Before I get a talking-to by the older Kossacks, I must disclose that I am a young'n. Part of the "Millenial" generation that barely remembers much about politics before the Monica Lewinsky scandal and was still in grade school when those planes took those "amended" routes that September morning. That and the ensuing Bush presidency is how I cut my teeth in this thing we call politics. I write this to acknowledge that while I may have some awareness of my country's political history, I wasn't there. I don't have that personal connection to what Cold War-era America was like. I didn't watch Ronald Reagan say "Government is the problem" while eating my tv dinner. I was probably napping in my crib. So when I watch our current political climate and, more specifically the Republicans, I am constantly left wondering,
"Why is there no cost to this?"
More after the squiggle:
Maybe I'm in what Bill Maher calls "the liberal bubble." That zone where birth control pills don't bring out the pitchforks and torches. That space in the universe where my marriage doesn't slowly unravel anytime two dudes kiss. That magical place where it's wrong to force women to submit to state-sanctioned rape. Maybe it's true that I just don't live in the real world. Maybe in the real world you really do have to grow the economy by taking away from the have-nots and giving it to the have-mosts.
I doubt it, though.
Watching all this head-scratchingly ridiculous crap from the Republicans has me begging for some wise old sage to come along and explain to me why they even have a shot at running the dog catcher's office, much less the House, Senate, and White House. Until that happens(in the comments,I'm sure), I find myself asking why we're not already talking landslide victories across the board.
First, we'll start with the obvious:
1. The economy. Still feeling the lingering effects of the worst financial crisis since before World War II, the American economy, while showing signs of life, still sputters along. Wall Street is seeing big gains as of late, but the unemployment rate remains high. President Obama and the Democrats still have an uphill climb to convince voters that the nation is on the rebound economically.
Some will say that, and only that, is the reason the GOP has a sniff at the White House. I have a few other theories as to what's causing the American people to not have this figured out.......four months ago:
2. Polarization. It seems to me that conservatives have gotten so extreme and tribal, that they literally have reduced themselves to playing "the opposite game" with Democrats and progressives with respect to policy proposals. If the President wants higher taxes on the rich, that obviously means their taxes must be lowered(a lot!), if Obama says bomb Libya, they consider impeachment. If he says diplomacy with Iran, they sing "Bombs Over Baghdad Tehran". Their constituents barely require any semblance of a philosophy other than "oppose." This inconsistency may explain the rise of Romney. They scream and holler about individual mandates destroying their freedom while in the process of making The Original Mandater their standard bearer. This is actually mentioned quite often in the mainstream media yet it does not seem to get the traction that it should. Romney and his surrogates just make the argument that RomneyCare was right for just one state but not for the nation. Imagine Jonas Salk saying "Yeah, this polio vaccine is wonderful but only for the kids in my neighborhood. Nowhere else." It seems that as long as it's their team, it's all good. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if a President Romney pursued some of the same policies he promises to roll back and because those policies had an (R) next to them, the conservatives would accept it.
3. Overton Window. The Republicans swept to power on a message that they would bring the jobs that eluded the President in the first half of his term. That obviously wasn't their focus once they got the job. Voter ID laws, mandatory ultrasounds, anti-immigrant laws, and attacks on workers' rights were what we got instead. A reasonable person might say "well hey, then that means they should be thrown out, right?" Of course, if you're a reasonable person, you're probably not a Republican. So what's the reason for this? The only explanation there could be is it's all intentional. By pushing the dialogue so far in one direction it is inevitable that when it comes back to the middle, the middle itself has moved. Okay, so maybe it's not fair to strip workers of their bargaining rights entirely. Maybe we'll just give the governor more power over the negotiations. Perhaps it's unproductive to force a vaginal ultrasound on a woman who wants an abortion. So we'll just force an abdominal ultrasound. See? Compromise works every time!
4. Things left unsaid. Independent voters (if they actually exist) are the ones who decide elections, the punditocracy tells us everyday during campaign season. Getting more of your supporters out to vote than your opponent apparently doesn't matter. So let's take the bait for a little bit. Independents, they say, are supposed to be turned off by extreme ideology and harsh rhetoric. So, why doesn't our side lift the veil on these people in a more effective manner? Example, the Ryan "Kill Medicare" Budget just got a software update. Fear not, it still has the same features as the original. It still guts one of the most popular public programs in history essentially turning it into a health coupon for the members of our society most likely to need comprehensive medical care. Yet the Democrats seem unable to make the public understand the urgency of the situation. Yes, it's dead on arrival in the Senate and the President's veto awaits just in case but is relying on legislative procedure the best way to defeat opponents? We all have heard the intentions of the DNC to make it a central issue of the campaign but what are we waiting for? We already have to endure constant attacks on our philosophy by the Republican candidates and there's barely a peep from the Democrats save for the occasional statement from Nancy Pelosi. The campaign is already on. We needn't cede the ground before we even start battling.
5. Us. This is the one that bugs me the most. Much ink has been spilled about the unwillingness of Democrats to stand by their principles. Yes, governance requires compromise and it seems our side is the only one doing the lifting. However, when it comes to political combat, conservatives are so much more adept at making us defend our philosophy. We who support single-payer health care are constantly forced to explain how we want care and access for everyone, not some unaccountable, healthcare-rationing bureaucracy that pulls the plug on grandma. It sounds absurd but that's what progressives do on a daily basis. Conservatives make us say it. Why don't we do the same? We take ourselves so seriously we forget sometimes that common sense doesn't come naturally to everyone. When they talk about repealing "Obamacare", we should constantly accuse them of wanting people with without insurance to suck it up and hope for the best. We should say that they want college kids to not only have to deal with crippling student debt, but also run the risk of not being able to see a doctor if they get sick. That's a prospect any fickle independent voter can understand that they won't like. My former congressman, Alan Grayson, famously ventured into this territory of making them defend themselves in this manner. Of course the media got the vapors that he would dare say such a thing and he was criticized by many in our party. I'm sure he understood that making them say they didn't want people to "die quickly" accomplished two things simultaneously: It extracts a political cost to Republicans by getting the attention of voters who aren't political junkies and it has a potential to divide the party itself between those who want to win elections and the "true believers." Those with with electoral strategy in mind know they can't let a charge like that go undefended but we all know the "true believers" feel exactly the way Mr. Grayson said they did and many aren't afraid to let it be known. For too long we've given them a free pass in this regard. For us to achieve our objectives in the fall, this must end. We must make them defend their positions. We must make them say it.
I'm tired of wondering why conservatives never have to pay for what they say and do. We can't rely on the mainstream media to do it. In the 24 hour cable era, the endless pursuit of eyeballs and ad revenue has rendered them toothless for fear of offending their viewers for daring to tell uncomfortable truths. We have to do it. To those who fear a ceding of the high ground for deigning to play politics in the world of...politics, I ask this: How did the moral high ground work for President Kerry during the Swiftboat ads?
Republicans love to scold us about there being no such thing as a free lunch. Let's make sure they're right for a change.