Maybe I’m seeing connections where none exist. After all everything is either positively or negatively correlated.
I think there may be a connection among many of the stories that have been in the news over the last few weeks: the midterm elections, the Keystone pipeline, the president’s executive order on immigration, the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York. Here’s the connection I’m seeing.
There is a radical and growing difference of opinion in the United States about the nature of law and the role of government and that difference of opinion has a strong regional component.
Now in the abstract that doesn’t present a problem. That’s how a federated republic works, isn’t it? Different areas with different needs, concerns, histories, and problems work together on areas in which there’s common interest and otherwise leave each other alone.
But that’s the essence of our problem: there are messianic and apocalyptic aspects of both sides in the difference of opinion. It would be one thing if they could agree to disagree but they can’t. Not only do they have different opinions but they want to force their opinions on those with whom they disagree.
I still think this division is mostly driven by the media and is not as bad or as deep as you think. Most people don’t really pay that much attention to politics.
Steve
“That’s how a federated republic works, isn’t it? Different areas with different needs, concerns, histories, and problems work together on areas in which there’s common interest and otherwise leave each other alone.”
Ah, but there is the rub. There are many who would reject the idea of a federated republic as being outmoded, when what we really need, they claim, is a stronger more unified government led by a president of imperial proportions. It’s true this vision exists in both parties, and they differ in what exactly such a government entails, but they are as one in demanding the end to pluralism whenever it suits them…. which is usually whenever they feel there is measurable power on the line.
As for the messianic quality I really think Eric Voegelin was on to something when he identified Gnostic belief systems as being endemic in the modern world. For many there is no such thing as principled opposition, you are either on the side of all that is goodness and light, or you are morally bankrupt. Indeed those who disagree are especially evil because it is only their recalcitrance, so we are told, that is keeping us from creating a new heaven on earth. It’s the same kind of hubris that allows someone to write, seemingly without the slightest hint of self doubt, a book like “What’s the Matter with Kansas” which assumes that one political party has discovered the ultimate answer to the question of life the university and EVERYTHING. And if you reject said party, well, that merely means you are lost and dumb and hoodwinked. Indeed, the entire world viewed painted in such a view seems pulled directly from Voegelin’s description of the Gnostic mind.
@steve- I think that the political naïveté and apathy is part of the problem. Most people don’t think of themselves (or events or issues) in ideological terms but they still have hard wired preferences and politicians know how to push their buttons. If people would spend more time examining and understanding their preferences they could resist the agitprop bait.
I think that Dave and Rich (nice to see you commenting here, BTW) have it right about the broader problem of disagreement about federalization. In essence it’s a meta- disagreement between the two sides, because the federated republic concept is the agreement to disagree but we’ve reached a point where one side has rejected that arrangement and the other side is fighting to keep it.
This also makes me think of the criticism I always feel, but seldom hear noted, for both political parties. Each has a preference regarding the role of the federal government and each should be able to demonstrate policy preferences that would rebut the other side’s arguments for their own preferences. The political left should focus on arguments for greater central power (they won that argument on civil rights, for instance) and should pay attention to making the federal government function efficiently and transparently. The right should focus on good governance at the state and local level (to rebut the need for more federal government authority) and on demonstrating the advantages of smaller central government.
Instead, the left creates emotional arguments for the need for shifting power to DC (Tahoe PPACA as an example) and then neglects the creation and implement of good policy. And the right creates emotional arguments against the centralized approach but in the process also makes the issue too toxic to deal with at any level and is left with no alternative solutions.
“Tahoe PPACA”? Sorry for the weird autocorrect.
I wish that were true but I don’t think it is. I think both sides are messianic—they want to “save” the other side from their own folly.
I wish that were true but I don’t think it is. I think both sides are messianic—they want to “save†the other side from their own folly.
Wow, really? I couldn’t disagree more. I suppose among the masses there are people that feel that way but for the politicians, pundits, and people who write and comment on blogs I think the opposite is true. They want to see others hoisted on their own petards. The whole point is not saving the “others”, it’s “othering” them.
I will say though that on further reflection of the statement I made that you quoted, I don’t really think it is true that Republicans are trying to preserve the concept of a federated republic. They pay lip service to the ideal and brush it off as needed.
I saw something today which made me think of this little discussion and may be a little symbolic of the difference Christine is pointing towards (and, Hi Christine! I’ve missed you too,): http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/394194/its-not-sour-grapes-michael-tomasky-just-hates-south-charles-c-w-cooke
“The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky has today offered his readers a wildly intemperate rant against the South, during which he describes the region as a ‘reactionary, prejudice-infested’ sort of place; charges that the people who live there are flatly opposed to ‘tolerance, compassion, civic decency, trans-racial community, the crucial secular values on which this country was founded’; and wonders aloud if it would be better for the Democratic party to gas the place to death as a vet might a dying dog.
“‘Practically the whole region,’ Tomasky suggests,
‘has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment. A fact made even sadder because on the whole they’re such nice people! (I truly mean that.)’
“And what should Democrats do about these uncouth, racist hick-Devils, who smile so beguilingly at visitors? They should cease competing:
“‘Forget about it. Forget about the whole fetid place. Write it off. Let the GOP have it and run it and turn it into Free-Market Jesus Paradise. The Democrats don’t need it anyway.'”
OK ME AGAIN:
Compare this to the frequent calling of places like Berkeley, CA or Madison, WI as “the people’s republic of” by conservative commentators. They are not even in the same universe when it comes to bile, demonization, and outright hatred. And if you want to see more of it just head off to Daily Kos, Think Progress, HuffPost, etc. It’s easy to find in mainstream places that lean left. And, while you can find it on right-wing sites too, you don’t see it mainstreamed at places like Hot Air or Powerline.
I think this goes far beyond the “who is meaner than who” argument. I’d argue that the sniping you see on coming from the right is more the standard back and forth you see in democratic societies where parties compete. For many (not all obviously) on the left, however, they don’t believe there SHOULD be any such competition. Any opposition marks you as a troglodyte pure and simple, demonstrably unworthy of being heard… though, hopefully, few would suggest gassing people, even in jest, the way The Daily Beast has.
I’m not saying both sides don’t have their issues. What I’m saying is the left has this particular issue that is worrisome in its illiberality.
I laughed out loud when I read Tomasky’s piece. It could be summarized in one sentence: we don’t need nothin’ but Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City.
I gather that he doesn’t read the news. Neither of the two incidents that are causing so much ferment right now occurred in “Dixie”. They happened in St. Louis and New York. I grew up in St. Louis. It used to have a slightly Southern flavor but it’s not Southern in any sense he would recognize.
The most serious examples of racial violence in the last half century took place in Chicago and Los Angeles, for goodness sake.
Tomaskey doesn’t look that out of step with the Dem mainstream to me. He just said out loud what most want – the extermination of all non-Democrats. Ho-hum. Been hearing that for years.
Are there black people in the South, used to be true? If the South formed it’s own country, it would certainly make the rest more affluent and white. This was David Duke’s position as well.
A related connection is that we’ve recently had a criminal controversy in which a police officer appears to have violated a policy against using a certain type of hold. A policy is not the law, such that violating the policy didn’t create criminal culpability.
And we’re about to return to the hypocrisy of the water-boarding debate in which water-boarding doesn’t violate the law, but policy.
The level of commentary here has really sunk. Picking some relatively obscure person on the left and claiming they represent everyone on the left. Suppose we choose someone from the right from their preferred media, talk radio. You want messianic? Beck. Crazy and mean. Levin or Savage. Even worse, drive around in rural America and listen to the local versions of right wing radio. But, I guess this makes sense. In my long term (5 years now) email group I have had conservatives tell me that no modern Republican president has ever lied. Sigh. I find it just bizarre to think that either party has a monopoly on crazy.
Even worse, PD who is usually rational just forgets that people in the South have been talking about secession, including those running for president (even if he did back away from that when he realized it probably wasn’t a good thing to talk about when running for POTUS). But, I am sure they are just wanting to secede to make life better for their black citizens.
Steve
I find it just bizarre to think that either party has a monopoly on crazy.
I agree with this statement, steve. On the other hand, I recall numerous statements you’ve made (including in the current comment from which I quoted) implicating crazy and noxious conservatives, but to my recollection you haven’t made similar observations of people on the left. And in this thread when an example is out forward your reaction is to downplay the significance of it.
I obviously don’t think that either party has a monopoly on crazy. I’ve said as much dozens of times here.
However, I do think there is a difference in the manner of discourse. I would much rather be the farthest left member of a group of right wing bloggers than the farthest right member of a group of left wing bloggers.
I’m the former right now and I am invariably treated kindly by the others in the group. A blog-friend of mine, a very reasonable centrist, was rudely hounded out of the group when he found himself in the latter circumstances.
I denounce secession, in all its various forms.
I was the farthest left in a group of mostly right wing bloggers. Was asked to leave. Experiences vary.
Steve
So, the Tomasky piece….
I’m going on the assumption that the vitriolic parts are just click bait, and if course I laughed over the gratuitous insults to my profession (dumb ass doesn’t know that we don’t has dogs? And that rather than salivating over the act of euthanasia we have to deal with owners who try to convince us to “put Cinders out of his misery” when Cinders is. 3 year old with a treatable skin condition?)
But the more interesting part of his article was the real advice, for Dems to give up on the South. It may not be for the same racist motivations that PD alluded to, but it sure is dismissive of blacks in the Southern states. His party was happy to court them when they were turning out for Obama, but now they can go pound salt, I guess.
Some articles are so silly they are clearly click bait and don’t deserve comments. The Tomasky piece is one. Last I looked he was not a campaign advisor for anyone. I expect that the Dems will continue to put money into elections anywhere they think they have a chance to win, including the South.
Steve