STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
A Coming Republican Onslaught?
By Staff News & Analysis - October 09, 2010

Gallup Delivers a Stunner … The real historical parallel may be 1894 when Republicans took 100 seats … As Election Day draws closer, every major public opinion poll shifts from interviewing registered voters to those whom it identifies as "likely" voters. Gallup, the oldest U.S. polling company, first developed the model it uses for identifying likely voters back in 1950 and its final election polls have proven highly accurate. Gallup delivered its first 2010 "likely voter" poll and the results floored the political community. In the generic ballot question, which asks which party a voter would favor in a generic House contest, Gallup gave the GOP a 46% to 42% edge. But then Gallup applied two versions of its "likely voter" turnout model. In its "high turnout model," Republicans led Democrats by 53% to 40%. In its "low turnout model," the GOP edge was a stunning 56% to 38%. That kind of margin in favor of Republicans has never been seen in Gallup surveys … Michael Barone, co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, says either of the Gallup turnout models would produce "a Republican House majority the likes of which we have not seen since the election cycles of 1946 or even 1928." Mr. Barone says the historical parallel might no longer be 1994, when the GOP gained 54 House seats, but instead 1894, when Republicans gained more than 100 House seats in the middle of the economic downturn that engulfed Democratic President Grover Cleveland. – Wall Street Journal

Dominant Social Theme: The Republican majority is on its way back!

Free-Market Analysis: We have been following voter whiplash of the past decade-and-a-half with a good deal of interest. We picked the Clinton presidency in America as the first real Internet presidency because of the impact that the Internet had on his credibility and programs. Matt Drudge virtually forced the Clinton administration into a lame duck position with his reporting on Monica Lewinsky and her affair with then-President Bill Clinton.

Of course the Internet's power, while widely recognized at that time, was also denigrated by the mainstream media of the day. Sub dominant social theme: "Sure Internet reports are titillating but most of what is on the Internet is dubious in the extreme – and one will need Newsweek and TIME magazine to interpret 'Net reports for you. Much authenticating needs to be done!"

It didn't turn out that way. Many thinking people in America – and increasingly in Britain, Europe and China, etc. – probably don't need various forms of the mainstream media to act as gatekeepers. There is a big difference between a voluntary gatekeeper and an involuntary one. As soon as the gate-keeping became a voluntary situation people decided that they could do without it. In fact, as mainstream magazines and newspapers continue to fold with monotonous regularity, it begins to be difficult to argue that the mainstream media of the late 20th century (certainly the Anglo-American variety) are of any more value than what is offered today via the 'Net, and probably a good deal less.

In truth, the mainstream media of the West is a controlled press, representing both sides of a Hegelian dialectic – right and left, liberal and conservative – that provides a false paradigm. The real argument is between liberal statism and less state involvement; and also between conservative statism and less state involvement. Liberal and conservative, in other words, are on the same side of the dialectic, both arguing for more state control. The liberal media approves of economic leveling and the conservative media seeks global empire. Either stance demands Leviathan's support.

The same dialectic that informed the dying mainstream media informs the Western – and especially the American – political conversation. There is the same split between conservatives who support Leviathan's military industrial complex and liberals who support the Leviathan's economic activism. But in fact, when one lifts the veil, the history of both liberalism (socialism) and conservativism are likely promotional manifestations of the power elite.

It is a depressing reality, but there is an argument to be made that from Karl Marx onward, there were power elite resources devoted to establishing socialism and leveling as a viable political manifestation. The same can be said of conservativism, which does not seem to have an established intellectual history that goes back more than about 400 years. One does not, for instance usually hear about Greek or Renaissance "conservatives."

One may read about a classical liberal approach to the state, which attempted to minimize government and its functions, but this is more along the lines of minarchism than conservatism. This is the reason, for instance, that the United States was founded in large part along agrarian libertarian lines; classical liberalism and freedom were far more in vogue 300 years ago than today.

But we would argue that the Internet is gradually doing to the political system what is had done to the mainstream media – shove socialism and conservativism to one side and then present minarchism or libertarianism (anti-statism) as the alternative. This movement is gathering energy, though it has been manipulated by such political entrepreneurs as Dick Armey and Sarah Palin who have attempted to reintroduce "national honor" (as if a country can be "honorable") and militarism into the dialectic. This is the current, ongoing struggle.

What is our point in all this? Only that while a Republican "victory" seems in the offing during the November mid-term elections, upcoming in the United States, the mainstream and even pollsters (see article excerpted at the beginning of this analysis) may be misreading what is taking place. The mainstream media is being swept aside by the Internet revolution; but for some reason people still seem to believe that US (and Western parliamentary politics generally) will be somehow immune from this trend.

We do not believe this to be so. The right-left paradigm of the past 100 years is rapidly giving way to something else in our view. It took nearly Clinton's full term before he was radically affected by Internet reporting. President Obama, did not receive nearly the "honeymoon" of either Bush or Clinton. Almost from the beginning Obama has been hounded by Internet reporting that has cast doubt on every part of his background and professional and personal characteristics.

Wise political pundits in the mainstream (there are some) and of course those who analyze such things for the alternative press have taken to cautioning Republicans that their current rebound is due more to electoral frustrations than an alternative and compelling vision of governance. In fact, we would argue, it is only going to take a few more political cycles before the frustration and anger aimed at Democratic socialism spills over into the military industrial complex. The reason for this, as we have tried to show in this article, has to do with the PROCESS of the Internet and its growing impact on the political environment in the US (and abroad as well).

In 2008, Congressman Ron Paul sparked a libertarian revolution (and began the Tea Party) with his run for the presidency as a libertarian Republican. Since then almost every one of Ron Paul's economic perspectives have found fertile soil. For those who don't believe a real classical-liberal realignment is coming, we have a simple question: Why should the intellectual and sociopolitical ferment reflected in the Internet suddenly cease? In our humble opinion, the "enlightenment" continues, driven by the economic crisis itself and the free-market thinking to be found on the Internet.

After Thoughts

In the other article in today's Bell, we discuss the growing militarism of Europe and the plans that the power elite has to build a world-spanning, NATO driven, military machine. We have no doubt that sooner or later these ambitions will collide with current anti-military Western trends. As we pointed out in the first article, we do not have any idea of how all this will turn out. (And we are certainly aware of speculations about a false-flag terror event, a domestic military crackdown, etc.) But our view is that these trends as we have written about them, above, are fairly powerful, no matter what is manufactured to diminish them.

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