Good Night and Good Riddance.
As Rep. Delay prepares to resign from Congress, I am left wondering how we got here. The difference between the left and the right is a broad and dark chasm, seemingly insurmountable. We seem to have two choices in political parties these days:
1) Socially progressive, tax and spend, liberal Democrats. Seen to be weak on security and overly permissive leading to no accountability for personal responsibility.
2) Socially regressive, cut-taxes and then spend anyway, neo-conservative fossils who have tied personal belief to political belief. From the right we learn that if you believe in cutting spending and fiscal responsibility, then you also believe homosexuality is a blight on our civilization. We also learn that supporting marriage equality must mean you support terrorism.
What of the moderates? What of the budget-hawkish progressives? Going back to the chasm analogy, it's not that there's no room in the middle, it's that he middle is a seemingly bottomless pit where you will surely disappear. Each side has their hard-core base of voters, the folks who vote straight party tickets no matter the year, no matter the candidates. But for the rest, for the middle, the average citizen, it often comes down to weighing the personal against the economic. I for one believe the government has no business in my private life, but should have strong regulatory powers when it comes to corporate behavior. I think we need to re-think entitlement programs like Medicaid and social security. I think defense spending need to be reigned in, and waste trimmed. But where the party for that. Each election is a contest between the lesser of two evils.
Talk to some older people to get a sense of what the political landscape was like before the Reagan Revolution in the 80's and the Neo-Con Congressional landslide in '94. With each major win, these new style Republicans have made discourse impossible, along with compromise and statesmanship. Party loyalty above constituent loyalty. Anything to win, be it insincere, hogwash, or out-right illegal (Mr. DeLay).
With such vitriol coming from the Right, the Left responded in kind, widening the divide. Now that the Public is so clearly disappointed with the way our country is being run, maybe we'll see some new kinds of politicians rising through the ranks. I wouldn't hold my breath, but maybe by the 120th Congress we'll see a return to the civility of the old days, when we could all agree that Equality was a good thing, and disagreed not on the principle, but on the method. Even better, maybe we'll see a whole new political landscape.
Even though the English government is held together with little more than tea, crumpets and the Magna Carta, I find their three-party parliamentary system interesting. With three relatively viable parties it is rare for any party to have a clear majority, they must be satisfied with a plurality, and try to build coalitions. That's something we haven't seen in our legislature since time immemorial.
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