Reading about the Republican convention in the UK is about as depressing as it gets. Everywhere it is the ABC so far as the “quality” press seems to go. This, from The Telegraph, the supposedly conservative paper of England, on Tuesday had only a minor story (page 14) on the convention and in relation to the single most important Republican meme – you didn’t build that – this is what they wrote:
Mr Ryan has led Republican criticism of Mr Obama for telling small business owners their success depends partly on government infrastructure.
Utterly unrecognisable. This is the theme of the entire convention, but that is how The Telegraph tries to explain it away. You would barely know what the reference is to so hard does the writer try to disguise the point.
So now I am reading The Evening Standard which provides the first press report available here in the UK. The story is entirely about Clint Eastwood which allows them to avoid actually having to dwell on what Romney said. And then on the editorial page, there is a full page article from someone who normally frequents salon.com. Amongst his concluding thoughts is this:
The relationship between Romney and his party highlights a longer-term problem. For the Republican Party, it means a nominating process that naturally selects less and less electable candidates, who must try to win with a narrower and narrower political coalition. For America at large, that means a national political discourse that moves farther to the right than ever.
For this character, the virtually undisguised socialist thoughts of the American president – re-distribution of wealth, greater central direction, higher taxes on the productive, betraying America’s allies – are all merely common sense and mainstream. It will be an interesting nine weeks to the election.
The more interesting thing will be watching them back-track and try to explain themselves if Romney should turn out the victor (which I hope he will, but still might not).
Some of them might have the skill to pull it off convincingly, but I suspect the behaviour of the rest of them will be seen for what it is – a rush to be seen to have thought the right thing beforehand, but not to have said it for some strange, unfathomable reason, much as we saw after Kevin Rudd’s knifing.
perturbed
1 Sep 12 at 3:36 am
I’d emigrate in a heartbeat if I could afford it (and they’d let me in). Watching Romney and Ryan I felt they articulated my ideas about life better than any British politician, including some of the “better” ones, ever has. And I’m not particularly keen on Romney. But when he reeled off the businesses he helped set up at Bain – all of whom have employed way more people than any government stimulus program – and ended, “In America we don’t apologize for success,” I almost stood and cheered myself. Because that’s what the British “right” has been doing for as long as I can remember: “Oh, maybe these socialist johnnies have a point, you know; it really is a bit off that some chaps aren’t as well off as others. If we just keep our heads down and don’t frighten them too much maybe they won’t actually put us up against a wall or anything…”
For a brief moment in the 1980s the fog of fear, apology, and appeasement lifted, but it’s back with a vengeance. Bugger that for a lark.
Sam Duncan
1 Sep 12 at 5:46 am
The west has been divided effectively into tribes. The media behaviour you describe here is now endemic, and leads to more volatility in government, which in turn continues to spiral downwards into ineffectual, placatory PC-ism, entitlement-ism, and nanny-ism, which has found its most damaging form in the anti-AGW movement: we know what’s best for you and the planet, and will implement it regardless of all dissent.
blogstrop
1 Sep 12 at 7:30 am
Britain and Europe are very anti-Republican. It’s partly because the Republicans are less internationalist and that clashes with the European agenda. But it goes further than that, there’s a deep seated antipathy to American conservativism. It’s seen as being about religion, racial division, and war.
dd
1 Sep 12 at 8:18 am
None of which, of course, have ever created problems in europe.
Rabz
1 Sep 12 at 8:38 am
Yeah what they don’t get is that America takes liberty seriously. They also don’t get that there’s a continuum between social rights and economic rights.
dd
1 Sep 12 at 8:52 am
dd – If you had to summarise that dynamic in two points I think those two would do it.
John Mc
1 Sep 12 at 8:57 am
Almost as bad as reading the daily attacks on Newman in the Courier Mail. Big headlines about him cutting funding of $140,000 to an award winning children’s program. But buried in the fine print, they lost $730,000 in Federal funding in June but it gets barely a mention and even the fact it was federal funds is not mentioned and then a bit further in, turns out they didn’t bother to renew their grant application.
Newman should be reporting them to the press council, lets see how they like Julia’s increased scrutiny of media then.
The Realist of Queensland
1 Sep 12 at 8:59 am
If that’s all you’ve got then you’ve got Buckleys and deserve to lose.
Anyone with a brain should vote for Gary Johnson anyway.
Yobbo
1 Sep 12 at 9:13 am
Start talking politics to any British person between the age of 30 and 50 and you’re talking to someone who came of Age in the Thatcher years. Nearly everyone in this bracket I have ever met has a fear and loathing of Thatcher that is beyond all understanding.
If you try and point out that she was the one that lanced a supperating boil called English Socialism based around Trade Unions, they will insist that she, and she alone, destroyed all that was holy and good about the United Kingdom.
Never mind all the crap that went on before, the absolute destruction of British industry at the hands of unionised labour and a managerial class seemingly more interested in perfecting the right vowels than building world class companies. Thatcher took out the trash and saved their bacon, and they all walk around like she was the one that ruined everything. An entire generation of people are like a fat guy blaming the doctor for their chest pains caused by 60 years of eating hamburgers and pretending it will be OK because they were once healthy.
Modern Britain is a place stuck in a rut. Obsessed with its past, unable to see a future in which it is strong, and vainly trying to go along with the socialist train wreck of Europe while pretending it isn’t. The London opening ceremony was this laid bare – trawling through recent history to try and find something to stack up against towering giants like Newton and Smith, they came up with a fictitious movie character, an awful socialised health system, and a guy who laid out the protocols for the www – a simple presentation layer written on top of American network technology, using an American computer, while working at a Swiss research centre.
It’s little wonder why successful British entrepreneurs seem to be South Africans – those that arrive from a half-broken nation to one where even the scraps of liberty are still lying around – and they pick up those pieces and get one with it, rather than sitting around moaning that Margaret Thatcher stole their milk, so capitialism must be evil, and therefore so are the republicans.
/endrant
brc
1 Sep 12 at 9:41 am
clinton was the first democrat president to be re-elected since FDR!
LBJ was the last democract to be elected in a landslide.
Jim Rose
1 Sep 12 at 9:53 am
More freebies and control or a little bit more freedom to operate.
They’ll go with Obama’s freebies. The destruction of the US$ is thereby certain, it may be certain anyway.
There’ll be a motza of profitable trading opportunities on the way down, best not to get otherwise involved it’s just business.
Alfonso
1 Sep 12 at 9:55 am
That’s not a rant, it’s a nice piece of writing. I’m going to use some of that if that’s OK.
John Mc
1 Sep 12 at 9:55 am
the GOP has controlled congress for most of the past 20 years despite their trying to win with a narrower and narrower political coalition
Jim Rose
1 Sep 12 at 9:58 am
This is interesting..
If you Google something like “democrat convention 2008 obama speech” you get 52 million hits.
Google “republican convention 2012 ryan speech” you get 516 million hits!
Looks to me like people *are* interested in the message, regardless of the media slant.
JC
JC
1 Sep 12 at 10:21 am
What has become endemic, it seems to me, is conservatives and libertarians decrying what left wing idiots think of them and their ideas.
Who fucking cares?
C.L.
1 Sep 12 at 10:56 am
John Mc be my guest. It’s just stream-of-conciousness stuff, so you’ll have to apply the prose-cleanup-putty.
brc
1 Sep 12 at 11:05 am
“Utterly unrecognisable”
Yep. They could have explained that the theme of the convention was based on fighting against a willfully misquoted line and a rallying call against an entirely imagined position.
But the Telegraph wouldn’t want to seem biased I suppose, even if such reporting would have reflected the reality a bit better.
TheConsig
1 Sep 12 at 11:20 am
Neat summary of modern Republican values.
1735099
1 Sep 12 at 11:27 am
“Google “republican convention 2012 ryan speech” you get 516 million hits!”
Yeah, it’s strange. A speech made two nights ago, by the VP nominee at the national convention, is getting more attention than a speech made 4 years ago.
TheConsig
1 Sep 12 at 11:29 am
you seem to omit exactly what I said they all omit, and so it’s clear that you missed my point. Namely:
Liberty is a value.
dd
1 Sep 12 at 12:17 pm
The report on Perth ABC radio was very detailed and positive, with very positive words about talks by Ryan, Romney and C. Rice. Eastwood was mentioned as a blimp in the otherwise successful convention.
Boris
1 Sep 12 at 12:55 pm
Evening Standard is owned by a Putin cronie. What would you expect?
Boris
1 Sep 12 at 12:55 pm
dd, he’s trolling. Pay him no mind.
dover_beach
1 Sep 12 at 1:01 pm
The media bias just doesn’t matter.
Clint Eastwood dropped devastating bombs aplenty whilst playing garrulous old man to a t.
The Eastwood (and Ryan) selection tells you much about Romney.
He’s not as risk averse as we thought.
Romney was actually condescendingly dismissive of Obama but in a very low key but telling manner.
Everyone knows.
Romney has already won and I suspect the more astute
Dems know.
I am more confident than ever in my long held prediction of a likely blow-out Romney win.
Jamesk
1 Sep 12 at 2:16 pm
What do you mean “long held”? A few months ago, you were predicting an easy Obama victory over somebody called “Snoremitten”.
Fisky
1 Sep 12 at 2:21 pm
Tory Immigration Minister today said the party must pass the “Danny Boyle test” to win the next general election. Damian Green said the Conservatives should embrace the spirit of Britain evoked by film director Danny Boyle in his spectacular Olympic opening ceremony.
The ceremony featured sections devoted to the NHS and a celebration of the nation’s multi-cultural society, including the first wave of West Indian immigrants arriving on SS Empire Windrush in 1948. Mr Green said: “To succeed, the Conservative Party must be at home in modern Britain.
“Much in this country needs changing and improving; but we should not become ¬nostalgists promoting a better yesterday. We need to pass the Danny Boyle test, and cheer the numerous virtues of Britain in 2012.”
And he warned against his party going down the “seductive blind alley” of shifting to the right.He said: “If we don’t like modern Britain, then it is very unlikely that modern Britain will like us.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/danny-boyle-test-damian-green-1282889
Viva
1 Sep 12 at 2:45 pm
No. I have been regular and consistent on this for 6 months or more.
I said whoever won the GOP primary would win the presidency.
And I also said that all voters had to see was viability in the GOP nominee and Obummer’s numbers would cave as the election approached.
This is 1980 redux
Fisky has the attention span of a gnat and reads only what his prejudice dictates rather than the pixelated text on the screen.
I’ve also remarked before Fisky exhibits all the techniques and tendencies of the Left, not least: denial of reality.
JamesK
1 Sep 12 at 2:54 pm
“denial of reality”!
If you had had your way, the Republicans STILL wouldn’t have a candidate. You wanted them to be candidateless, and therefore cashless, into September.
Fisky
1 Sep 12 at 2:58 pm
Please desist from being a tosser Fisky.
JamesK
1 Sep 12 at 2:59 pm
But you did, didn’t you? You wanted Obama to be running against a leaderless collective. What are you, some kind of anarchist?
Fisky
1 Sep 12 at 3:24 pm
Fisky, we need McCaskill out in Minnesota. Please start doorknocking for Akin. All ‘hands’ on deck. Shoulders to the wheel.
dover_beach
1 Sep 12 at 3:35 pm
He isn’t going to have any volunteers or any money. What a waste of time!
Fisky
1 Sep 12 at 4:00 pm
‘I’m Joe Bidenopoulos’: Gaffe-prone Vice President introduces himself to Greek men during campaign stop
LOL
I love Sarah Palin
JamesK
1 Sep 12 at 4:22 pm
He isn’t going to have any volunteers or any money. What a waste of time!
In other words, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Again, we potentially gift a Senate post to our opponents following a campaign of their exaggeration out of pure cowardice.
dover_beach
1 Sep 12 at 5:09 pm
No no, Akin is now the Democratic-endorsed foil for the Senate. A majority of Democrats want him to stay; a majority of Republicans want him to leave.
Fisky
1 Sep 12 at 5:23 pm
Hopefully Akin gets hit by a bus.
Although I only want him to be mildly incapacitated and unable to fulfill his duties, not turned into Biden.
Infidel Tiger
1 Sep 12 at 5:32 pm
No. Of course, the majority of Republicans want him to go and someone else to stand against McCaskill, but those same Republicans would prefer Akin to McCaskill in the Senate, and therefore, if he remains the Republican candidate for the Senate in Minnesota, we will have to be shoulder to shoulder with Akin. Anything less is support for the enemy. Shoulder to the wheel, Fisky.
dover_beach
1 Sep 12 at 5:45 pm
First Akin must respect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Republicans and quit by the end of this month. But, if he does stay against their wishes, Republicans should offer him their votes, nothing more, and certainly none of their cash. They should send their money to Scott Brown instead, who is at least in with a good chance, and isn’t a national embarrassment.
Fisky
1 Sep 12 at 6:09 pm
Sorry, the race above is Missouri, not Minnesota. And, no, we need both Akin and Brown in the Senate, and McCaskill out and Warren to remain out. I note, in passing, that Scott Brown also has rather ‘controversial’ views according to liberals. Boo for them. Shoulder to the wheel, Fisky.
dover_beach
1 Sep 12 at 6:46 pm
I take it you would have doubled down on Pauline Hanson in 1996, too?
Fisky
1 Sep 12 at 7:31 pm
No, since the House, and thus a Coalition government, wasn’t dependent on it. What I’m calling out is this constant poo-pooing of Akin when we should be determined to win this Senate seat. By all means, pressure Akin privately to resign, but why in God’s name publicly ruin his chances of defeating McCaskill if he stays. If I had my druthers, I’d prefer to see Steeleman challenging McCaskill.
dover_beach
1 Sep 12 at 7:47 pm
I love Sarah Palin
You have to like anyone who brings the left out in such a big, nasty rash, even though their reaction to it isn’t pretty.
blogstrop
1 Sep 12 at 8:40 pm
dd: I’d go further. It isn’t just a “continuum between social and economic rights”: there is no dichotomy. Economic rights are social rights.
Sam Duncan
1 Sep 12 at 11:49 pm
Something is quite stinky in GB. The freedom Lovers must get organized ASAP!
Westie
2 Sep 12 at 5:47 am