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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA reply to "Why Does Only One Party Play by the Rules?" (NYT 10/26/19)
Dear Ms Senior:
I read with interest your Oped "Why Does Only One Party Play by the Rules?" ** (10/26/19). In framing what you see as the problem, you immediately suggest a metaphor. Democrats, you say, are acting as though there still are rules, when in fact theyre living in a political multiverse, with at least one parallel reality containing no rules at all. If you fail to make much progress with your essay, I suggest its because youre standing on the wrong metaphor. The problem is that the rule breakers arent in another universe, but the same one as the rule observers. Surely what youre describing is more like a boxing match in which one man is using brass knuckles, and his opponent has both hands tied behind his back, and the referee is passed out drunk on a stool in the corner?
As a Democrat, I dont much care about whats going on in the next universe, because Im working so hard to get my hands untied and dump a pail of water on the referee. The rules, which you pass over so lightly, govern what is fair in debate and rhetoric, and what is decent in behavior, and what is good governance. I also wonder why the referee takes so little responsibility for whats going on in his ring. The Republicans arent following the rules of fair argument, or decent behavior, and this tendency of theirs has a long history, from Richard Nixons whisper campaign that his opponent was a pinko commie, to the Willy Horton ad, right up to Mr. Trumps invitation for a second amendment type to dispose of his opponent. And we should not pretend that the Republican leaderships hands are clean of Trumps daily bullying. The rhetoric coming from the Republican Party is by now confined exclusively to name calling: anyone not in their camp is a libtard, and any act or initiative by a Democrat is sending the country straight to hell.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are doing what they always do: argue for policies that will solve some problem or ameliorate some suffering. The are fighting fairly rhetorically, and making sincere efforts to use our political system as it was intended to be usedto govern the people wisely and democratically. They are not authorizing political or character assassinations, or the elimination of all other opinions than theirs, or calling for civil war if the opposing party wins a majority. Theyre boring as heck, and therein lies the real problem, which is not alternate realities.
The real problem is that the Republicans have declared that politics is mud wrestling, and the referee is passed out in the corner. If democracies have referees, a free press is them. The referee ought to wake up, confiscate the brass knuckles, untie the other fighter, and insist on a fair fight. What we find our referee doing instead is insisting that both sides do it, whatever it is. You, Ms Senior, are adept at this insistence when you say: Of course Democratic politiciansall politicians distort, gerrymander evidence, even lie and apply their greasy thumbs to the scales. (What was Bill Clinton doing on that plane with Loretta Lynch in 2016?). Leaving aside the question of precisely what distortions and lies Democratic candidates have told, and avoiding any consideration of what gerrymandering evidence might mean, I can tell you what Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton were talking about: they were chatting and comparing pictures of grandchildren. Heres the scenario: Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong or illegal with her email, and knew that, and Bill Clinton knew that, and so he had no need to try to influence Loretta Lynch. Even if he had felt a need to put "a greasy thumb on the scale," hes a smart man, and a lawyer, and he wouldnt have contributed to Hillarys imaginary ethics lapse by committing one of his own. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have been ethical, hard working, and idealistic to the extent that they believe our political system can be made to work. I sometimes think that their idealism is what has drawn the consistently bad press they have survived since they arrived in Washington. And I know the media could not survive without drawing inaccurate comparisons between the Clinton and Trump impeachments.
You cant have it both ways, Ms Senior: either the Democrats follow the rules, and stand in sharp contrast to the Republicans, or they dont. If the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans, what in heavens name is your essay about?
Instead of recommending one more time that the Democrats save politics by concentrating on a declaration of values, how about the media impound the brass knuckles, penalize the Republicans a few points, and stop declaring the contest a draw before its over? Both parties dont do it, and it will clarify your thinking wonderfully to recognize that.
** Sorry I can't supply a link to the Oped; I've exceeded my limit of free reading for the month. Anyone who can post a link, thanks.
Maeve
(42,287 posts)All of which may be right. But I have an additional theory for why some Democrats are the vexed and depleted souls they seem to be these days, waking up with lead in their veins and worms in their stomachs. It boils down to this: They cant escape the sense that theyre living by different rules.
Let me rephrase that: Democrats are acting as though there still are rules, when in fact theyre living in a political multiverse with at least one parallel reality containing no rules at all.
What do you do when one party stakes its faith and ultimately government itself on observable, measurable realities while the other has made the cynical decision to cast away those principles away? How do you strategize? How do you cope?
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)If you've not done so yet, allow me to suggest breaking up some of those walls-o-text. People won't read huge paragraphs like that ... make 'em all the size of the last two
Great content, however
planetc
(7,828 posts)I found this lady so annoying that I wanted to speak until I was done. Then I liked my own metaphor, and it was all downhill from there.
Beakybird
(3,333 posts)Karadeniz
(22,552 posts)wendyb-NC
(3,328 posts)Mr. Ected
(9,670 posts)But not in the way Trump projects.
They are the enemy of the people because they have quashed the people's party by omission and error, by silence and by misrepresentation. Without a sober referee, this calamity continues to fester.
We are blessed to have the Rachel Maddows and Lawrence O'Donnells among us to keep the dialogue alive. But the sheer force of the opposition is unnerving and destructive. We need our message to be amplified and the truth made clear. It's the only way to counter the monstrous tentacles of fascism.
planetc
(7,828 posts)The punditry are working hard every day to sustain their own delusion that they are "speaking truth to power." What they are actually doing is to promote the ideas that 1) the only thing really happening in the world is American politics, 2) American politics is an endless tug of war between the Republican and the Democratic parties, and 3) what the American voter needs most is another discussion of how this demographic and that base will respond to this or that utterly irrelevant happening. Like the Clinton/Lynch meeting. It was all anyone talked about for 48 hours, and it meant ... nothing. The fierce focus of the media's framing of everything that happens leaves out several enormous perspectives: the historical, the scientific, the social. So who, I ask myself, are all these pundits trying to impress? Who are they talking to? And the answer can only be ... each other. They want to impress each other, and justify their salaries no doubt.
All this means that they are no longer reporting the news, they are making it. And that's the most dangerous thing they're doing, pretending they have to report these stories whose obvious import they will modify until they have another example of the Republicans and Democrats evenly divided in a political battle.