But are there also "suicide liberals"? You bet. Remember Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. Both the right-wing conservative paranoid-style rhetoric and the left-wing liberal and progressive jeremiad-style rhetoric can produce purists, instead of realists. Occasionally, purists of one kind or the other can win national elections. For example, President Lyndon B. Johnson won by a landslide in 1964 because of the enormous appeal of jeremiad-style rhetoric regarding the black civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which President John F. Kennedy had supported before he was assassinated. But Johnson's Great Society legislation inflamed paranoia-style rhetoric about big government that culminated in the 1980 victory of President Ronal Reagan.
As mentioned, the economic policies under President George W. Bush and the two unnecessary wars set the stage for the enormous backlash that propelled President Barack Obama to office as a result of his effective jeremiad-style rhetoric. Despite economic conditions and other factors that did not favor his re-election in 2012, President Obama nevertheless won re-election by using his somewhat toned-down jeremiad-style rhetoric in his effective campaign for re-election. Indeed, the 2012 presidential election can be characterized as paranoid-style rhetoric versus jeremiad-style rhetoric, with the jeremiad-style rhetoric producing the ultimate victor.
But how many other viable candidates in the Democratic Party are masters of jeremiad-style rhetoric? And how many Democratic candidates in the 2014 and 2016 elections will be realists, instead of being purists?
It is about 100% predictable that the Republican Party will run candidates in the 2014 and 2016 elections who will depend on paranoid-style rhetoric. The only question is whether they will be purists or realists.
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