Democratic icon Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize winner in Economics) recently gave his view of the upcoming Presidential election:
In any case, there has never been a time in American history when the alleged personal traits of candidates mattered less. As we head into 2016, each party is quite unified on major policy issues — and these unified positions are very far from each other. The huge, substantive gulf between the parties will be reflected in the policy positions of whomever they nominate, and will almost surely be reflected in the actual policies adopted by whoever wins.
He goes on to enumerate certain issues and how the Democratic and Republican nominees will pledge to handle the issue – regardless of the name of the nominee. If you are a Democrat, you will handle it this way; if you are a Republican, you will handle it that way. This reasoning can be extended to support the idea of power politics, which is basically “student-body left”, blasting all opposition out of the way without regard, without discussion (with the opposition or within your own organization).
xaxnar @ The Daily Kos explicates:
We are a divided nation because there is a real battle for what kind of country this is going to be – and defeat is not an option. Sitting this one out, or holding out for ideological purity is not an option either. Republicans may be batshit insane, and wrong on every issue – but they keep winning because they all point their guns in the same direction. Democratic disunity (See Pierce here) and a Quixotic fixation on candidates who are not running or can’t possibly win is a luxury that advances no agenda.
Over on the other side, Iowa GOP State Central Committee member David Chung has some similar thoughts:
I hear it every election year from friends and family, “I look at the issues and candidates and always vote for the best person regardless of party.” Sometimes, it is said matter-of-factly, sometimes it is said condescendingly but it is always said sincerely.
The implication is that only the naive or uninformed vote straight ticket. Nothing could be further from the truth. In nearly every election, I have had the opportunity to talk to my party’s candidate for every office from county supervisor to president. Typically I know where they stand on all of the issues I care about.
I hear this from both liberals and conservatives. Many of my conservative friends say that the lesser of two evils is still evil. I am sometimes asked whether I support principle over party or party over principle.
I am sure that I will be accused by some of being an unprincipled party shill. But let me state it as clearly as I possibly can:
Politics is a team sport, and it is precisely because I support principles over party, that I vote a straight Republican ticket every time.
So on the surface, both sides seem to make good arguments for closing your eyes, putting your shoulder to the wheel, and pushing in rhythm to the drummer at the prow of the ship. But with a little work I can come up with some questions that may throw some sand in the gears.
- Is that really all there is to politics, the assemblage of political positions? Whatever happened to competency, the knowledge of how to manage a bureaucracy, or even your own office staff? The sport of watching the latest scandal coming out of Washington, or for that matter the local political hellhole, may be quite entertaining – I’ll admit to it! – but the dark side of these scandals is opportunities lost. If some boob is hired by your ideological god and fouls up, then what good was that ideology you were praising? Looking at the competencies of our candidates may be nearly as important as the ideologies.
- Power politics reduces the seats up for grabs to simple prizes. Look, if all you have to do is win the nomination and then be assured of your seat, then any power-mongering sociopath, and I mean that with nary a grin on my face, will be clambering up the pile to get that nomination, and all he has to do is convince the powers-that-be that he will lick their fingers as necessary. Winning the nomination may or may not be a chore, but most sociopaths can fake being human long enough to get that nomination – ask a psychologist if you doubt it.
- Power politics reduces the public debate necessary to our nation’s maturity. True, we have debates today, but how often are those public debates truly useful? As the political parties become more hierarchically structured, with less dissent tolerated, we also have a greater chance of taking positions that are incorrect because that’s the word coming down from on high. We’re seeing this right now with such topics as climate change, Iran, ObamaCare, and just about any judicial nominee coming down the pike of either party. On the left there are fewer examples, as the Democrats & assorted leftists tend to be a more raucous crowd, but single payer systems / socialized health care sometimes pop up as something sacred. Both sides seem to be inclined to inflate the military budget at any opportunity, so I tend to see that as another example we could do without. So we can say positions predicated on ideology, rather than reality, come to the fore. How can we tell? Conspiracy theories are a sure sign — “a few thousand climate change scientists are conspiring to deprive us of our free market rights!” That’s a good sign.
- Power politics and the manner in which we select planks is a toxic combination. The folks who take the time to go to caucuses, contribute to political discussions, and in general get involved also tend to be the those most zealous partisans, and those with the more extreme positions. It’s really a matter of human nature colliding with democracy; those of us who’d rather go bowling on Friday night tend to be more moderate and focused on the here and now, while the zealots become fixated on their vision and become convinced of the holiness of their position. For an example, here is David Chung again:
I am a Republican, I vote a straight Republican ticket—because I believe that it is the best chance in today’s system to effect the changes that I believe are crucial to our nation.
The wars of power politics may have already started as the Democrats seem to be making some real progress against an icon of the Republicans – Rush Limbaugh has been losing audience of late as radio stations drop his show due to advertiser pressure brought about by boycotts. I have no use for Rush, he seems to be a beautiful voice married to a lust for money and power; but this does look like a metaphorical assassination to me.
So what’s to be done? There’s a doozy. In fact, the best thing to do make may be to sit back and wait for the blood bath – metaphorical, of course – to happen. I expect that at some point the Republican ship will run into the rocks of reality and be forced to reform some of its positions. I hope it’s nothing violent; instead, the realization that the Party is shrinking, as we may be seeing here, may be enough to cause the party to reform itself, throwing the more fringe types out on their ears. If we’re unlucky, we may have to suffer through a heatwave that kills a significant number of us.
But don’t lose hope, not all conservatives are “batshit insane” (apologies to Xaxnar, above). As noted here, the conservative PM of Australia, Tony Abbot, has apparently about-faced on his climate change denial – possibly due to the multiple natural disasters that have rained down on his country over the last few years.
[EDIT:1/2/2017 fixed typo]
