Crappy New Year
I’m writing this on the eve of the primary season, and it’s looking like Obama may have peaked a few days too soon in Iowa, although it is still going to come down to the wire. If Hillary wins, we’re in for a long year.
The Clintons come from the DLC ideology (which they practically invented) that seeks to curb New Deal excesses but still give hardworking Americans a conceivable path to financial security. Clinton Dems have little time for starry-eyed liberalism, and feel that old lefties, as well as noisy bloggers and online activists have proven utterly incapable of reconciling hard-line ideological views with effective electoral strategies and practical governance. All too often, I believe that can be a fair indictment of liberals. But the idea that centrism and moderation must always be synonymous with sensible and practical, or that it’s always folly to push for sweeping reforms is ludicrous. If a patient is dying, doctors don’t bandage up his paper cut. But to the DLC, baby-steps and incremental change is the perennial answer, regardless of the problem.
To be clear, I have no problem with practicality and compromise. And I think there are some important discussions to be had over things like what is a handout and what is a helping hand, how can we encourage economic growth while limiting corporate largesse, etc. What these “practical Democrats” seem to completely ignore is that Republicans have gone off the deep end.
Most of the GOP presidential candidates lack a basic understanding of foreign policy, or geography even, but still they hype up vague terrorist threats to America with ridiculous propaganda events like “Islamo-fascism” week.
We need politicians who are willing to say the world will never be perfect, and no solution will fix everything, but we as Americans are ignoring the scope of the problems we face and we need dramatic change. Our electorate is too uninformed, our poor are too poor, our oil imports are drying up, and our planet is getting too warm. A great first step in dealing with these issues would be electing candidates who refuse to patronize the American people by “protecting them” from knowing the dangers they face (Clinton), or scaring them into ceding their rights to the government (Giuliani).
Also along those lines, we need to reevaluate our priorities. I won’t care if the next president is for stricter abortion rules or laxer gun laws if he starts subsidizing solar energy instead of oil companies. If we eliminate litmus tests on overemphasized “hot button” issues, we stand a better chance of developing valuable coalitions between groups who share more in common than we often think.
1 comment December 29th, 2007