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wingedbeastIt's taken me some time to solidify my thoughts in the wake of the first set of Democratic Party primary debates, so this isn't going to be a hot take... or a short post. My apologies ahead of time.
The Democratic Party seems to have a split. That split was shown at its clearest when Kamala Harris took Joe Biden to task for not only his statements effectively praising two pro-segregationists in Congress but for his position regarding a policy that had a direct impact on her own access to quality education. No, the split isn't on race, though issues regarding race are directly impacted.
There is a steel-man interpretation of Biden's comments that led to that confrontation. In that steel-man interpretation, Biden was speaking on the need to find the good in people with whom you have fundamental disagreements on matters of deep moral worth, and the capacity to do what good, together, you can do. The readiness and the eagerness to do this would be among the ideal qualities to be had in the leader of a democracy that will never have one-party rule. (Or if it does, it won't be through democracy and it won't be the current version of the Democratic Party.)
This, in terms of theme and narrative, meshes quite well with Biden's stated belief that the Trump administration is a blip in Republican Party history. He has stated, unambiguously, that he believes that, when Trump is out of the White House, Republicans will come to their senses and come to the negotiating table in good faith.
Also on his side of the divide, I see Nancy Pelosi and her intense resistance to Impeachment. She shares a suspicion that many have that impeachment would improve Trump's standing the way that it did for Bill Clinton. It may seem different from Biden's position, but I'll note that, when pressed on his position regarding bussing, Biden said he didn't oppose bussing but only the national imposition... essentially evoking States Rights.
This is about how the Democratic Party treats Republicans, both as the Party and in the voters.
Biden's position regarding busing as good if the state so wills is... Things are about to get complex. On its own and with all else being position, that was the wrong position to take. Morally, the "State's Right to Effectively Segregate" isn't a good position to take, no more so than States Rights was with regards to official segregation or to slavery. In terms of getting as much done as you can at the time? Well...
It's a strategy that works well with the world of my memory of the 80s and 90s. It treats Republicans, this group that has by this point unified with Evangelicals and claimed ownership of all things moral and decent and family and patriotic and pro-business, in a specific manner regarding their capacity to sit down at the negotiating table and deal in good faith. It treated Republicans as ready, willing, and able... but very skittish. If you were to startle them with something too soft on crime or anti-business or conflicting with their "Christian family values", their fight-or-flight instinct would be triggered and they'd do one or the other.
Oh, and it would be so easy to set them off. In fact, you were going to set them off at least a little regardless, but you just had to be patient and calm and wait them out. Their offense-detectors were very sensitive. This was why you can see someone choosing to try Don't Ask Don't Tell rather than just changing the code to allow actively and openly serving gay service members in the army. "Hey. Hey. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. See how calm we all are on this side? All we're doing is not actively hunting them down anymore."
Imagine the Republican Party as an abused dog and liberals and Democrats were, as much as they were being loud and "in your face" in one sense, softly inching closer so the dog could acclimate and learn that, hey, liberals would pet them and call them good!
The analogy isn't perfect. Democrats and liberals were well aware that even that high sensitivity on the "anti-family", "anti-Christian", "anti-capitalism", and "unpatriotic" detectors wasn't all in good faith. But, voters would buy in, so there it is.
You can see the sense of it. Or, at least you could see the sense of it in the 80s and 90s. Everybody has their stump-speeches. Everybody has their own way of characterizing things to the voters and their base. So, it just makes a bit of sense to play those politics and get what you can out of the process. If you have to validate their position a bit in order to have yours make any progress... well, that's what you have to do because you're rewarded with this little bit of useful good-faith discussion and negotiation.
But, I'm on the other side of this divide.
On the other side, you have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren advocating for impeachment. You have more Democrats not only lacking fear of being labeled "Socialist", but actively taking on that label for themselves. For perhaps the first time since Abolition, reparations for slavery is getting serious consideration by people in Congress.
There are two reasons why I'm on the other side of the divide.
Firstly, we're in a different social climate than the 80s and 90s. Back then, you had the lack-luster-but-still-enjoyable-but-probably-doesn't-hold-up-now sit-com of "My Two Dads." It had your classic "Odd Couple" premise of two heterosexual men of differing temperaments living together with the addition of, together, raising a child together, because it wasn't conclusive which one of them was the biological father. They were presented as business-person and artist, but they were coded, as much as remaining a-political could allow, as conservative (the one with his feet firmly on the ground) and liberal (the one with his head in the clouds). Really... that was explicitly stated in each episode's exposition just prior to the theme-song.
That was the time in which "liberal" was "couldn't get it together" and "bleeding heart feels so much" and "weak because they feel too hard for criminals". In that climate, you can see putting together a "tough on crime" package just to get some "not all that liberal" credibility... no matter how much you should expect to regret that later on.
We live in a different world with a different public. Arguing against the war on drugs is no longer seen as giving gifts to drug-running gang-bangers. Nowadays, expanding civil rights legislation so that protections against workplace and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is a much easier argument to make for a general public that's more willing to take the message. Yes, we still have the same old arguments to argue against, but there's so much more volume shouting back the counter-arguments and debunkings.
There's a great value to that. In a world where democracy works as it should, that should mean that Republicans and conservatives are feeling that pull, so that they have to agree... but, they don't.
That's because of the other reason. This is a post-Gingrich Republican Party.
I don't want to give Gingrich too much credit. The way up to him had been beaten by Barry Goldwater's Southern Strategy, Lee Atwater's belief that he'd solved racism with what turned out to be dog-whistle politics, Reagan's merger of the Republican Party with conservative Evangelicals... and, hey, just a whole lot of cultural inertia from the still-recent Cold War.
Bad faith was already a part of the Republican Party. Gingrich made it official. He had a party that was willing to use bad faith in order to win elections and gain support for positions, because that would be a better position at the negotiating table. He had a party that would keep that legislative goal in mind and he changed the priority from that superior negotiating position to just winning at all costs.
His methods included bringing Republicans into line. You've heard people marvel, before, at how quickly Republicans get into line with talking points and repeating exact phrases. Gingrich is the one who advised them on how and why to do that. He told Republicans in election years not to refer to their opposition by name and to refer not to the Democratic Party but to the Democrat Party, and always with simple descriptors like "corrupt".
This is also a post Rove party. Rove, known for being Bush's brain, was the mastermind behind the massive gerrymandered advantage Republicans have today.
This is a post-Fox Party. Fox News isn't the first or the last. First there was conservative talk-radio. Then there was Fox News. Now it includes a host of websites and video platforms just about giving conservative news and conservative talking points.
The current problem with the Republican Party isn't Donald Trump, though he is a symptom that could be fatal to us all if not treated. The current party with the Republican Party isn't Mitch McConnell, though he is someone who makes an atheist wish there was a Hell.
No, the current problem with the Republican Party is that, in both the politicians and the base of voters, it isn't a party that is ready, willing, and able to engage political debate and negotiation in good faith. We can no longer treat them like they'll come to us if only we're nice enough and don't spook them. Their identity is built largely around being spooked by us... or rather the false version of us that they quickly construct.
Some took Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to task for a joke in one version of the website's discussion of the Green New Deal, saying that that was why Republicans are talking about how this non-binding resolution that's long since been defeated is going to take away their beef and airplanes. But, that joke was explicitly stating they weren't going to do so. I can't fault her for that, because there's no amount of care that will result in something Republicans weren't going first lie about then believe those lies out of pure convenience.
Now is not the time to be careful, because there's no amount of care that will achieve different response from the Republican Party. Now is the time to be so bold and so loud that even Fox News viewers will be exposed to accurate information.
I would wish Biden luck if we could put him in a Delorian and send him back to the 1980 or 1984 elections. But, that time is past us.
The Democratic Party seems to have a split. That split was shown at its clearest when Kamala Harris took Joe Biden to task for not only his statements effectively praising two pro-segregationists in Congress but for his position regarding a policy that had a direct impact on her own access to quality education. No, the split isn't on race, though issues regarding race are directly impacted.
There is a steel-man interpretation of Biden's comments that led to that confrontation. In that steel-man interpretation, Biden was speaking on the need to find the good in people with whom you have fundamental disagreements on matters of deep moral worth, and the capacity to do what good, together, you can do. The readiness and the eagerness to do this would be among the ideal qualities to be had in the leader of a democracy that will never have one-party rule. (Or if it does, it won't be through democracy and it won't be the current version of the Democratic Party.)
This, in terms of theme and narrative, meshes quite well with Biden's stated belief that the Trump administration is a blip in Republican Party history. He has stated, unambiguously, that he believes that, when Trump is out of the White House, Republicans will come to their senses and come to the negotiating table in good faith.
Also on his side of the divide, I see Nancy Pelosi and her intense resistance to Impeachment. She shares a suspicion that many have that impeachment would improve Trump's standing the way that it did for Bill Clinton. It may seem different from Biden's position, but I'll note that, when pressed on his position regarding bussing, Biden said he didn't oppose bussing but only the national imposition... essentially evoking States Rights.
This is about how the Democratic Party treats Republicans, both as the Party and in the voters.
Biden's position regarding busing as good if the state so wills is... Things are about to get complex. On its own and with all else being position, that was the wrong position to take. Morally, the "State's Right to Effectively Segregate" isn't a good position to take, no more so than States Rights was with regards to official segregation or to slavery. In terms of getting as much done as you can at the time? Well...
It's a strategy that works well with the world of my memory of the 80s and 90s. It treats Republicans, this group that has by this point unified with Evangelicals and claimed ownership of all things moral and decent and family and patriotic and pro-business, in a specific manner regarding their capacity to sit down at the negotiating table and deal in good faith. It treated Republicans as ready, willing, and able... but very skittish. If you were to startle them with something too soft on crime or anti-business or conflicting with their "Christian family values", their fight-or-flight instinct would be triggered and they'd do one or the other.
Oh, and it would be so easy to set them off. In fact, you were going to set them off at least a little regardless, but you just had to be patient and calm and wait them out. Their offense-detectors were very sensitive. This was why you can see someone choosing to try Don't Ask Don't Tell rather than just changing the code to allow actively and openly serving gay service members in the army. "Hey. Hey. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. See how calm we all are on this side? All we're doing is not actively hunting them down anymore."
Imagine the Republican Party as an abused dog and liberals and Democrats were, as much as they were being loud and "in your face" in one sense, softly inching closer so the dog could acclimate and learn that, hey, liberals would pet them and call them good!
The analogy isn't perfect. Democrats and liberals were well aware that even that high sensitivity on the "anti-family", "anti-Christian", "anti-capitalism", and "unpatriotic" detectors wasn't all in good faith. But, voters would buy in, so there it is.
You can see the sense of it. Or, at least you could see the sense of it in the 80s and 90s. Everybody has their stump-speeches. Everybody has their own way of characterizing things to the voters and their base. So, it just makes a bit of sense to play those politics and get what you can out of the process. If you have to validate their position a bit in order to have yours make any progress... well, that's what you have to do because you're rewarded with this little bit of useful good-faith discussion and negotiation.
But, I'm on the other side of this divide.
On the other side, you have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren advocating for impeachment. You have more Democrats not only lacking fear of being labeled "Socialist", but actively taking on that label for themselves. For perhaps the first time since Abolition, reparations for slavery is getting serious consideration by people in Congress.
There are two reasons why I'm on the other side of the divide.
Firstly, we're in a different social climate than the 80s and 90s. Back then, you had the lack-luster-but-still-enjoyable-but-probably-doesn't-hold-up-now sit-com of "My Two Dads." It had your classic "Odd Couple" premise of two heterosexual men of differing temperaments living together with the addition of, together, raising a child together, because it wasn't conclusive which one of them was the biological father. They were presented as business-person and artist, but they were coded, as much as remaining a-political could allow, as conservative (the one with his feet firmly on the ground) and liberal (the one with his head in the clouds). Really... that was explicitly stated in each episode's exposition just prior to the theme-song.
That was the time in which "liberal" was "couldn't get it together" and "bleeding heart feels so much" and "weak because they feel too hard for criminals". In that climate, you can see putting together a "tough on crime" package just to get some "not all that liberal" credibility... no matter how much you should expect to regret that later on.
We live in a different world with a different public. Arguing against the war on drugs is no longer seen as giving gifts to drug-running gang-bangers. Nowadays, expanding civil rights legislation so that protections against workplace and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is a much easier argument to make for a general public that's more willing to take the message. Yes, we still have the same old arguments to argue against, but there's so much more volume shouting back the counter-arguments and debunkings.
There's a great value to that. In a world where democracy works as it should, that should mean that Republicans and conservatives are feeling that pull, so that they have to agree... but, they don't.
That's because of the other reason. This is a post-Gingrich Republican Party.
I don't want to give Gingrich too much credit. The way up to him had been beaten by Barry Goldwater's Southern Strategy, Lee Atwater's belief that he'd solved racism with what turned out to be dog-whistle politics, Reagan's merger of the Republican Party with conservative Evangelicals... and, hey, just a whole lot of cultural inertia from the still-recent Cold War.
Bad faith was already a part of the Republican Party. Gingrich made it official. He had a party that was willing to use bad faith in order to win elections and gain support for positions, because that would be a better position at the negotiating table. He had a party that would keep that legislative goal in mind and he changed the priority from that superior negotiating position to just winning at all costs.
His methods included bringing Republicans into line. You've heard people marvel, before, at how quickly Republicans get into line with talking points and repeating exact phrases. Gingrich is the one who advised them on how and why to do that. He told Republicans in election years not to refer to their opposition by name and to refer not to the Democratic Party but to the Democrat Party, and always with simple descriptors like "corrupt".
This is also a post Rove party. Rove, known for being Bush's brain, was the mastermind behind the massive gerrymandered advantage Republicans have today.
This is a post-Fox Party. Fox News isn't the first or the last. First there was conservative talk-radio. Then there was Fox News. Now it includes a host of websites and video platforms just about giving conservative news and conservative talking points.
The current problem with the Republican Party isn't Donald Trump, though he is a symptom that could be fatal to us all if not treated. The current party with the Republican Party isn't Mitch McConnell, though he is someone who makes an atheist wish there was a Hell.
No, the current problem with the Republican Party is that, in both the politicians and the base of voters, it isn't a party that is ready, willing, and able to engage political debate and negotiation in good faith. We can no longer treat them like they'll come to us if only we're nice enough and don't spook them. Their identity is built largely around being spooked by us... or rather the false version of us that they quickly construct.
Some took Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to task for a joke in one version of the website's discussion of the Green New Deal, saying that that was why Republicans are talking about how this non-binding resolution that's long since been defeated is going to take away their beef and airplanes. But, that joke was explicitly stating they weren't going to do so. I can't fault her for that, because there's no amount of care that will result in something Republicans weren't going first lie about then believe those lies out of pure convenience.
Now is not the time to be careful, because there's no amount of care that will achieve different response from the Republican Party. Now is the time to be so bold and so loud that even Fox News viewers will be exposed to accurate information.
I would wish Biden luck if we could put him in a Delorian and send him back to the 1980 or 1984 elections. But, that time is past us.
seed of bismuth