Project Reunification
1. Are there any meaningful steps we could take toward reversing the process of political polarization that's taken place over the past (approximately) fifteen years?
2. Is this really an important goal?
3. Is it a realistic goal?
4. Do our friends across the aisle even care about polarization, or is this a wimpy liberal hangup?
Could we...maybe...just to name one small thing...lay off of Sarah Palin now that she's no longer a threat? (Or should we wait to see whether she's going to go for Stevens's Senate seat?)
Of course there are specific issues we might assure them we're willing to compromise on, but that would take more though, and substantive debate. I suppose I'm wondering about less technical stuff...low-hanging fruit.
1. Are there any meaningful steps we could take toward reversing the process of political polarization that's taken place over the past (approximately) fifteen years?
2. Is this really an important goal?
3. Is it a realistic goal?
4. Do our friends across the aisle even care about polarization, or is this a wimpy liberal hangup?
Could we...maybe...just to name one small thing...lay off of Sarah Palin now that she's no longer a threat? (Or should we wait to see whether she's going to go for Stevens's Senate seat?)
Of course there are specific issues we might assure them we're willing to compromise on, but that would take more though, and substantive debate. I suppose I'm wondering about less technical stuff...low-hanging fruit.
posted by Winston Smith at
4:11 PM
3 Comments:
2. It is an important goal.
3. I don't know.
4. I think the moderates do care. I think it is the neo-cons that have polarized things. If we could separate out neo cons from moderate republians I think we could get a functioning government. Of course this also means we on the left need to muzzle the extremists on our side, and keep them from pouring lemon just in the rights political wounds.
1. See above. Maybe.
5. I think the possibility of her going after Steven's seat is precisely why people are still going after her. If she said she wasn't going for Unka Ted's seat, people would be more likely to leave her alone.
We need to clearly define "polarization." Are you referring to basic civiity between political opponents? In which case, I think it is a goal to work towards (but not, I think, a vital one0. Polarization in politics technically refers to political parties becoming ideologically coherent. That sort of polarization is a positive thing in a political system. How confusing must it have been to vote in, say, the 1960s: if you're living in Idaho and you support the liberal policies of Frank Church, your vote for him might lead to the Democrats taking control of congress...which would lead to a Northern liberal Republican (remember those?) being replaced by a Southern conservative Democrat. That shit would have given me a headache: give me political parties divided by ideological differences, not the vistigal regional alliegences of the Civil War-era.
There's no pleasing the lunatic frothing wingnuts (or moonbats, for that matter), so I would use their manifest insanity to engage the middle. I would of course skew left but only Bill O'Reilly and his fellow bloviating morons would think I was an extremist. Them I would call names and hammer with return fire, including ad hominem attacks. No one respects a patsy. I wouldn't be one.
Unfortunately, most of the remaining Republicans stink of divisiveness and polarization. They won't be willing compromisers. They will attempt to sabotage everything Obama wants to do - for the simple reason that their path back to power requires him to fail, and damn the country if it needs them to be responsible.
Extremist political movements thrive on polarization. That's why the Rovian Bushists did so much of it.
The way to restore mutual respect to our politics is to appeal directly to citizens and to wedge the Republican Congressional caucus into wingnuts and reasonable people - and then to work with the reasonable people. Since we only need a handful of Senators, that may even be possible.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home