Some Personal Reflections on the Election

From an old political science major:

Finally! It's over. Time for some personal reflections on the just (sort of) completed elections.

Please note, I am talking, in general, about politicians on both sides. It depends sometimes on the particular politician, of course. Some are generally quality individuals with integrity and empathy. But most fail from time to time and the whole election process just plain sucks! So here are some of my thoughts.

1) It is hard to remain civil about the incivility of the election process, ads, smears, slams, etc. But I am trying. By turning off the political ads.

2) Why, oh why do we have to portray the opposition candidates as "un-American" or worse? What about democracy don't we understand? It is a national dialogue on priorities, ideas, directions. It is the opportunity to state our opinions and work toward healthy compromise and movement. Instead we attack individuals and personalities. Not something new in this election cycle- it's been around since Adams vs. Jefferson- but it can be very disturbing.

3) The press- on both sides. Actually, the broadcast media on both sides has taken the process and often placed it in jeopardy or even a parody of itself. Like attack ads, partisan media is not new- it has been a staple of American politics since the beginning. But now, in our age of 24/7 news cycles, it just keeps piling higher and deeper. I have stopped watching any of the news outlets for the elections. Maybe I won't go back.

4) Spin, spin, spin- until you fall down dizzy from all the spin. It's almost like those playground "carousels" we had when I was a kid. I was on one time and got so dizzy and nauseous that I never got on one again. Almost like the elections. Three weeks ago I also stopped listening to public radio's endless replaying of the state candidate debates, interviews, etc. Not because I didn't want to hear, but often the spin and rancor and name calling and on and on was just too much.

5) Do these politicians REALLY believe the crap they spew forth? Really? The incredible inconsistencies, faux pas, inane, hateful and just plain stupid remarks that are made seems to indicate a disconnect in many brains- a broken connection between logic and compassion and understanding and intelligence and the mouth.

6) Voter fraud and voter ID issues were sad to watch and were actually scary. For something that has been, for all practical purposes a non-issue for the past 50 years, it sure became an issue. Set up a basic system for FREE voter ID cards and it will make more sense. The right to vote has been a hard-fought battle for our entire history. In colonial America I would not have been allowed to vote- I don't own any land- and live in a rental town house. LESS THAN 100 years ago, women could not vote in the United States. A government "of the people, by the people and for the people" needs to have voting by as many people as possible. This has been a dangerous movement!!

7) The other really big issue is that of all the corporate-type money flowing so freely into both parties. It is almost obscene! If our national political health depends so fully on money with strings attached, maybe we aren't all that healthy. No, I don't have a good and affordable answer, but it is dangerous. It is called a plutocracy, a government controlled by the wealthy and they spend a lot of money buying our politicians and our votes.

8) What about the results? Well, all spin aside, it probably only matters in the short-term as this is often what happens in the mid-term elections. In spite of the hype by the press, this was no more or no less important than most other mid-term elections. It is how our democracy works- for better and worse. Shifts in power, movements across the middle-of-the-road point are common. While there seems to be a greater polarity and anger in this mid-term, maybe we can still hope that a certain amount of deal making is possible. We will see.

The [RANT] Again

I have had this rant before.

I will probably have it again.

But we are continuing to go downhill on the slippery slope of hatred, partisan bullheadedness, ideological stonewalling, making any disagreeing person the personification of evil itself, and the desire to lash out and punish others who disagree.

It has been particularly evident in the years since Obama was elected president, but a closer look will show that, I believe, it has been going on since Clinton was in office, was a little more subdued during W. Bush's term (due to 9/11 I am sure) and ramped back up when we elected Obama.

Even during that slightly more subdued era with W. it was still there. Bush was seen by many as an evil man- or at least the evil puppet/front man of the truly evil Dick Cheney. Only the 9/11 attacks at the beginning of his term moderated the anti-Bush rhetoric for a while. Obama (and Clinton before him) did not have a Dick Cheney or a Donald Rumsfeld to be the surrogate devil. Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton have been some of that in this administration, (and now the VA) but overall, Obama, like Clinton, tend to be in the center of the spotlight identifying evil in our country.

This is just plain INSANE! (Here truly begins The Rant.) When have we become a country so divided that one side will attack the other when it does what your side had once advocated? When have we become a country that makes anyone, ANYONE, who disagrees with a policy or political position (read: ideology) is by definition unpatriotic, a menace to democracy, or even guilty of treason?

This is just plain INSANE! Democracy is NOT founded on a particular political ideology. It is not conservative or liberal. It is based on many things, including the will of the people. Yet both sides interpret the "will of the people" as being in 100% agreement with "our side" of the issue. The will of the people elects a president. But it also elects the legislators. OBVIOUSLY the will of the people encompasses BOTH sides. The will of the people is broad and deep and can be a very large umbrella.

But both sides refuse to accept the legitimacy of the other side. By ideological definition, the other side has to be wrong- because it isn't my side, the right side. Many political science students see this current divide in  our nation as beginning with Newt Gingrich who came into power on that type of bandwagon. Before that, in people like Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush the divides, while present, were also able to be bridged.

THAT is what a politics of democracy is all about. Discussion, discourse, finding middle ground, yes, even that horrible "c" word- compromise. Democracy does not work any other way. I don't care what the ultra conservatives or ultra liberal say. THAT IS NOT DEMOCRACY. It is an attempt at ideological bullying at best, and ideological dictatorship at worst.

And, again, BOTH sides practice it. Daily. Ad nauseum.

On Fox and MSNBC.

Across the Internet and Facebook.

I am %$^##**% sick and tired of it.

Yes, I lived through the previous years of division- the 60s with Civil Rights, the Vietnam War and Watergate. It was awful. Nixon was made the great Satan, but compared to today's discourse, he was downright cordial. His "enemies" list had nothing to do with ideology (though outwardly based on it) but was rather the result of his own mental health issues of paranoia and desire for power and probably addiction or alcoholism.

Perhaps part of the problem is that we are in reality a far more diverse nation than we have ever been. Most issues at this point are decided in polls by a bare majority. Yes, the polls jump all over the place depending on how you ask the question. You know- "Have you stopped beating your wife?" type questions. And yes, nonsense polls are presented every day that show some nonsense correlation instead of a cause that usually can be twisted and spun to support my side.

Example- I heard a question in a poll the other day:
Do you feel your freedoms have been eroded - or something of that general nature. A majority said yes to that.

The right-wing media pointed out that this is the result of Obama ignoring the constitution.

The left-wing media could have pointed to the Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case or the beginning of the erosion of the constitution in the Bush administration.

BOTH SIDES WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT! (Sorry about resorting to yelling. This is a big issue for me.)

It is time for a change. Have there always been crazy extremists? Of course. They just have never had the wide public availability that social media and a 24-hour news cycle provide.

Do we need the whole spectrum of opinions? Of course. The conservative side reminds us of our limitations and the need to have a degree of common sense. (Yes, I said that. Don't kick me out of the liberal camp.)  We need the liberal camp to keep us on our toes and honest about our moral responsibilities to others.

I am a radical/liberal. But I also know that I can't have all my beliefs and ideas brought into law. That is not how democracy works. Do I get disappointed when "conservative" laws are enacted? Of course I do. But that is how we work in a nation like this. It is why, over the years, the pendulum swings back and forth.

I could go on rambling, since I have started down that path. I will stop. I have had my say. I pray that we will become more cautious in our rhetoric; I pray that we can learn to talk with each other, not at each other, or only with those we agree with. We wouldn't be here as a nation if that hadn't happened in 1776 and in many years since.

[Rant over. Back to the lazy days of summer.]

Will they? Won't They? Will They Just Kick It Down the Road?

Congress.

Politics.

Washington.

Politics.

This is not the way to run a nation!

Being a (very) liberal Democrat, I want to just cry in anger at the (very) conservative responses of the Republican leadership. Since the passing of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) the whole effort of the Republican Party's hostage takers (i.e. Tea Party ultra-conservatives) have been unable to think about anything but repealing this law. As I read somewhere in an op-ed kind of piece, they must be afraid that it WILL work and then where will they be?

But what they have done in their ideological stubbornness is all but shut down the progress of the country. The sequester is probably more to blame for the slow-down of the economic resurgence than anything the Obama Administration is doing. A government shut-down will only make it much worse. They won't negotiate. And when Obama doesn't, they blame him.

It makes me long for the days of Ronald Reagan or, even worse, Richard Nixon. Reagan was a communicator and knew he had to work with the other side of the aisle. That's how democracies work. Nixon may have been a crook, a liar and many other things, but he did manage to keep some lines open with Congress. He was not an ideologue. He was a politician.

The real losers in all this will be us- the people. Congress has stalled and cried and gotten angry and so many other things over the past 5 years that they have seriously hurt our country. Obama could agree with all their ideas- and they would still reject them- because they came from him.

Ah, maybe there's the answer. Obama should present a whole new plan based entirely on the Tea Party agenda. Praise the ideas- and take them as his own. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a big change in the Congress then.

I know. It wouldn't work. Nothing will.

Maybe Obama needs to let it all happen. Maybe he needs to let the Republican House shut the government down and lay out a clear reason why he is doing what he is doing and what they are NOT doing. It wouldn't be pretty, but somebody might get the idea of who really is causing the blockage in our national political heart.

No, it wouldn't work either.

But, personally, I'm scared of all this and its long-term impact.

Unless some miracle occurs, it is going to be a long fall and winter in Washington.

Absolutely Uncertain

For lots of reasons I have spent time recently thinking about "absolutes" in faith and religion. Some, of course, is the ongoing insanity I see in the conservative -vs- liberal views of things. Some has to do with people I meet, see, or read about who are so fanatically certain that their way is THE WAY. I have to admit that I have trouble with that and don't completely understand these absolute positions.

Especially the smaller the group size and the more rigid they become in absolute stands. Pick your group, but when a single church in a single town believes it has the only right answer that everyone else everywhere is missing out on, I cringe. It makes no sense. Absolutely. When they begin to think that "No one, NO ONE EVER in all of history, has ever had the correct insight that I have now been uniquely given," I want to run the other way.

That is not as extreme as it sounds. Listen to some of the preachers of all different religious persuasions. Listen to religious-based politicians (and others). Listen to any ideologue. It is a natural extreme of their position.

What happens is they pick and choose a particular set of interpretations of belief and then they place all eternal and universal authority on that opinion. Is it that we have this human nature that has to believe that MY WAY is the ONLY WAY and if we are not 100% right on all aspects of what we say and believe then everything falls apart? We have an inability, I am afraid, to accept paradox. We have an inability to be open to the possibility that we may have only a part of the picture. We have a need to universalize our experiences and cultural norms.

I just needed to get that out of the way this early in the 2012 election cycle. I know I don't have all the answers. I know my interpretations are not the final word. All I do know is that this has been my experience. Maybe if we can continue to work on opening ourselves to greater experiences, things might begin to go better for more in our world.

And if you don't agree with me, you are obviously wrong.