Setting aside how our government would work in an ideal world, the reason that conciliatory language and efforts at bipartisanship are dangerous in our current political climate is that it creates the unwarranted assumption that the other side is offering a viable alternative. In other words, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the other side got to call the shots for two or four years. If we’re not happy with how things are going, well…we have this other option…the Republicans.
Now, I know that they say the same things about us, and it sounds pretty damn extreme when they say it. But we have to be clear about something. We can go back nearly eighty years in this country and say that we’ve been doing things pretty much the same way all that time. Put us in charge and things won’t change all that much. Things that have been gained, like ending prohibition, phasing out Jim Crow, creating a social welfare state, participating in the United Nations, legalizing contraception and abortion, expanding workplace rights and environmental protection, extending civil rights to women and gays…these things won’t go away. The tax rate may go up or down, but the tax code won’t be altered in any fundamental way. The relationship between the federal government and the states won’t change.
Put the current crop of Republicans in charge for any sustained period of time, and almost all of those things are at risk. The modern conservative movement doesn’t share our assumptions about what America is. They want to go back to the roaring 20’s, or even the 1880’s. So, it would be nice to say that “my good friend, the honorable Sen. Corker from Tennessee, has been working very hard and has some excellent ideas for how to improve the Wall Street reform bill,” and have it actually be true. Such flattery greases the machinery of Congress…normally. But these aren’t normal times, and the other side isn’t playing by the same rules (or even the same game).
We’re like Captain Benjamin L. Willard on the Nung River, and we’ve crossed into Cambodia. And they’re “out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And still in the field commanding troops.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is an election year. And this month marks the beginning of campaign season, with many primaries coming up. I will be writing more about individual races and what’s at stake, even if such threads have trouble getting a good conversation going. I hope you participate and get involved.
We have to stand on the side of reason:
Because there’s a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane.
There’s no time for friendly talk.
Agreed.
Good point Booman. I’m at something of a loss to know how to talk with and about today’s Republican party.
Obama sometimes (usually at party fundraisers, but occasionally in more public settings) has a good touch with “patient exasperation mixed with light ridicule”.
Charle Pierce in “Idiot America” heaps scorn, ridicule and derision upon the conservative movement, and mixes it with passionate defenses of reason and the Madisonian political tradition.
Many years ago, then-Senator George Mitchell (briefly) halted the media adoration of then-Lt. Col. Oliver North who was testifying before a Senate select committee on the Iran-Contra affair. Mitchell simply stopped asking questions (which served only to give North an opportunity to preen and pontificate), and delivered a calm, reasoned, and coolly intense lecture to North about patriotism.
Anyone have any suggestions?
I’ve been saying this for years.
BooMan, it’s so hard to have a conversation about the current state of politics, to “participate and get involved.” After saying the Republicans have apparently gone bat-shit insane, there isn’t much left to discuss.
Rational citizens have to vote for Democrats even if they are less than ideologically progressive or even liberal by our definition of that term. Given a choice between an anti-choice, pro-insurance industry DINO and a Tea Bagger who wants to dismantle the Federal government, you simply have to shuffle into the voting booth and select the least insane candidate. Staying home and letting the oil slick anti-government tide wash over you is simply not an option.
Today in NC, I get to vote in the primary and choose between a corporate-sponsored Dem, a moderately “progressive” Dem and a sassy female “progressive.” The choice in my heart is to go with Elaine Marshall. But, my mind looks toward November and I wonder if Cal Cunningham isn’t the better choice to confront Richard Burr. Everyone dislikes Burr but can enough independents and some Republican voters be persuaded to vote for Marshall after the machine turns her into a Hillary Clinton clone? Cunningham — an Iraq War vet, somewhat handsome, family man, sincere fellow — would appear to have a better chance at turning another NC Senate seat blue. My decision today is hard…
In November, my decision will be easy; I’ll vote for whoever is NOT a Republican.
It’s very unlikely that your vote will be decisive. Vote your heart.
But I don’t think Cunningham would be a bad senator. I just think Marshall would be better. And Hagan won, so Marshall has a path to victory in the fall.
Indeed. What’s likely to happen is the lefty/liberal vote will be split between Cunningham and Marshall and Lewis will win — he’s the one who could afford all the curb signs around here. Yeah, Hagan won and look at what a corporate stooge she’s turned out to be. It took massive coercion from the citizenry to get her to vote for HCR. Behind the scenes, I’m sure she was part of how watered down that legislation became.
It comes down to me not really trusting candidates who say they are “progressive.” It’s become a code word to summon the lefty Dems the same way “family values” is a coded call to right-wing Christianists.
But, yeah, it’s a primary: I’ll probably vote with my heart and be shocked, shocked if Marshall wins.
She’s ahead in the polls I’ve seen, but she needs 40% to avoid a run-off.
used to say “in primaries, vote with your heart; in general elections, vote with your head” (paraphrasing).
Numerous books have been written lately about the state of the republican party, the authoritarian dynamic, the christian fundamentalism.
Among others, “Crazy for God” by Frank Schaeffer, “Conservatives without Conscience” and “Broken Government” by John W. Dean, “The Family” by Jeff Sharlet, “Republican Gomorrah” by Max Blumenthal, etc…
Sometimes I wonder if President Obama and the democratic leadership fully grasp the magnitude of the problem. Or if they do, if they have thought of reinforcing their team of political strategists with some experts like social psychologists ? And, for the love of god, some fresh blood in the communications department ?
Mr. “Booman”, you have connections within the party. Do you know what’s going on ?
what are really asking me?
I think the Republicans consistently surprise the Democratic establishment with their degree of radicalism. However, they seem to have learned from the health care debate, as you saw with they way they went about introducing the financial reforms.
The quip comparing the Democratic Party to the GOP as a “Good Cop,Bad Cop” routine is what I see : and it’s institutional in Representative Government…which is incorrectly referred to as a ‘democracy’. That would require your vote actually count – rather than your wishes being subverted by payola.
I’m nasty about government – Chomsky being on target and even perhaps too optimistic for my taste !
Speaking of ‘decent restraint’
JudeoFascists Attack Home of Progressive Rabbi Michael Lerner http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/05/04/judeofascists-attack-home-of-progressive-rabbi-michae
l-lerner/
Since your crosspost was at AlterNet, I didn’t have to go far for context.
Labour had a saying for this, about the Tories. It went something like this: “We don’t expect that Labour will hold power forever, but we want to hold power at least until the other side is sane.”