Two years ago I wrote a post called post-election thoughts, just after Obama was elected. I have been remiss in not commenting on this most recent election.
Every two years we have a midterm election, which makes it sound like an exam. Democracy is not academics, although it’s nice to have an educated electorate. So, in this election that happens midway between one election and the next one, it’s a normal state of affairs – 2002 was an exception – for the House of Representatives to switch party control. Although Democrats would like to run around after this most recent election complaining about loss of an agenda, and politics-not-policy of their opposition, this was to be expected and normal.
I did not stand in front of my television, excessively glad that we had an intelligent president-elect as I did two years ago. However, I would like to be just as glad that we have the same president. Van Jones reminded us recently that “the slogan was not ‘Yes He Can’,” about Obama. I did, however, watch as House and Senate races came in across the country. I was watching with Jefferson County Democrats at a very nice underground coffee house, since my own Clallam County was not organized to host any gathering. As we watched Clallam’s election results on the Secretary of State website the the results were mostly anti-incumbent rage – but what was true for Clallam County was not true to Jefferson County or Grays Harbor County.
The media as it calls itself – that glorious box that squawks 24/7 and adds in extra noise when it can – will continue to tell us, I’m sure, that we’re a center-right nation. That doesn’t seem correct. It is not necessary to be right-of-center to reject the status quo, which will be what the media means this time it says we are center-right. When we elected Obama perhaps we were center-left; when we finished this election perhaps we were center-right. Back and forth and back and forth. That’s what they tell us. We’re certainly still where I said we were two years ago; to the right of a left world.
So what did I think of the election? It was as expected. In California it was good to see a man who has a chance to rebuild the state elected governor. In Washington state a Democrat, Patty Murray, beat Dino Rossi (really now, who names their kid Dino?), by a much larger margin than perpetual candidate lost in his two bids for governorship, including a 2004 election decided by less than 250 votes. Contrary to the notion of a ‘permanent majority,’ though, politics is cyclical and one party doesn’t maintain control forever, despite redistricting that will be happening soon. So, regardless of party, you can have hope. Or hate. Whichever suits your current political needs.
Some people say that the two parties (at least, the two that the media allow to exist by covering them) are the same party with the same greed and the same self-protective interests. That’s an interesting and somewhat valid view, but there are differences between the parties – and the differences are not just political.
Democrats think in terms of programs, policies, and particular pieces of legislation. It’s easy to reverse course by compromising more and giving up on legislative goals. Bill Clinton never mentioned the words “health care reform” after the 1994 midterms.
Republicans think in terms of simple ideas, themes, and movements. It’s far harder to reverse course on these (look what happened to the first George Bush when he raised taxes), and easier to keep them alive: Republican presidents just continue looking for opportunities to implement them.
Republicans are also more disciplined (ask yourself which party attracts authoritarian personalities and which attracts anti-authoritarians). This makes it easier for them to stay the course. Their base continues to organize and fulminate even after midterm defeats. Democrats, on the other hand, are less organized. Electoral defeats tend to fracture and dissipate whatever organization they have.
Republicans are cynical about politics from the jump. Political cynicism fuels them. Democrats are idealistic about politics. When they become cynical they tend to drop out.
If you’ve studied, you know that there’s a difference between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, based on socioeconomic and educational standing – and if you haven’t studied, you might be more inclined to take me at my word. Candidate Obama had a point when he said that people stick to their guns and religion; what he didn’t mention is that other people stick to their education and their books. That’s a dichotomy.
In general, Democrats look at the big picture – how can I help my neighbor – and Republicans look at a different picture. I would guess, and I hope I’m not biased, that Republicans often look for short-term, immediate, satisfaction and Democrats look at the long-term possibilities of getting to the same place – trying to achieve the same end – as Republicans. Trying to reach the same place, in a different way, and often unable to see that the final intent is the same.
I think Andrew Sullivan says it best.
As for future politics, Americans overwhelmingly trust the Dems on healthcare, favor the GOP on debt reduction (go figure) and split between the parties on creating jobs. But here’s the critical thing: a whopping 78 percent want the Republicans to compromise with Obama rather than stick to their positions in the next two years; 76 percent want the Dems to do the same; and a slightly lower percentage, but still overwhelming, wants Obama to compromise too: 69 percent.
…72 percent say that Obama will compromise; but only 46 percent say the Republicans will. I’d say that gives Obama clear edge in future politics, and helps explain why he remains more popular than anybody else in politics, has a solid 46 percent rating even in a deep recession and has higher favorables than anyone else.He is right and the lefties are wrong. He will be a much stronger and more transformational president if he sticks to pragmatism, avoids culture war fights, and keeps his focus on policy as much as politics. This is the GOP high-point; and as you survey the attitudes of Gingrich, Pence, Palin and McConnell, you can’t help but think they are walking directly into the same hubristic trap as Gingrich before them.
They have campaigned on no compromise; yet the public wants them to. If they don’t, they look obstructionist; if they do, they lose their base. As long as Obama keeps his cool, and the economy continues to recover, he’s looking good.
Despite what I cited earlier about Republicans wanting to destroy Obama personally and politically, I think it’s also true that the public (in general) wants compromise. And I would hazard a guess that both the destruction and the compromise will occur.
I don’t have much else to add. This was wonderful writing by Andrew and I suggest you read it all (it’s short).
Thanks to the wonderful Deborah Geffner (the one who reminds us “You get to vote! You don’t even have to fight anyone to do it”) I once again have something I’d like to share with all of you about politics. I’d really suggest you read the whole article, but it’s a bit lengthy so I’ll do some of your work for you. The politics I’m writing about might be considered destructive politics – or, if you agree with them, you might consider it constructive and good politics. Who?
With his brother Charles, who is seventy-four, David Koch owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars….The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products.
Well! there’s nothing wrong with that, in terms of good, successful Capitalists. If you’re not a Tea Partyer (I’ve never figured out the correct suffix) you might be worried though, because
Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.
That’s not enough to generate any strong feeling about the Kochs’ politics, perhaps. But,
Rob Stein, a Democratic political strategist who has studied the conservative movement’s finances, said that the Kochs are “at the epicenter of the anti-Obama movement. But it’s not just about Obama. They would have done the same to Hillary Clinton. They did the same with Bill Clinton. They are out to destroy progressivism.”
I don’t know if it matters what party you’re from – I imagine it does (and that’s part of the point) – but that doesn’t sound like good politics to me. It does sound like politics, but it sure isn’t constructive, compromise politics. And these people funding the Tea Party (that’s what the Kochs do) should be smart enough to realize that progressivism can’t be destroyed more than fascism can be destroyed, or libertarianism, or anger or hope. Progress, and it’s counterpart, conservatism, are both inherent natural qualities, in the same person, at the same time.
However, all hope-and-changey Buddha politics aside,
In 1958, Fred Koch [father of the Koch’ who own the current conglomerate] became one of the original members of the John Birch Society, the arch-conservative group known, in part, for a highly skeptical view of governance and for spreading fears of a Communist takeover. Members considered President Dwight D. Eisenhower to be a Communist agent. In a self-published broadside, Koch claimed that “the Communists have infiltrated both the Democrat and Republican Parties.” He wrote admiringly of Benito Mussolini’s suppression of Communists in Italy, and disparagingly of the American civil-rights movement. “The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America,” he warned. Welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks to cities, where they would foment “a vicious race war.” In a 1963 speech that prefigures the Tea Party’s talk of a secret socialist plot, Koch predicted that Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the President is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.”
That might sound somewhat familiar. That’s the point, of course. The Communist Scare is returning, being brought back by a few dedicated individuals who find fear advantageous. The Koch family is not closed off to the outside world; not quite. A friend and age-group peer who was inspired to study politics by the family and became a professor said,
that the Koch brothers have followed a wayward intellectual trajectory, transferring their father’s paranoia about Soviet Communism to a distrust of the U.S. government, and seeing its expansion, beginning with the New Deal, as a tyrannical threat to freedom.
Which could be considered an isolated fear-ridden family but for their money with which they are able to -and obviously do – fund the Tea Party. As David Axelrod said, “what they don’t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.” Or, as the article describes it,
[by 1979 the brothers] had become supporters of the Libertarian Party, and were backing its Presidential candidate, Ed Clark, who was running against Ronald Reagan from the right. Frustrated by the legal limits on campaign donations, they contrived to place David on the ticket, in the Vice-Presidential slot; upon becoming a candidate, he could lavish as much of his personal fortune as he wished on the campaign. The ticket’s slogan was “The Libertarian Party has only one source of funds: You.” In fact, its primary source of funds was David Koch, who spent more than two million dollars on the effort.
…The Party wanted to end Social Security, minimum-wage laws, gun control, and all personal and corporate income taxes; it proposed the legalization of prostitution, recreational drugs, and suicide. Government should be reduced to only one function: the protection of individual rights.
I’ll leave it up to you to figure out whether they’re talking about 1980 or now. My guess is 1980; and things haven’t changed. No party has only bad ideas. If you go far right you end up left, and then center again. Ideas like ending war (in Afghanistan), less dependence on brute strength of arms, legalization of drugs or prostitution, and ending Social Security are not bad ideas. I am inherently for some of those ideas, and inherently against others. It still seems bad to me to eliminate government. Have the Koch’s convinced you? …They hadn’t convinced voters in 1980. “That November, the Libertarian ticket received only one per cent of the vote.” Let’s skip to modern times:
Tax records indicate that in 2008 the three main Koch family foundations gave money to thirty-four political and policy organizations, three of which they founded, and several of which they direct. The Kochs and their company have given additional millions to political campaigns, advocacy groups, and lobbyists. The family’s subterranean financial role has fuelled suspicion on the left; Lee Fang, of the liberal blog ThinkProgress, has called the Kochs “the billionaires behind the hate.”
…[T]he company’s political-action committee, KochPAC, has donated some eight million dollars to political campaigns, more than eighty per cent of it to Republicans. So far in 2010, Koch Industries leads all other energy companies in political contributions, as it has since 2006.
In 1977, the Kochs provided the funds to launch the nation’s first libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. According to the Center for Public Integrity, between 1986 and 1993 the Koch family gave eleven million dollars to the institute.
And in terms of global warming,
[The] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently issued a report concluding that the evidence for global warming is unequivocal, more Americans are convinced than at any time since 1997 that scientists have exaggerated the seriousness of global warming. The Kochs promote this statistic on their company’s Web site but do not mention the role that their funding has played in fostering such doubt.
…The key for opponents of environmental reform, [a Republican political consultant said], was to question the science—a public-relations strategy that the tobacco industry used effectively for years to forestall regulation.
Are you a Democrat or Republican? That’s easy, do you prefer google or fox?
Okay, it’s not quite that easy, but this is interesting…take a look.
The GOP doesn’t have a lot to offer us. Except for things to write about…
Good Old Newt Gingrich has some suggestions for our economic times,
Should Republicans takes the House, Gingrich urges them, in the “very first week,” to pass a ‘no tax increase on any American during the recession’ bill and send it to the president in January.
I’d rather not get into an argument about tax-me, tax-you, with Newt. But he seemed to have missed some important lessons he should have learned by the time he became Speaker of the House, those good old elections of sixteen years ago. Instead, he leaves even rational fiscal conservatives saying,
My sense, and it is a deeply depressing one, is that the Republicans have absolutely no intention of proposing, let alone making, any serious cuts in entitlement or defense spending if they gain control of the House or Senate, that they will try to stop any increase in taxes for those earning over $250,000 a year, and that their goal will be to destroy Obama personally and politically as they tried with Clinton. They have no constructive agenda. they have no interest in actually tackling the debt – just using it as a political ammunition. Listen to this rhetoric:
“Maybe the liberals felt this way about Nixon during Watergate, but I have never seen this level of conservative anger at somebody, the way [they’re angry] with the president.” “Radical elites are in such denial about reality right now, whether it’s the president, Speaker Pelosi, or Senate Majority Leader Reid,” Gingrich says. The frustration with Democrats, he says, is “bigger and deeper than in 1994.”
And will his subsequent over-reach be just as deep?
And will his subsequent over-reach be just as deep?
From the facebook of the esteemed friend, and actress, Deborah Geffner:
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below.She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes wes…t longitude.”She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be an Obama Democrat.””I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?””Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly,” she sneered, “You’ve not been much help to me.” The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Republican.””I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?””Well,” said the man, “You don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”
Too little, too late. My apologies, I began this as a draft and never finished commenting on all the incriminating comments in this article on Yoo and Bybee.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27133902/OPR-Report-On-Torture-Memos
On page 2 (page 2 being page number just below redacted title):
“Because the acts inflicting torture are extreme, there is sufficient range of acts that though they might constitute cruel, degrading, or inhuman treatment or punishment fail to rise to the level of torture.”
In response: Constitution, Amendment VIII, “…nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Now, do the recipients of torture at various black sites fall under the auspices of Amendment VIII. I don’t know. There is no definition in the constitution for who can, or cannot, receive cruel and unusual punishments; it can be assumed by the way it is written that nobody – citizen or non-citizen – can receive cruel and unusual punishment. Or, maybe that law applies only to the president, and everyone else is subject to excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment if it seems like a good idea? There is no definition in the constitution for who can, or cannot, receive excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment.
I’d also wanted to comment on …
Page 8:.
The Combined Techniques Memo concluded that the combined effects of those EITs (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques) would not render a prisoner unusually susceptible to severe physical or mental pain or suffering and thus would not violate the torture statute.the New York Times reported that President Bush had signed an executive order allowing the CIA to use interrogation techniques not authorized for use by the United States military,· and that the Department of Justice had determined that those techniques did not violate the Geneva Conventions.
page 11:
Based on the results of our investigation, we concluded that former Deputy AAG John Yoocommitted intentional professional misconduct when he violated his duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective, and candid legal advice.
We concluded that former AAG Jay Bybee committed professional misconduct when he acted in reckless disregard ofhis duty to exercise independent legal judgment and render thorough, objective, and candid legal advice….
page 19:
Poor judgment differs from professional misconduct in that an attorney may act inappropriately and thus exhibit poor judgment even though he or she may not have violated or acted in reckless disregard of a clear obligation or standard.
page 25:
We thus determined that Department attorneys considering the possible abrogation or derogation of a jus cogens norm such as the prohibition against torture must be held to the highest standards of professional conduct.
Conservatism is both a political and non-political philosophy. I want to concentrate for a moment on political conservatism – and I’m not talking about Tea Party stuff. Tea Partyers are mostly [in my opinion] nutjobs that think solutions are immediate and easy (build a wall! bomb the suckers! no taxes, no healthcare, but leave my medicare alone!), but there’s a sane conservatism. The eloquent modern British conservative Michael Oakeshott says it well:
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of more profitable attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep, to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the excitement of novelty or promise. It is to be equal to one’s own fortune, to live at the level of one’s own means, to be content with the want of greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one’s circumstances. With some people this is itself a choice; in others it is a disposition which appears, frequently or less frequently, in their preferences and aversions, and is onto itself chosen or specifically cultivated.
I’ve pointed out before that while I’m not a political conservative as America would currently define it, this sort of conservatism is rational, eloquent, and appealing. I imagine you can see easily see how this conservatism sometimes appeals to you – the desire to maintain what you have, rather than risk change. There are times, frequent times, in my life that I am more inclined to keep things the way they are, because I do not know the outcome of a possible change. Think for a moment of relationships, finances, jobs; all of these you might be more inclined at some level to maintain than to change, for fear of the unknown. That’s what rational conservatism is.
Or, as Andrew Sullivan, another modern (more modern) British conservative – living in America – says,
Times change. Conservatism is defined by an ability to change prudently with them, and respond to emergent social problems with pragmatic, if cautious, reform. It is not defined by rigid ideology (no tax hikes ever) or denial of reality (climate change is a hoax; freedom is on the march in Iraq; deficits don’t matter).
That’s rational conservatism.
The people who came to Hec Edmundson Pavilion today seemed to be there because they wanted to demonstrate their loyalty and their appreciation to the young and charismatic orator they elected two years ago, as well as to Senator Patty Murray, who has never forgotten that being entrusted with great power also means being entrusted with great responsibility.
Our charismatic young orator knows how to rouse a crowd. It’s an unfortunate reality that the story “President Spreads Hope and Chance of Change” won’t fly as a headline. But boy, can he inspire. I wish I was there. There’s no enthusiasm gap among these sentient Democrats.
The Dole Blog 