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Exile on Main Street

There has been much chatter about Megan McArdle‘s statement in a New York Times article about how conservatives are handling the possibility of Republican defeat in the fall: Indeed, to Ms. McArdle, the possibility of a Republican defeat holds a certain romantic appeal. “Younger people are kind of excited about being in the wilderness,” she […]

There has been much chatter about Megan McArdle‘s statement in a New York Times article about how conservatives are handling the possibility of Republican defeat in the fall:

Indeed, to Ms. McArdle, the possibility of a Republican defeat holds a certain romantic appeal. “Younger people are kind of excited about being in the wilderness,” she said, evoking the pre-Reagan years when Republican thinkers plotted their revolution at nonprofit organizations and in bars instead of in the Executive Office Building and congressional majority offices. The longer you’re in power, the more you want to preserve it. “That’s where the Republicans are right now, and it’s demoralizing for think tankers.” Desperation has a way of focusing the mind. As Ms. McArdle said, “When they’re out of power, they have to think in a clearer way.”

Andrew Stuttaford states that younger people are only excited about being in the wilderness “because they’ve never been there.”

Rod Dreher says that Stuttaford’s point is not . . . easily dismissable,” so allow me to easily dismiss it. I am a permanent exile and we will be no more at home in a McCain administration than I would be under President Obama. I prefer that Obama win, but I am under no illusions and have no expectations about his presidency. I don’t care much about electoral politics and I am starting to downgrade my followage, to coin a word, of the election–I’m only going to read about it in Daniel‘s TAC column. Should he choose to write about more interesting topics such as Merle Haggard or Pre-Code films, then I will remain blissfully ignorant up through election day.

Wizened eldercon, Robert Stacy “Other” McCain chalks it all up to McCardle’s youth. “Never having set foot in the Executive Office Building, I’m nevertheless dismayed by the “romantic appeal” of the wilderness for Ms. McArdle, who was in middle school the last time Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress.”

Since she is so young, let me fill her in on what she missed while in junior high: Bill Clinton took over the presidency with a Democratic congress in 1993 and quickly overreached. The Republicans took over congress two years later and it took them about five minutes to reach the level of arrogance and corruption that the Dems built up in forty. I assume she is old enough to remember when it all blew up in the Republican’s faces in 2006 to get us where we are right now. In other words, the world did not end, and will not end if rightwingers are out of power.

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