want an idol, and that was the last thing pious George wanted to be.

That deep seated desire, IMO, fomented persistent disdain for Democrats, but Obama overcame that. He was for all intents a purposes a black JFK. He delivered on that promise. Sadly, for the Democrats, however, they nominated Hillary Clinton. It's not that Hillary wouldn't make a good POTUS, an excellent manager of the nation and government. It was that she couldn't shed her husband's baggage. The nation may have gotten over Bill's shenanigans and Hillary bewilderingly remaining married to him (Esp. since he couldn't have run again -- I think she'd be POTUS today had she then divorced him.), but it never forgave him or understood her. Not only is Hillary not worshipable, she's the opposite of it.

Now here we are and Trump is POTUS. Take look at him and his family from the standpoint of the Kennedy, Reagan, "everyman," and movie star come idol worship model I've just outlined. He looks the part and, prior to his actually running for the office, there wasn't much reason to think he wasn't "the real thing." But this is the 21st century, and while Trump may in fact be no more or less cad than JFK or Bill Clinton, and while he's almost as glamorous as the Reagans, the fact is that to be seen genuinely as those luminaries modern equivalent, one must truly be better men than they. Quite simply, the ever present spotlight and 24-hour news cycle of the information age means that now, one must really be a "boy scout," which is about the last thing Trump is. Don't get me wrong, what America wants in a POTUS hasn't changed. What's changed is the amount of information we are given about our presidents.

Given the nature and extent of coverage presidents now receive, "suffer" some might say, I suspect Trump will be the last president we have who isn't "extremely vetted" prior to being nominated by either major party. I think it'll be a long time before we again have an ill informed president who rises out of murky waters.


Notes:

1. Neither was the nation ready for the possibility that Hillary had her own extramarital "things" going on. I wonder who else besides the folks in my circle played "Who's Chelsea's real father?" Chelsea's patrimony notwithstanding, not a soul among my closest friends could fathom anything other than agreed upon polyamory between Bill and Hillary as a plausibly good reason for Hillary not divorcing Bill in the wake of the "Monica" revelation. The nation wasn't then ready to openly address such notions, other than to condemn Mormons.

 

[USApatriotz]

This is why former Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb said right after Trump's win on Meet the Press that the Democratic party has gone TOO far left & is almost unrecognizable from the Democratic party of just a few decades ago!

Liberal crackpots like Sanders & Warren could give Trump another term by PANDERING & BOWING DOWN to every minority & identity group on the planet!! Stupid libs don't realize you need a COHESIVE message that applies to EVERYONE instead of dividing people up into little groups!

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Yes, I do remember a time when liberals were liberal.

Today's authoritarian practitioners of identity politics are anything BUT liberal. Multiculturalism started to pollute the left back in the 80s, and has now come to define it, having replaced liberalism as the guiding principle.

 

[debbiedowner]

Don't know if any of you are as old as me, but 50 plus years ago the south, dixiecrats (democrats) they are now republican's, the parties have flipped flopped each has taken the same ideas from the other.

 

[sakinago]

"isms" are fluid. Beliefs change constantly. There was a time when it was Repubs who were for equality for all Americans and Dems who were racists. Now its the other way around.

For that matter, the North Star has not always been the North Star. Nor will it always be the North Star.

Ya just can't depend on anything anymore. Know what I mean?

A. I think YouTube took the video down, I wasn't able to watch it.

B. Do you remember when it was a bad thing to make broad sweeping and frankly insulting generalizations about a group of people?

C. This is why principles are important. Both sides are consumed with winning, and acting on whatever it is at the time to help your side win.

 

[debbiedowner]

"isms" are fluid. Beliefs change constantly. There was a time when it was Repubs who were for equality for all Americans and Dems who were racists. Now its the other way around.

For that matter, the North Star has not always been the North Star. Nor will it always be the North Star.

Ya just can't depend on anything anymore. Know what I mean?

My mother was a dixiecrat and moved up north and remained a democrat and a hard line, but she was wasn't racist. If she were alive today she would have voted for Trump.

I registered as dem when in military way back, then in my 30's changed to republican and voted straight republican up until Nov 2016. My belief's have totally changed in the past few years. I am not liberal but mostly a moderate, but have come to hate both parties.

 

[usmbguest5318]

you need a COHESIVE message that applies to EVERYONE instead of dividing people up into little groups!

???? Clearly that is not true, and more importantly, it's absurd to think such messages even exist or could.

 

[Staidhup]

Over the past 57 years the democrats have been drifting to the left and the Repub's to the center left. Call it what you may but once upon a time the Dem's were one hell of a lot closer to today's conservative repub's then today's progressive socialists.

 

[MarathonMike]

I remember when Liberals believed in Voltaire's famous quote "I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". The modern Liberal paradigm is "If you disagree with me then you are a Racist Nazi. STFU".

 

[Aquarius Luna]

I remember when Liberals believed in Voltaire's famous quote "I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". The modern Liberal paradigm is "If you disagree with me then you are a Racist Nazi. STFU".

I feel like that's on both sides now.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

1960's liberalism -- "let's create a color-blind society.
Today's leftist orthodoxy -- color is all that matters.

1960's liberalism -- everybody should be treated be treated the same.
Toda's leftist orthodoxy -- there is a strict hierarchy of privilege where blacks and Islamists are at the top and Jews, Christians and men the bottom.

1960's liberalism "you've come a long way, baby"
Today's leftist orthodoxy " You are obviously a racist if you do not support Honor killing and female genital mutilation"

1960's liberalism "It's your thing. Do what you want to do. I can't tell you who to sock it to."
Today's leftist orthodoxy "Not only will we tell you who to sock it to, but we will go postal on your sorry ass if you don't"

 

[Dragonlady]

1960's liberalism -- "let's create a color-blind society.
Today's leftist orthodoxy -- color is all that matters.

1960's liberalism -- everybody should be treated be treated the same.
Toda's leftist orthodoxy -- there is a strict hierarchy of privilege where blacks and Islamists are at the top and Jews, Christians and men the bottom.

1960's liberalism "you've come a long way, baby"
Today's leftist orthodoxy " You are obviously a racist if you do not support Honor killing and female genital mutilation"

1960's liberalism "It's your thing. Do what you want to do. I can't tell you who to sock it to."
Today's leftist orthodoxy "Not only will we tell you who to sock it to, but we will go postal on your sorry ass if you don't"

What bullshit this post is. Liberals don't support honor killings, gender mutiliation or any of the other crap posted.

When the left complained of practices such as gender mutiliation, selling of child brides, and conservatives said these were "cultural issues" the US has no business involving themselves in. When the Taliban imposed restrictions on Afghan women that threatened their health, not allowing them sunlight, again the Republicans in government of the day said this an internal matter and that Americans should stay out of it.

Conservatives are so busy telling liberals who they are, and their ideas bear no relation to the facts. The Democrat Party has not moved further to the left, it moved to the right in order to counter the HUGE move to the right which the country made in electing Ronald Reagan.

Bill Clinton was a DINO: a Republican in all but name. Obama as well. Had Obama been a white guy, Republicans would have claimed him as their own and built a shrine to his miracle in reviving a US economy in freefall. Instead you loathe him for it. It makes no sense, unless you factor in race.

As someone who lives outside the USA, the degree of animus and vile projected at both Barrack and Michelle Obama, can only be on account of racism. Neither of these people has done anything but serve their country in the best way possible, and you people have attacked and vilified them for their service in ways no President of either party has every been attacked.

That is the very essence of racism.