McCain’s speech demonstrated the ways in which the GOP is finally losing its ideological coherence. At the end of the long Reagan era, the party cannot either sustain its conservative base nor abandon it for a broader coalition. McCain’s desire to split the difference shows that Democrats have an historic chance to press a progressive agenda.
On another note, Sarah Palin - a kind of George Wallace in drag - brings to mind a great essay by the psychoanalytic theorist Joan Riviere, Womanliness as Masquerade.
Tags: GOP, John McCain, Republican Convention, Sarah Palin
2 comments ↓
Mr Lowndes:
I saw you on C-SPAN. I think that on the one hand you offered the most coherent narrative about conservatism in the 20th century than I have ever heard.
At the same time I was saddened that you repeated the same ole, tired story about Ronald Reagan’s visit to Philadelphia MS, 16 years after the murder of the Civil Rights workers.
The story ONLY stands when someone seeking to craft a narrative puts together such a “ransom note” from the assorted scraps that are on the ground.
Instead of contesting your version I will instead challenge you about what we saw last year in the Democratic Primary. I saw a Democratic primary debate in Philadelphia PA in the spring. In the year prior to the Democrats coming to Philly over 360 Black men were killed in the city. None of the Democrats felt obliged to mention anything about these deaths. This despite having the Democratic Party machine controlling every major seat of power in that city.
What made Ronald Reagan’s actions 16 years hence more damnable than what the 3 or so viable Democratic candidates did in Philadelphia PA?
Then candidate Obama returned to Philly to give his “Race Speech” and again, no one mentioned anything about the dead Black men from 2007.
Your site says Sarah Palin is George Wallace in drag.
You’re crazier than David Letterman.
Leave a Comment