When supposed "defenders" of Democratic values abandon democracy.
I'm going to keep this short. First off, I'm on the side of those who consider the President's pandering to RW memes on chained CPI and privatization to be disastrous both politically and policy wise. What's a stake here isn't just the usual political positioning that is characteristic in our two party system. Rather,the entire direction and character of our society is imperiled.
For the past thirty years the political class in the US has drifted further and further to the Right. So much so that policies once seen as mainstream Republicanism are now presented as the mainstream of Democratic policy. As a consequence we have had war, economic collapse, galloping class inequality and the creeping advance of a bureaucratic National Security State all combining to rot the democratic foundations of the republic. The stark question before us is whether we will allow government of the people, by the people and for the people to perish in a suicidal spiral towards a plutocratic kleptocracy.
These stakes do not allow for the complacent politics of consensus deal making. There can be no consensus between those who believe in government of the people and those who believe in government by the mega wealthy. There can be no compromise between those who uphold the principle of unalienable human rights for all and those who promote the idea that such rights are the property of those who can purchase political and social influence.
Given this, it's more than a little quixotic to expect people to remain calm as the President continues to indulge in bi-partisan fantasies. Particularly when they promise nothing more than the slow death of democracy by a thousand cuts.
Under the circumstances, hyperbole, anger and yes, even a degree of hysteria, are understandable. People are rightly frightened and dismayed by the prospect of the President, who they hoped would reverse the death march towards corporatist oligarchy, enabling it instead.
Unfortunately fear and anger, however justifiable, are the enemies of good judgement.
One can't effectively defend democratic values writ large by abandoning them in discussion and argument. Democracy requires the free contending of opposing views. A tolerance for dissent. A free and vigorous debate. In short, acceptance that complete conformity of opinion is neither possible nor desirable.
Far too many people, in the heat of argument, seem to have lost sight of this. There are people who are actively arguing for a monolithicism of opinion, denouncing those who differ as trolls or worse and even suggesting what amounts to an ideological war within democratic circles, this blog included.
Today I saw a diary where the diarist was not only denounced as a troll but the diary itself was hide rated by no less than 62 presumable defenders of democratic values, apparently for no other reason than their disagreement with diarist's views. This kind of behavior is the antithesis of democratic values and reveals a ideological blindness to the necessity for open debate.
If we capitulate to such anti-democratic impulses we shoot ourselves in the foot. We can't preserve democracy by trampling on it's values.
7:16 PM PT: A lot of folks have made the point that the diary linked to was hr'd for its dickishness rather than its politics. My impression was that it had at least as much to do with its politics. Reasonable people can differ on this. However, I'm posting a link to one exchange in the comments that may help explain why I got that impression.