I really need to dig through some old comments threads here. I can recall pointing out that both political parties had plenty of nutjobs and citing Maxine Waters as an example. I was taken to task on the grounds that Maxine Waters was an unimportant nobody.
Now she’s being held out as a paradigm. She’s still crazy. As Megan McArdle pointed out years ago, the party in power is always smug and arrogant and the party out of power is always crazy.
They’re both smug, arrogant, and crazy and strict adherence to the party line means you’re crazy, too. Be loyal to a political party if you must. Always keep in mind just how crazy they are.
What’s truly strange is how committed rank-and-file voters are to a party when nothing that party achieves is going to benefit anyone but its elite and its big donors.
I see it a little differently than that.
What I think has happened is that the Democratic Party has become a pragmatically conservative party while the Republic Party is pragmatically a reform party. What I mean by that is that the Democrats are fighting a holding action to preserve the status quo while Republicans are trying to change things.
That’s exemplified by Illinois’s experience. We’ve been without a state budget for two years here. In essence the legislature has been sitting on its hands for two years. Why? Because the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature won’t accept anything the Republican governor wants to do but has declined to override his veto, presumably on the grounds that they don’t want to take the rap for their own screw-ups.
I understand why they don’t want what Rauner wants. I even agree with them to some degree. But sometimes you need to put on your big boy pants and stand up for what you believe in and not just be passive aggressive.
But Republican voters demand more tax cuts for the wealthiest and not themselves. Democrats demand “free” trade even though 91% of the benefits flow to the top 1%. I’m amazed by the degree to which the non-wealthy identify with the wealthy when their interests are not the same.
“I’m amazed by the degree to which the non-wealthy identify with the wealthy when their interests are not the same.”
Perhaps they are driven more by a philosophy or desired operating structure than just simplistically “us vs them.”
Many of the non wealthy want jobs and a vibrant economy which produces the opportunity to work. Like Drew posted above me, it’s less about political theory, pitting socioeconomic groups against each other, and more about mainlining people’s own power with fewer concerns about the wealth of others.
I cannot explain the Republicans’ mystical belief in the power of tax cuts or their opposition to the tax cut most likely to produce economic benefit: cutting or suspending FICA.
Neoliberal policies are the status quo. Democrats’ trade policies are a great example of their promoting the status quo. It seems to me that the surest way of getting Democrats to abandon those policies is for Trump to support them.
I guess it’s as good a time as any to once againt trot out one of my favorite essays:
But the other problem is that the two parties have monopolized most political thought. Sure, there are a lot of alternatives out there, but they can’t compete against two-party institutional dominance. This last election, more than any other, should have been an opportunity for alternatives to do well given how unpopular the candidates were, but the alternatives flopped, even if they performed slightly better than their historical average.
Another thing I think plays into this is “moral narcissism” as described in this article:
One of my all time favorite claymation shows was Celebrity Death Match. It ended in 2007, thus depriving us of Maxine Waters vs Michele Bachmann. Both bathsh*t crazy. Would have been a good one I think.
Steve
This is lazy, facile ‘both sides do it,’ and false. Even Mataconis has progressed beyond this.
Incidentally, remember when I told you you were passing along pure tripe regarding Susan Rice?
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/susan-rice-did-nothing-wrong-say-both-dems-republicans-n747406
There is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. We lie far, far less. And when you perpetuate this faux worldly-wise both sides do it nonsense you become part of the problem.
You’re in denial, Michael. When I pointed out that Maxine Waters was an example of nuts in the Democratic Party, you said that she was just an outlier. Now that she’s being hailed as a paragon by some progressives, you forget your former defense and try a new one.
I don’t give a damn about the Republican Party. I worry about the Democrats, particularly here in Illinois where they have the most effect on me and I see dysfunction. Is the Illinois Republican Party nuts? Absolutely. But they’re not the problem here. Democrats are.
90% of the candidates I vote for are Democrats. I don’t agree with them 100% and I don’t pretend to. I vote for the better candidate. I’d never in a million years vote for Jim Oberweis, for example.
WRT Ms. Rice, it’s still early in the day. If you go back and re-read what I actually wrote, you’ll notice that I rejected illegal conduct and I believe that’s what your evidence says as well. Somebody did something wrong. Even if it wasn’t illegal it was wrong. Who? We don’t know.