The changing tide of American opinion is a dynamic process. Just like the Vietnam War protests, people stir and the movement grows. I'm not sure one could say the movement would have grown regardless of the stirred up people. There are clearly many things involved in such a shift of political sentiment over time.
And just like the Vietnam War protests, nothing changed until people who had nothing to do with the so-called "movement" started getting fed up and voting as such. And they still had nothing to do with any "movement," they were just regular people who voted and then went back to their lives.
I can say that the opinions I held 8 years ago were proven right. Bush was incompetent. He did start a needless war. He was moving the country in a very dangerous direction.
And yet you were powerless to change anything. He got re-elected. Everything he wanted to do, he did. "Concerned citizens" didn't bring about change, the end of his term and his own screw-ups did.
And I got louder in 04 as did the 50% of the voters who were informed and voted against Bush. But there was still 50% of the country not aware of how bad the guy was.
And in spite of getting louder, Bush got 10 million more votes and went from 47% to over 50% of the electorate, and his margin of victory increased. Clearly, getting louder didn't do much. Clearly, "the movement" failed utterly.
They didn't elect McCane/Palen for one. More people recognize the incompetence and dangerous acts of Bush's. The majority of people in the country support change and stood up against the violations of law.
That's like saying many people recognize they were driving too fast after crashing. Yes, after 8 years, people didn't want to have anything to do with Bush. Again, my point: if you want to take credit for "being right" that's your business. But you can't very well claim that "concerned citizens" effected change, given that Bush did just about what he wanted, at will, for 8 years. If anything, the opposition to Bush was remarkably ineffective while he was in office.
It's telling that after 8 years of Bush, McCain and Obama were running neck and neck in August, until the stock market began crashing. To harken back to another famous Democrat... "It's the economy..." and so forth.
As for more progress faster, you want 8 years undone in 8 days? That's a bit much don't you think?
Again -- so the great change effected over 8 years was that Bush left office on time. Okay... I mean, it's just not all that impressive of a movement.
As for the economy, I think Obama will take effective actions but we all have to wait and see. We know concentrating wealth at the top and not regulating greed failed.
We have to wait and see about Afghanistan and Iraq. I sense a change of direction. If we haven't changed substantially in a year, your concerns will be noted and you can say you were right and I wasn't. But you can't legitimately say that after 8 days. I ain't buying it.
I'm not debating whether or not Obama will change things. I am saying that the opposition to Bush accomplished very little in 8 years, and the impetus for change was not any brilliant maneuvers by "concerned citizens," it wasn't protests, it wasn't MoveOn, it wasn't even the Democratic Congress, who somehow managed to garner approval ratings lower than Bush's. It was people losing their jobs and the stock market crashing in time for the presidential elections.
You seem overly eager to give credit to some "movement" rather than to the fact that Bush himself was terrible -- and it didn't take a "movement" for people to understand that. I don't think I know anyone who saw a protest and said, "Hey, I'm going to vote for Obama!" I do know people who said, "What a disaster we're in. Obama seems like a better choice." And they knew we were in a disaster because they watched the stock market drop 900 points, not because someone told them Bush was bad.
Bush, himself, accomplished what his opposition "movement" never could: he got a majority of the people to vote Democrat.
