The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Have you looked at the pic you have for your avatar?

Oh yes. And if you dig up a couple of posts somewhere around here, you'll know that I'm already in therapy and on meds.


ETA - Hee hee, Leo, I changed it moments before you posted. lol I attached the pic Leo's referring to.

[€uroMeinke]

SO what's with these "Tea Bag" Republicans and how did they get their name?

(I'd also like to know about the "Blue Dog" Democrats, but that name isn't nearly as provocative.

[innerSpaceman]

I think they are styling themselves as some modern American quasi-revolutionaries equating being really rude at Town Hall meetings with dumping tea in Boston Harbor.

It should get really interesting when some Republican Teabaggers get around to the di rigour culture wars of fighting gay marriage.

[scaeagles]

I think tea baggers came from a description from someone on MSNBC, but I can't be sure. The protesters called were going to what they called tea parties. As far as "blue dog", I think it comes from someone once saying he's ratehr vote for a value dog than a republican. It stuck for relatively conservative dems. not exactly sure about that one, though.

[Alex]

I'm not sure whether "teabagger" was first used as a term referring to the protesters by themselves or their mockers, but the protesters were the first to refer to what they were doing as "teabagging." It was those quotes from various protest supporters that first set Olbermann and Maddow off.

My memory of "blue dog Democrat" is that is a play on the very old "yellow dog Democrat" which was a term to post-Civil War southern Democrats who would never vote Republican (because it was the party of Lincoln) even though policy-wise it was actually the better party for them.

I believe that the "blue" in "blue dog" is a reference to Democrats who feel they've been left out in the cold by their party (meaning it is too liberal on some issues for them).

[Ghoulish Delight]

The term "tea bag" was photographed on a sign at a protest ("Tea Bag the Democrats before they Tea Bag you"). That sign seems to have been aware of the double-meaning. Fox News started using the term "teabagging" shortly after that, seemingly without really understanding the meaning. Salon.com was probably the first to publicly point out the double meaning explicitly, MSNBC followed shortly with the mockery.

re: blue dog, according to wikipedia, " "Blue Dog Democrat" is derived from the term "Yellow Dog Democrat." Former Texas Democrat Rep. Pete Geren is credited for coining the term, explaining that the members had been "choked blue" by "extreme" Democrats from the left"

[JWBear]

Interesting

President Obama has proposed a plan that is slightly to the right of President Nixon. It’s a remarkably moderate incremental sort of reform that a reasonable conservative should recognize as his or her own.

[The Lovely Mrs. tod]

Most interesting thing I've read in weeks. And the sanest.

[Alex]

That's very true and more people should realize it. But that Nixon proposal is also a prime example of the continuing form of politics in which the opposition party in congress is resistant to ever giving the president a "win." Since of course it was Democrats who made sure it never went anywhere on the grounds that it wasn't the utopian ideal (Teddy Kennedy eventually came to view his opposition as a major misstep).

Also, though much despised for many good reasons, Nixon was also amazingly progressive by modern Republican standards on many issues. The party changed a lot between him and Reagan, it is an interesting game of alternate history to consider what would have happened to the party if he hadn't crippled his wing of it with his glorious downfall and opened the door to the ascendancy of the religious wing.

[Morrigoon]

Link to the health care bill