I keep hearing on TV and seeing in newspaper headlines that the results of this recently passed 2010 mid-term elections mean that the country is now tilting "more conservative."
This points up one of the extreme difficulties when language gets diluted and polluted. During the Reign of Cheney and Rove, the word "liberal" was used to connote (1) traitor - not supportive of the tropps or (2) a democrat while the word "conservative" was used as a surrogate for (1) patriot and (2) a republican.
This transference of meaning was a deliberate attempt to marginalize (even further) the democratic party brand. And it was successful, until the 2006 election cycle when the rash of blue-dog democratic party candidates elected to Congress signified that (finally) "the left" was starting to lean more to "the right."
My take on the 2006 mid-term elections is that the anti-war majority in this country came out to vote the war to an end. No such luck for the battered peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, East Yemen, etc, etc, etc.
My take on the 2008 democratic landslide was the the majority of Americans were fed up with the real-world consequences of the Republican party's foreign policy, diplomacy, and the unavoidable consequence to the Republican's mantra of deregulate, deregulate, wage war, wage war, wage war, and utter contempt, disdain and disgust for the bailout given the banksters.
My take on this shift in the nominal party affiliation in the House and Senate is that the public is regurgitating out of its system those entrenched (bur fairly recent) politicians who were elected to serve the interests of their constituents and NOT the interest of a bunch of vampiric, blood-sucking corporations.
