Lance Selfa on Scott Brown

Lance Selfa has an excellent analysis of the recent senate election in Mass. I haven't looked at NYTimes this morning yet, but I can already imagine all of the "wisdom" coming from pundits to the effect that "the democrats must move to the Center". The Democrats can shove it. Who gives a shit whether or not they have a super-majority, when they never threaten to do anything progressive enough to warrant a GOP filibuster?

If you haven't already heard, just rest assured that Scott Brown is a "left-leaning Republican" who is "more liberal than some of his counterparts in other states". Yes, evidently "left-leaning" means vowing to defeat even the most tepid, counter-productive forms of health reform. Once we dilute the political content of "left-leaning" so heavily, it's difficult to see why Democrats of this persuasion don't vote Republican more often. Ugh. If it were up to people like this, we wouldn't even have the pretense of multiparty democracy... we'd just have the TPA (the Tepid Party of America) which stood for rabble-rousing values like "moderation", "good sense", "centrism", "bipartisanship" and "experience".

Of course, making it appear as though people have a choice is a far more stable means of reproducing this sad state of affairs.