He wasn't the only example of that this week, as you can see by the first picture above, a deranged right-wing nut that was mad that I dared say the former Secret Service agent who pedaled this garbage was out for money, and money alone. The second picture is just an insane one that I came across on Facebook, and found very amusing. This is what passes as political rhetoric with the lunatics in both parties in 2016. We actually have a group calling for a "fart in" during the Clinton nomination speech in Philadelphia- basically because they aren't happy that they lost, and want to be disruptors. They absolutely swear their guy could not have lost, it must, must, must have been rigged. Really!
We're seeing the rise of an ignorant class of active voters in this country, people that swear they can absolutely get their way on every issue, and swear that the people involved in politics must be criminal because they can't deliver their stated, insane goals- whether they be giving away free stuff the Congress won't approve, getting rid of immigrants, or isolating us from the world, science, and reason. Our politics are going off the rails because of this ignorance:
Our intricate, informal system of political intermediation, which took many decades to build, did not commit suicide or die of old age; we reformed it to death. For decades, well-meaning political reformers have attacked intermediaries as corrupt, undemocratic, unnecessary, or (usually) all of the above. Americans have been busy demonizing and disempowering political professionals and parties, which is like spending decades abusing and attacking your own immune system. Eventually, you will get sick.We now have people who have no meaningful connection to politics, just anger and emotion, running around and actively taking part in politics. This is not the way we want the system to run, unless we want to fight a permanent battle of identifying and demonizing the enemies, but never solving the problems. Yes, the Tea Party loons on the right are scary because they are willing to shut down the government and destroy their own political party before compromising, but what is really different on the left? At the point that the Affordable Care Act is taking on attacks from a nominally-Democratic Presidential contender because it's imperfect, we have a real problem. We have reached a point where compromising to get most of what you want is unacceptable. We have reached a point where heated rhetoric is the expectation, even the demand. In fact, this might be the only way to win now:
Was the switch to direct public nomination a net benefit or drawback? The answer to that question is subjective. But one effect is not in doubt: Institutionalists have less power than ever before to protect loyalists who play well with other politicians, or who take a tough congressional vote for the team, or who dare to cross single-issue voters and interests; and they have little capacity to fend off insurgents who owe nothing to anybody. Walled safely inside their gerrymandered districts, incumbents are insulated from general-election challenges that might pull them toward the political center, but they are perpetually vulnerable to primary challenges from extremists who pull them toward the fringes. Everyone worries about being the next Eric Cantor, the Republican House majority leader who, in a shocking upset, lost to an unknown Tea Partier in his 2014 primary. Legislators are scared of voting for anything that might increase the odds of a primary challenge, which is one reason it is so hard to raise the debt limit or pass a budget.Do the extremes get some things right? Yes. LGBT Marriage was "extreme" in 2004, and in 2016 it's settled law. De-segregation was "extreme" in 1948, and today it is the expectation. The difference in those cases though was that the "extreme" was towards a tangible goal, not the shut down of negotiation, the demand of one's way, or the destruction of the other side's agenda. Right now, we're facing a dangerous group of extremists who believe that everything must go their way, and have an extremely distorted view of politics and governance:
Using polls and focus groups, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse found that between 25 and 40 percent of Americans (depending on how one measures) have a severely distorted view of how government and politics are supposed to work. I think of these people as “politiphobes,” because they see the contentious give-and-take of politics as unnecessary and distasteful. Specifically, they believe that obvious, commonsense solutions to the country’s problems are out there for the plucking. The reason these obvious solutions are not enacted is that politicians are corrupt, or self-interested, or addicted to unnecessary partisan feuding. Not surprisingly, politiphobes think the obvious, commonsense solutions are the sorts of solutions that they themselves prefer. But the more important point is that they do not acknowledge that meaningful policy disagreement even exists. From that premise, they conclude that all the arguing and partisanship and horse-trading that go on in American politics are entirely unnecessary. Politicians could easily solve all our problems if they would only set aside their craven personal agendas.This is dangerous. These people insist that their solution is common-sense, and everyone involved won't do it because they are corrupt. That is horrifyingly wrong. It's how you get to ignorant electorates nominating Donald Trump, or the Brits voting to exit the UK and go isolationist.
The truth is, the extremists are convinced they are right, and they are not afraid to tell you so. Their ignorance is their confidence, the idea that they could simply get their way on everything, if those damned insiders would step aside and let the true believers in. We've seen it on both sides this year. It is ugly. It is not a good thing for the future of our country, or our world.
No comments:
Post a Comment