Reading the accounts of the Coming Electoral Apocalypse – or so the pundits are forecasting, if one takes them seriously – is an exercise in frustration for anyone who values basic rationality.
I can understand someone being a Republican born and raised and always voting that way by force of habit or perceived affinity of interest, but anyone who thinks handing over control of even part of the government to the Grand Old Pachyderm is going to restore equilibrium or "shake things up" fails to understand the nature of that particular elephant. It's sort of like handing over your ship to a passing crew of pirates because you're dissatisfied with the way your captain runs the boat.
I suspect that underlying the shake-em-up rationale is the notion that the Republicans know best how the economy works. Nothing could be more distant from the truth – as a general rule, THEY UNDERSTAND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT HOW A SUSTAINABLE CAPITALIST ECONOMY WORKS, which you can see by the way most of them behave every time they gain a working majority in Congress. They act like pirates, slashing and hacking the tax base and raiding the public treasury for the benefit of their wealthiest backers before the dullards who voted them in start to catch on, however fleetingly, to what's happening. If the Republicans regain the House, I'll not trouble myself much with politics for the next few years because I think I've come across this script before, and it's just not worth hearing or watching.
So here's the simple-dino line: O Human Democrats, quit nattering and yammering, just vote. Vote, and thereby limit the damage Republicanist piracy can do -- for the umpteenth time -- to our country. Doesn't matter if you're dispirited or not entirely happy with the Dems, just do it.
"an exercise in frustration for anyone who values basic rationality."
ReplyDeleteThat would be you, and me, and - um -- oh never mind. Reason is as much of an elitist affectation as knowing about economics and questioning your maxims and numbers and historical facts.
Thinking that our nation has a privileged destiny, that nature works toward stability and evolution works toward ever greater intelligence or that anything to do with out existence matters is irrational in itself.
Maybe it's the dinosaur's revenge - we supply our own asteroid of destruction, or the revenge of the Neanderthalers for having replaced or at least engulfed them. It's all dust, ashes and oblivion.
Capt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteOkay, you got me! As always, we (I mean the shadowy organization with which I'm affiliated, the Dinosaur Liberation Front) have an ulterior motive for our posts: "Power to the dinos / no delay!" One Xixulub Asteroid of an election coming right up.... Still, there's some pity here for hominids: I'll light a torch or two to the Dino Gods that the Democrats will hold on to at least a slim majority in both houses.
Bloggingdino: I don’t think anyone, born or raised any political affiliation, should ever pull the lever just because it represents their party is ever a good idea. I’m a firm believer in knowing the issues and the candidates and if voting against “your” party is the best decision, then that is what one should do. People who notoriously vote a straight party ticket because it’s what they’ve always done need to re-evaluate themselves and get better informed—in my humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe possibility of Americans voting for the people who brought us the mess we're in is dispiriting in the extreme.
ReplyDeleteTalk about attention deficit disorder! Americans--and I'm looking at the far left--have conveniently forgotten what went on in the House under people like Delay. They have willfully forgotten that the Republican Party, and especially the Tea Bagger wing of the GOP want to undo every progressive program that allows people to move forward and prosper.
The GOP is the party of Hobbesian ideals. A party whose goal for every man, woman, and child in this country is a life that will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
End social security=poverty for our seniors
End medicare=nasty end-of-life experience for seniors who cannot afford health care.
End the minimum wage and the Department of Education=brutish lives for those who are not
born to the manor and can afford private schools, resulting in $.50/hour, third-world paying jobs.
Overturn Health Care law=short lives for men, women, and children who have pre-existing conditions and catastrophic illnesses
That millions of Americans embrace this ideology is beyond belief. I don't know what America is anymore.
I do know that millions in this country have embraced the stupidity and cupidity of people like Sarah Palin, and actually believe they are qualified to lead because FAUX News tells them so.
Pamela,
ReplyDeleteIn a normal world, you would be correct. But in the increasingly politicized world we live in, we have a GOP that votes "No," even against issues that they are normally in favor of. We have Congresscritters saying that if the GOP gets a majority, they'll do NOTHING except investigate Obama. (That's one way to do less than they are right now, I guess...)
Here. Try this.
Ten Reasons to Vote Democratic in 2010
Seem a little weak. OK, how about this?
101 Examples of Why Republicans Should Not Be Allowed to Regain Control of Congress
Shaw,
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. They never for one moment accept ANY of the New Deal in practice or in theory. At its least unappealing, I suppose, the right's philosophy would have us all on some kind of Robinson-Crusoe Island (individualism, self-sufficiency, etc.), but at worst I'd say it's closer to the nightmare vision of the philosopher you mention.
Pamela,
I'm not suggesting that we should vote from habit, but rather that I can at least understand that practice: people are creatures of habit in many ways, and politics is no exception. To be fair, a lot of people vote straight-ticket because they know well that they just can't support the other chaps' platform. I have on occasion come across a Republican candidate I find eminently reasonable (former Senator Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island comes to mind, for example, and California's soon-to-be former "Governator" has shown genuine intelligence and independence on certain issues), but I would also find it hard to vote for them unless the opponent turned out to be an utter trashbag. In general, politicians must go along with their party's platform, and that's more true than ever today. I cannot support the Republican platform, so I am unlikely to support individual candidates who would face something just short of the firing squad if they went against that platform, either.
I'm aiming my khaki demo-snout instead at the naïve conviction that voting alternately for one party and then the other a couple of years later is somehow going to restore balance or send a message to those in power. We're way past that sort of gesture now; all it will produce, I think, is chaos and greater cynicism than ever. In an ideal political landscape – one in which, say, the Republicans stood honestly for the "republican" emphasis in government (i.e. our chosen representatives should make most political choices because overly direct democracy is dangerous) and the Democrats favored the "democratic" impulse (i.e. the people should play as active a role as possible in shaping and making political choices, even at the risk of some incoherence and disorder) – it wouldn't be a bad idea to balance out one's ticket on principle. But I know of no astute observer who really believes that's how things work at present. What happens almost every day in the Capitol looks more like war than politics, so anything based on expectations of reason or civility or lesson-learning is likely to come a cropper.
The fact that our "throw the bums out" cycles seem to be occurring more and more rapidly could be a sign that the republic is on the eve of self-destruction, but that comment's such a downer that I'll just leave it as-is and not try to back it up.
Nameless Cynic,
ReplyDeleteYep -- we know they've used the Investigation Nation tactic before, and to great effect. Since they have no agenda that could fairly be spoken outside the confines of one of Richard III's villainous asides (how about, "Simple, plain Clarence ! — I do love thee so, / That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven, / If heaven will take the present at our hands...), just concentrating on the other guys' manufactured or hyped misdeeds sounds like a winner.
Pamela: People who notoriously vote a straight party ticket because it’s what they’ve always done need to re-evaluate themselves and get better informed—in my humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteYour devoted cephalopod humbly agrees. As a point of reference, I am registered as an independent, not as a Democrat, because I never wanted either party to take my vote for granted.
Sadly, employing the same logic as yours, Octopus will vote a straight party line ticket this year … not because I want to but because I am forced to. I cannot reward a party that stakes its political fortunes on wedge politics, i.e. by engendering hatred and social divisions to win votes as the Republicans have done this year. In my view, fear mongering is immoral and dangerous.
Nor can I support a political party that rewards the wealthiest segments of society while starving the middle class and blaming and demeaning the have-nots for economic misfortunes that were not their fault. The Republicans accuse the Democrats of engaging in class warfare, but the claim is just another form of political projection: Reaganomics combined with Bush tax cuts have accelerated income inequality to a degree only seen in Third World countries.
The Republicans whom I once respected – Eisenhower, Keating, and Javits – cannot survive in today’s political environment. Today, they would be disparaged as RINOs or dismissed as ‘socialists’ by the same McCarthy wing that once vilified Eisenhower. Today’s moderates such as Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chaffee are gone … never to return.
Octopus cannot possibly support any party that seeks to privatize social security and Medicare, eliminate the EPA and FDA, end minimum wage and worker safety standards, prohibit gays and single women from teaching school, or violate personal privacy and overturn a woman's right to chose.
Although your Octopus does not necessarily vote a political party, I do vote my core values. What are they? Equality and social justice; a respect for civil liberties; a fair and equitable distribution of the national wealth; investments in education and infrastructure for the benefit of future generations; and energy independence and a cleaner environment; as examples. Unfortunately, there is not one Republican in 2010 who represents my core values.
@Pamela, I rarely vote a straight party ticket. I like taking my time and marking the ballot for each candidate. In local elections, I find that there are times when there is an Independent candidate that I prefer to either party. I voted for a judge once who was a Republican. I really thought that he was the better person for the job. However, I don't like the Republican Party's platform. I find their positions on the issues that I care about, issues of social justice to be abhorrent. I don't believe them when they claim to just be fiscal conservatives. Their actions belie that, their actions are those of an elitist group that believe that to concentration of wealth in the hands of less than 1% of the population is just fine.I won't just vote a straight party ticket this November. I wll vote for each Democrat on the ballot one vote at a time.
ReplyDeleteI hold my nose on occasion when voting for some of the democrats, but I don't see a lot of other choices. In the Senate race (the last one), I think Bill Nelson (D-FL) is probably a closet Republican, but I will never vote for Katherine "Let's just give Bush the election" Harris. This year I really want to vote for Charlie Crist, former Republican, great Governor, but because he is running as an independant, the TRUE Republican is going to win.
ReplyDeleteI'm sad.
LLL - I'm with you, I just don't see any other choice. The one choice I know I won't make is voting for the party that brought us Gitmo, the Patriot Act and the kind of policies that helped drive our economy into the ground.
ReplyDeleteTo the Party of No I say this Nov - NO!
Sheria,
ReplyDeleteI like the notion of voting for Demos "one vote at a time." Well said. It would be a fine thing if the GOP were rescued from the goonatics and religious fanatics who now appear to be pulling the strings -- I wish we had more of the Lincoln Chaffee-type Repubs to work with, but they've been run out of town on a rail. And as another Lincoln said, being run out of town on a rail is the sort of thing you wouldn't want to happen to you, "if it weren't for the distinction of it." Rhode Islanders probably did Senator Chaffee a big favor a few years ago.... At least he won't have to contend with the 'Baggery over who is most ignorant, intolerant and outright insane to keep his place.
Rocky, not only did the GOP do all that stuff, I'm sure you can imagine how they would react if they stumbled upon a raccoon in THEIR yard! You'd get the standard Yosemite Sam treatment for sure.