February 5, 2007
My last marathon-lengthed post about Federalism was spawned by my watching of a new PBS 4-part series on “The Supreme Court”. I’ve got to say, this documentary is absolutely brilliant and gives me a great new understanding of the nuances of both the Supreme Court and the Constitution. (The segment “A New Kind of Justice” helped me to finally understand what the 14th Amendment was all about, and how it was used to ultimately give rights to corporations.)
Like most PBS programming, they rerun and rerun these things all the time, so go find your local listings, program your Tivo or VCR, and watch it. Only the first two parts, One Nation Under Law and A New Kind of Justice have come out. The next one first airs this Wednesday, so it’s not too late to start watching. There are also interviews with our new Chief Justice Roberts.
Ever since I had my political awakening back in 2003—a confluence of fear from the growing fascism of the Bush administration and inspiration from the speeches of Howard Dean—I’ve tried to understand exactly what it means to be a Democrat or a Republican. It’s a very very complex question, and one for which I still feel like I’m fumbling around in the dark.
The only succinct answers seem to be ones defined by today’s hot political issues, and even those are getting blurry. A few years ago you could divide Democrat from Republican depending on your opinions on abortion, environmentalism, fiscal policy (taxation and deficit spending), gun control, or religion. But even today these are blurry. There are a number of strong Democrats who are opposed to abortion (or some Republicans who are pro-choice) and have good relations with the NRA. Also, Democrats have become so tired of being labeled “tax and spend” that these days they proudly campaign on the tax cuts they’ve voted for.
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November 16, 2006
It may be premature to claim to be hearing the Death Knell for the Republican Party, but unless they pull off some miracles soon we may see a long steady decline that will run for decades. I make this claim not as an exercise in over-confident liberal thinking (which Democratic bloggers are notorious for) but as a thesis based on a what I believe is a particularly nasty House of Cards they have built.
Specifically, I claim that the Republican Party has paid a dear price for their totalitarian control of government over the last 10-15 years. For the Republicans, maintaining control of government has become not only the means but the end as well. Some examples:
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October 19, 2006
Has anybody else noticed something strange that happened in politics a couple weeks ago? I hate to attribute this to the Foley scandal—to a large degree I think that thing has been overblown. Okay, I’ve enjoy the sick thrill of watching the Republican leadership dig itself deeper and deeper into a hole with all those lame denials and finger-pointing. But no, there’s something else that has changed recently.
As long as I can remember, since the first days of Ronald Reagan, it was always “cool” to be a Republican. I associated Republicans with the meat-head school jocks who weren’t very nice or smart, but were popular and got all the girls. (Funny note: in High School my classmate Dennis who was totally “Mr. Republican and Proud of It” turned out later being gay. I always get a chuckle over that. But I digress.)
Nobody would hate me for being a Democrat, but it was such an un-cool position. Having lived my life a total misfit geek that didn’t really bother me. I knew I would never lose sleep wondering if I would ever be popular. That one was answered easily. My point is that for the average kid I think it was far far easier to just call yourself Republican and stop worrying about politics. It was easily the path of least resistance, and while you were cheering for the winning team you could sip your White Zinfandel and enjoy being part of “the right”.
I’ve always felt like this simple fact—that the ‘cool by default’—aspect of the Republican party was always a huge silent disadvantage. Well, something just broke, and I don’t know why Foleygate caused the tipping point but I think it’s happened:
It’s no longer cool to be a Republican, I swear for the first time since Jimmy Carter was in office. If you want to hold that distinction you now have to have a good argument to back up your position. You have to have the conviction to stay on the sinking ship. You really have to believe in their objectives, not just their pithy slogans. (And when most Americans examine the true Republican agenda that mostly favors the rich and the oil and drug companies, they have a difficult time relating.)
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