Monday 12 November 2012

More election marginalia

The US Republican party has moved far to the right. How far? Remember David Frum, the Canadian son of CBC journalist Barbara Frum? He turned coat, became George W. Bush's speechwriter, and coined the term "axis of evil". Now he's speaking as the Republicans' conscience ...

"Since the loss of the election, we have heard an enormous amount of discussion from Republicans on television and newspaper columns about immigration as an issue... but all of us who are allowed to participate in this conversation, we all have health insurance. And the fact that millions of Americans don't have health insurance, they don't get to be on television. And it is maybe a symptom of a broader problem, not just the Republican problem, that the economic anxieties of so many Americans are just not part of the national discussion at all.

"I mean, we have not yet emerged from the greatest national catastrophe, the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. And what are we talking about? The deficit and the debt. And these are important problems, but they're a lot easier to worry about if you are wealthier than you were in 2008, which most of the people on television now are again, if you are securely employed, which most of the people on television now are. But that's not true for 80% of America. And the Republican Party, the opposition party, needed to find some way to give voice to real urgent economic concerns held by middle class Americans. Latinos, yes, but Americans of all ethnicities."

More at http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/11/hullabaloo.html.

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