DragonScorpion says:

What a monumental waste of time. Reading Sarah Palin’s book, that is. But I suppose someone other than right-wing sycophants need to do this.

I most certainly do not dismiss the future of Sarah Palin. Alarmingly, I think she is going to have a significant impact on our political system, if nothing else to continue to push the Republican party rightward and to increase the militancy of conservatives. I think the talking-heads on the left who continually attack her, especially on a personal level, are just making her into more of a victim and thus “hero” of right-wing and/or Christian conservatives. In the end, they’re going to regret it.

I think many leftists are going to be in for a big surprise in the next few elections. And while some of it is inevitable when the country undergoes major sea change elections, much of it could also have been avoided. But they’re overreaching and displaying a smug arrogance that perpetuates the “elitist” stereotype.

While I certainly disagree with the notion that Sarah Palin is some sort of populist voice representing the silent majority of centrist, middle-class folks in this country, AmericanMuser does offer a good point about moderates in this country being sick to death of partisanship and the leftist/right-wing dichotomy. We are mad as hell about greedy corporations who put profits above public safety and public interests and the politicians (Republican and Democrat) who create and maintain the legal framework in which they can do this.

There IS a growing populist fervor in this country. Count me among them. It’s time that we stop the divisiveness, shake up the political system, diminish corruption, and start formulating and instituting real solutions — private sector and government alike — to the very serious problems that face the country and the globe. But we must tread cautiously during such a time. I believe that history has shown that during times such as these, demagoguery and authoritarianism become very real possibilities.

Here is something I found a while back on a Wikipedia entry about populism:
“It is believed by some that populist movements can be precursors for, or building blocks for, fascist movements.[17][18][19] Conspiracist scapegoating employed by various populist movements can create “a seedbed for fascism.”[20] National socialist populism interacted with and facilitated fascism in interwar Germany.[21] In this case, distressed middle–class populists during the pre-Nazi Weimar period mobilized their anger at government and big business. The Nazis “parasitized the forms and themes of the populists and moved their constituencies far to the right through ideological appeals involving demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism.”[22]

According to Fritzsche:
“The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization….Against “unnaturally” divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public….[b]reaking social barriers of status and caste, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people’s community…[23]“”

To quote a phrase attributed to Sinclair Lewis, “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

So say what you will about Obama’s “socialism”. It is the right-wing fascism that may well follow the Obama era that we, as a nation, should truly be concerned about. While I doubt that Sarah Palin would be ‘the chosen one’ to usher in a new conservative Christian world order, she would be among those who would give such a movement direction.

DragonScorpion says:

@ImNotBlue
I can understand why you would assume what you have. But I’d like to assure you that you’re incorrect.

If that were the case I, as an assumed liberal, would support a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, in fact, I support Gen. McChrystal’s counterinsurgency plan and the “surge” that it would require. If I were the sort of liberal you imply here, I would support a public option in the health-care bill. I don’t, I support a non-profit health-care cooperative. If I were the Democratic partisan you suggest then I would support the health-care insurance individual mandate, but I don’t. If I were a leftist that simply wanted the right to stop struggling, then I wouldn’t support the Republican plan to allow interstate competition between insurance companies, but in fact I do.

No, actually, I am tired of the petty bickering between both sides. I am fed up with the people we elect to office who continually turn out to be beholden to corporate lobbyists and special interests groups who don’t have the needs of the nation at heart. I want real progress in this country. I want serious improvements to our political system. I want our representatives to implement practical ideas that work.

As a centrist, I’m very concerned about leftists who are trying to push the Democratic party and the Obama administration into a more socialistic direction. I’m concerned about socialist efforts to “nudge” individuals into “good behavior” by punishing people through taxes and the like to stop smoking, live healthier, etc. I’m concerned about the demonizing among some on the left of those who disagree out of principal and those who don’t toe the party line.

And, yes, as a middle-class populist I am concerned about the Ayn Rand demagogues in the Republican party who worship money and free markets and oppose nearly every form of regulation and government intervention. As a rational centrist I am very disturbed by the paranoid extremists who invent one conspiracy theory after another and attach it to the Obama administration, Democrats, liberals, and any one and any idea that is left of center. And as a social libertarian (and a non-religious homosexual) I am very disturbed by the Christian social conservatives who are trying to hijack the Republican party, claiming to represent “real America”, whilst pushing moderates out of it.

If that, to you, is partisan then you obviously have a very different definition of partisan than I do. And seemingly everyone else for that matter.

And I must add, considering some of the comments I’ve read from you on the forums here, and your username, I don’t think you have much legitimacy in lecturing others on partisanship.