lol LGBT Obama supporters.

[PhoneLobster]

The guy literally managed to get about half the country to love him and the other half to hate him.

I see, clearly you are simply living in a fantasy world.

Because Clinton, he had something close to a fifty fifty, even at the hieght of the utterly fabricated sex scandal (which is the most controversial thing he ever did).

Bush didn't have half hate and half love, last I heard he has about a 20% approval rating vs a 77% disapproval rating. This isn't about "inspiring hate in liberals" he is a strictly unpopular president who has done massively unpopular, controversial, and illegal things.

Don't give me this "polarising" tripe. 20% means conservatives don't like him, 20% means there is something like 10-15% of the population previously considered to be gibbering lunatics who wouldn't turn on a conservative if he started shooting little girls in the face with a shotgun on TV that now "hate" Bush.

And exactly when did the baby boomers over turn the social order any more than their parents generation did coming home from the world wars? No really?

The 60's didn't magically happen overnight, they were just one more incremental revolution in a series of revolutions and counter revolutions every damn generation has been participating in since the enlightenment.

People just notice the sixties more because they had LSD fuelled music and bright eye catching psychedelic colours.

[Neeeek]

The Baby Boomers, in this scheme, are an "Idealistic" generation, which critiques and ultimately destroys the social order they grew up in. Baby Boomers are not unique in history, but they're different from the other generations currently living.

Bullshit. The Boomers aren't anything close to idealistic. They are the single worst generation the US has ever had. They are unique in leaving things worse than they found them, and they did it due to unrepentant greed. Carter had solutions to the energy problems we are facing now in the late 70s. They didn't refused to deal with it then, so we've got a serious problem now. Both the country and the world will be better off when they die out.

The modern idealistic generation is the Millennials. The Boomers are the modern douchebag generation.

Reagan and Clinton were both polarizing figures in the sense that they generated "love 'em or hate 'em" responses from people. Clinton didn't try to offend people, but basically the existence of somebody with his life history during Vietnam in the presidency mobilized conservative Baby Boomers into a frenzy. Of course, W is the ultimate polarizer by far. As much as liberals despised Reagan, he won two decisive victories, one a 49-state landslide. Clinton won two convincing popular and electoral victories (albeit in three-way races). W, OTOH, squeaked by in the popular and electoral votes twice, with some controversy both times. The guy literally managed to get about half the country to love him and the other half to hate him.

Your argument is seriously insane here. Clinton and Reagan were polarizing because they weren't?

How does that work?

[Username17]

When you are making the argument that a high popularity, a low popularity, and a medium popularity all constitute polarization, I don't see how it is even possible to be a non-polarizing leader.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Bullshit. The Boomers aren't anything close to idealistic. They are the single worst generation the US has ever had.

Hold on a second here. I hate the greed and selfishness produced by this generation in the 80's and 90's but without them the civil rights and feminists' movement would be set back at LEAST 10 years if it was just left to the Silent Generation/GI Generation.

[Crissa]

Yes, a split popularity produces a more polarized outcome.

Remember, we're talking about votes and actions here. Votes which don't cover every single person, as polls attempt to do.

And the Boomers have been active. Unfortunately, they've been active on both the good things /and/ the bad. So saying they are polarizing is probably not out of the field.

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

When you are making the argument that a high popularity, a low popularity, and a medium popularity all constitute polarization, I don't see how it is even possible to be a non-polarizing leader.

I think the closest presidents we've had towards being non-polarizing in the 20th century were George H.W. Bush and Eisenhower and even they attracted their fair share of (well-deserved) hatred.

Though in the words of Paul Krugman, apparently we're not allowed to call monsters monsters anymore because it's shrill. These conservative fucks have somehow made 'bitching about Monicagate' equivalent with 'bitching about Iran Contra'--you saw this on the third Presidential Debate, where there was somehow equivalence between Obama criticizing McCain's erraticness with the McCain campaign talking about him palling around with terrorists and teaching sex ed to kindergarteners.

If there was a God he would teleport Karl Rove into my apartment so I could castrate him Sin City style.

[PhoneLobster]

Yes, a split popularity produces a more polarized outcome.

I fail to see how a 45%+ vs 45%+ approval/disapproval rating is somehow historically polarising when the generation before hand had the biggest war in history between groups with differing political models and had our side on the front line executing soldiers as traitors for spreading the rival political ideas of allies.

[Crissa]

PL: A split vote is more polarizing because the difference is so narrow.

It's a bell curve - As you get to the extremes of 'very little difference' and 'very broad difference' polarization is higher. When you're in between, at 10%-30%, polarization is low.

Okay, now to polls, which are different than voting:

Just think about it: There is something like 10%-30% of people who will never disapprove of authority. Which gives a baseline approval rating for the president. To disapprove of him at that level, he must be roundly hated. There is not a corresponding known number - at least not in double-digits, which puts it below error - of people who will not approve of the president.

Now back to voting:

Hardly ever has a majority of registered voters ever voted in the US. That means the sample of voting is flawed, when compared to scientific polls. But on the other hand, we know this sample is without gaming the numbers.

Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II didn't win with a majority of votes. They won with merely the most votes... Which meant the margins were probably extremely thin (which they were). Hence polarizing.

-Crissa

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Polarization has more to do with the intensity of feelings about the person. If most people either *really* love you or *really* hate you, you're polarizing. Even though Reagan won by a landslide, odds are that most of that 41% that voted against him really thought he was dangerous, stupid, and bad for the country. There just weren't many people who thought, "Well, he's kind of okay."

Bush's popularity has fluctuated a great deal, from 85-90% in the months immediately after 9/11 to their current dreadful position. I do think it's interesting that 2004 was about the only election in U.S. history where 95% of the population made up its mind early and both sides were passionate about it. That incredible, evenly split polarization was what allowed Rove's "turn out the base" strategy to work. To this day, the man and his disciples can't figure out that high base turnout doesn't help when the independents turn against you. But again, I don't know anyone who thinks Bush is "just kind of okay." Everybody either thinks he's a great president (like 20% of people these days) or think he's an idiot and a disgrace.

PL, your bit about the WWII generation raises an interesting point. While they did change society, their change was rebuilding a society torn apart by the disruptions of a crisis (in their case a war). That's what Civic generations do. The Boomers, OTOH, actively sought to overturn the fundamental assumptions of the society in which the grew up, for both good and bad. See response to Neek below for more.

Neeek: "Idealistic" is the term Strauss & Howe use to identify those generations which tear down the social order established by the previous Civic generation. It's unfortunate that the word seems to connote absolute goodness, because that's not what they meant by it. Idealism is a double-edged sword. The Idealistic generation sees the flaws in the social order, but also tends to decide that everything about the social order is bad and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Thus, the Boomers brought the Civil Rights movement to full fruition and brought about advances in women's rights. Unfortunately, they also gave us the idea that "If it feels good, do it" and rejected the idea of thrift in favor of rampant consumerism.

[PhoneLobster]

Gee, so now world war 2 was just some faceless disaster and all the change that generation wrought was cooperative reconstruction and not political change with a strong conflict between socialist communist unionists and capitalist imperialist fascists.

Bullshit. Go learn your history.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Since I'm only talking about the U.S., in which the post-WWII generation was very conservative, yes. Apparently, Strauss & Howe have tried to apply their theory of generations globally, but I seriously doubt that the generational cycles of different countries would line up. Internationally, the post-WWII period was marked by conflict between capitalism and Communism, the capitalists didn't have any significant competition in the U.S. in the 50s.

[PhoneLobster]

the capitalists didn't have any significant competition in the U.S. in the 50s.

OK since when are "The baby Boomers" a strictly US thing?

And secondly, what the heck are you talking about?

[fbmf]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Phone Lobster, tone your attitude down. Now.
[/TGFBS]

[JonSetanta]

Wait, wait, he does have a point.

Boomers are everywhere. They're a debilitating global pestilence like AIDS or rhinovirus.

[PhoneLobster]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Phone Lobster, tone your attitude down. Now.
[/TGFBS]

Wait, all the stuff that's been thrown around lately, even by me, and you jump on a simple "what crack are you on?" query?

Seems just a touch arbitrary.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Generations / The Fourth Turning is complete horseshit, as anyone who knows what the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy is will tell you.

Hey, speaking of that stupid sociology woo, where was our big event that was supposed to test the next generation? 9/11? Don't fucking make me laugh, that's just American overreaction to American exceptionalism.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Maybe the Iraq War was supposed to be it? Yeah, I could see what you're talking about from the perspective of the people who we fucking starved and murdered. But we don't care about brown people. Ever. So looking on it from the American side, we have a few thousand deaths and several tens of thousands of injuries.

Not to sound callous, but on a 'make America care' standpoint that's pretty much shit. And to make it more hilarious, that's the only weapon we have! No one in this country gives a shit about the deficit spending or the mercenary reliance or the blatant profiteering or the indirect strengthening of terrorism or our revoked rights or our increased sucking up to Saudi Arabia or our crumbling international reputation and we especially don't give a flying fuck over a few thousand exploded brown babies. Oh, and gas prices. Fucking--wasn't exploding some brown babies supposed to bring down gas prices?! THE PATRIOT ACT WAS ONE THING BUT FOUR DOLLAR GAS IS GOING TOO FAR YOU IMMIGRANT CODDLING COCKMASTER.

If this was supposed to be our test we fucking failed miserably. I mean, we did, but all this proves is that those two authors were talking out of their buttholes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You know what? I just ended making myself really mad with that last rant.

Where the fuck does this country give off that when you tell people that our government killed at least hundreds of thousands of people who weren't doing anything so the neocons could get a hardon you just get a cow-eyed stare. But if you then add 'oh, and thousands of American soldiers were killed' they suddenly squeal like little girls about injustice and wasted lives and OH MY GOD.

If there was a God in heaven, he would allow me to pull out Donald Rumsfeld's guts Shawn of the Dead style.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

It goes without saying that the atrocities committed depress me the most. The second most disgusting thing to me is that many of the people who created this horror continue to believe they were correct. Seemingly, they will live out their lives content in the belief they are doing good, and not only that, but at a standard of living higher than 99% of people in the world.

I really wonder at what Obama will do concerning the ocean of past scandals he will be wading into upon becoming President. I hate what Pelosi has done; she basically said "Ok, I'm not going to enforce the law and punish the criminals in government because that would create divisiveness which would block any good laws we could pass." Nevermind that congress has been in gridlock and nothing has been accomplished. She has chosen failure on both fronts.

Even if Obama just basically said "My administration will be concerned only with improving our great nation, and we will not waste time placing blame of past mistakes. However, I will not interfere with any agency that enforces the law." Then he appoints competent people, and Federal Agency X just does its job and simply investigates and prosecutes the crimes of the Bush administration. Simply doing that would unearth so much crap that the major players should be found guilty.

At least, that is my hope.

[Username17]

Ok, I'm not going to enforce the law and punish the criminals in government because that would create divisiveness which would block any good laws we could pass

Not quite. She said that they didn't have the votes to actually make anything stick so they weren't going to tie up Congress with an investigation that was doomed to scuttling anyway.

Because of the double jeopardy rules, that might have been a good tactic. On the other hand, just getting it into the public arena that all these crimes did happen and the investigation was blocked by Republicans in congress might have helped. I'm not really sure either way. Hard for me to come in and complain about either choice, they both depress me.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because of the double jeopardy rules, that might have been a good tactic. On the other hand, just getting it into the public arena that all these crimes did happen and the investigation was blocked by Republicans in congress might have helped. I'm not really sure either way. Hard for me to come in and complain about either choice, they both depress me.

Reid, Pelosi and Emnauel's strategy of telling the Democrats to roll over and play possum, against my wildest dreams, actually worked.

Here's my take on things: Remember the Republican revolution? Yeah. The GOP completely fucked itself over in the span of 6 years just by attacking and attempting to obstruct Bill Clinton. Yes, there were some stupid fucks like Trent Lott and Newt Ginrich and Al D'Amato who hurt the GOP's image but the biggest tank in the GOP's approval ratings came from their naked aggression towards the President.

Unfortunately, if the DEMONRATS started actually doing their job and holding the Republican party's feet to the fire I think it would only result more of that false equivalency bulllshit even though the only reason the GOP attacked was because they hated Clinton

Why do I think that? I'd say there's from 40-45% of people in the United States who will support the Republican Party no matter what unless it's shown to them in person that the President likes to slice open small children (then it drops to 22%)--and the idiot portion of the country a.k.a. the independents only turn against the instigating party when there starts to be disruptions in their normal daily routine. Behold as Gingrich fucks over his party by shutting down the government or the GOP hurts peoples' image of the President by launching a fruitless witch hunt!

I'd also like to mention that liberals are fighting an uphill battle against the corporatist media that is not going to take kindly towards actually holding their pawns accountable for these actions.




So what does this mean? The DLC and the Speaker/Leader decided that it would maintain a very low visibility and let Bush and the Republican party hang itself. For better or worse, the President gets all of the blame and/or credit for what goes on in the country. Stupid but true.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Generations / The Fourth Turning is complete horseshit, as anyone who knows what the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy is will tell you.

Hey, speaking of that stupid sociology woo, where was our big event that was supposed to test the next generation? 9/11? Don't fucking make me laugh, that's just American overreaction to American exceptionalism.

Well, the GI generation had two crises: The Great Depression and WWII. It doesn't have to be any one thing. For all we know, the Millenials' crisis may be a combination of 9/11-War on Terror and the current economic crisis.

You do have a point that the whole Generations theory hasn't been adequately tested, since it takes close to another 100 years to complete one new cycle.

[PhoneLobster]

You do have a point that the whole Generations theory hasn't been adequately tested, since it takes close to another 100 years to complete one new cycle.

I am at a loss as to how that is important.

Surely any theory on a generational pattern to history could easily be tested by tracing it BACKWARD in history, of which we have substantially more than 100 years...

edit: unless its one of those utterly stupid "History is dead, we just killed it just now, because now is special, we win history!" theories.

And considering those theories have been occurring through much of recorded history, and are bald faced dumb, I think you'd want a heck of a lot MORE than 100 years burden of proof on that kind of theory.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

It has to do with the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy Lago linked to. Since they looked back in history to come up with the theory, they need a new data set (i.e., the future) to test the hypothesis.

[Username17]

It has to do with the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy Lago linked to. Since they looked back in history to come up with the theory, they need a new data set (i.e., the future) to test the hypothesis.

But it's untestable in the future as well, because what qualifies or does not qualify as a rebellion against the past or a major test on the generation or whatever is completely arbitrary. I mean, plague outbreaks in Bombay in 1896 killed 2000 people a week in one city for a whole year. That evidently does not count as a "major event" in their theory, because if it did it would throw a spanner into their narrative.

And that's why the whole thing is stupid. They have a narrative and everything that fits the narrative is in and everything that doesn't fit the narrative is out. Whatever happens in the next hundred years will arbitrarily fit their theory, because the severity of events is wholey arbitrary as is the "degree" of social changes in response.

-Username17