TWiA has been missing in action for a while now, because life's been busy, and who wants to write week in and week out about how terrible Donald Trump is?
But we're back this week, because we've noticed recurring signs of a problem we've been worried about for a while now, and we want to raise the issue. Not that it'll do any good, but maybe... anyway, we're hoping.
This Week in Compromise
It's not any surprise revelation to note that the Republican Party we've known for decades is dead, and although Trump didn't kill it, he delivered the coup de grace. This isn't our opinion, it's the opinion of multiple conservative/Republican stalwarts watching their party disintegrate.
"Roy isn’t happy about this: He believes it means the Democrats will dominate national American politics for some time. But he also believes the Republican Party has lost its right to govern, because it is driven by white nationalism rather than a true commitment to equality for all Americans.
“'Until the conservative movement can stand up and live by that principle, it will not have the moral authority to lead the country,' he told me."
Roy continues: "Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble. We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism."
"But if Trump is detached from the country, and uninterested in anything but himself, he’s also detached from his party. Trump is not really changing his party as much as dissolving it.
"A normal party has an apparatus of professionals, who have been around for a while and who can get things done. But those people might as well not exist. This was the most shambolically mis-run convention in memory.
"A normal party is united by a consistent belief system. For decades, the Republican Party has stood for a forward-looking American-led international order abroad and small-government democratic capitalism at home.
"Trump is decimating that, too, along with the things Republicans stood for: NATO, entitlement reform, compassionate conservatism and the relatively open movement of ideas, people and trade."
"By this standard, Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) is the moral leader of the GOP. But given the thinness of his company, many of us will never be able to think about the Republican Party in quite the same way again. It still carries many of the ideological convictions I share. Collectively, however, it has failed one of the most basic tests of public justice: Don’t support racists — or candidates who appeal to racism — for public office. If this commitment is not a primary, non-negotiable element of Republican identity, then the party of Lincoln is dead."
It goes on and on. The Republican Party has been denying an element within itself that many of us on the left saw and tried to point out for years--it's been harboring anti-science, reality-denying racists within its ranks. More than harboring them, it's been catering to them, mining them for votes. Now, they've taken over the party, and the principled conservatives who used to pretend they didn't exist (or genuinely couldn't see them) are leaping overboard as fast as they can.
But we here at TWiA World Headquarters are lifelong Democrats (except for that brief period when we registered Republican to vote for John Anderson, and to attend the California state Republican convention), and our main concern here is the Democratic Party.
Because part of what finished off the Republican Party was the influence of the Tea Party. The US system of government was designed to require compromise. That was done intentionally--the Founding Fathers didn't want to be ruled by a king; they wanted us to govern ourselves. The way to accomplish that was by creating three separate but equal branches of government, so that anything substantial that would be done would be the result of compromise. The Tea Party, though, rejected compromise, and the more power they gained within Republican ranks, the more "compromise" became a dirty word--resulting in the dysfunctional Congress we have now, and the 8-justice Supreme Court. The Tea Party demanded an impossible level of ideological purity, and when that couldn't function within the Republican Party apparatus, rage and frustration boiled over--leading to the Trump revolution.
When we saw the rise of the Tea Party, some of us felt like we were watching the slo-mo self-destruction of the Republican Party. Clearly, we were right.
So where does the Democratic Party come in?
The Democratic convention just ended. Outside, tens of thousands of people were protesting--most of them leftists. Inside, thousands of Bernie-or-Bust folks were booing any mention of the Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton has spent decades fighting and working for progressive causes, but to too many of those people, she's untrustworthy, a tool of the oligarchy, or worse. They've internalized the worst lies the "vast right-wing conspiracy" has spread about her since she first hit the national stage, and they're repeating them with just as much fervor as the most diehard right-wingers.
In other words, they're demanding a degree of ideological purity that can't exist in our system of government. The American system was devised to prevent exactly that--to necessitate compromise, which is the antithesis of ideological purity. That demand is how the Tea Party broke the Republican Party. If the Bernie revolution--the demand for ideological purity--has the same effect on the left that it did on the right, then the Democratic Party could have another election cycle or three left before it falls apart in the same way. (To his credit, Bernie--however reluctantly--has expressed his support for the nominee.)
America is a country in the center. It's been center-right, but now it's largely center-left. It's rarely been over on the far fringes, though. Candidates who inhabit those fringes can occasionally win office--though we dearly hope Trump can't. But elected officials on the fringes can't govern. Demanding ideological purity of them is political suicide. After having moved left during the primaries, the Democratic Party could conceivably shift right again by accepting within its ranks huge numbers of Republicans and former Republicans who can't bring themselves to support Trump. By opening our doors and hearts to those Republicans, we can over the long term shift power in the states back to the Democrats, which would benefit the country in innumerable ways.
We need (at least) two parties--one on the left, one on the right--for our system to function smoothly. We've lost the sane rightist party. We hope they can reconstruct it, or form a new one, leaving the white racists out on the fringe where they belong. Losing the leftist party at or near the same time could be catastrophic.
For the sake of the country--and the Democratic Party, and the progressive ideals that it stands for--we hope the Bernie-or-Bust crowd can embrace Hillary Clinton as their standard-bearer. In January 2017, one of two people will be taking the oath of office: Clinton or Trump. We don't want it to be Trump. There really is a difference, and it's profound.
There's nothing wrong with feeling sad about losing a race, with grieving over a failed candidacy in which you worked hard and invested much. But a candidacy should be about ideals as much as it is about the person. And no one who claims to believe in progressive ideals--which we submit are human ideals: inclusivity; an economy that favors a strong middle class and not just the rich; the dignity of work and the dignity of the aged, the infirm, those with disabilities; a foreign policy that keeps us safe and promotes peace; an energy policy that tries to address climate change; investments in our future, including education and infrastructure--can think that electing Donald Trump is an acceptable conclusion. This election isn't like others. Our democracy survived the presidencies of Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes. Whether it could survive a Trump presidency is an open question, and one we'd rather not learn the answer to.
Real political/social change is incremental, not instantaneous. Remember the long hard road from emancipation to the first black president, a road that led through the Jim Crow south and the northern migration, through Selma and Detroit and Watts. Remember the difficult years between Stonewall and marriage equality. To declare Hillary Clinton unfit because she's not sufficiently Bernie-ish is to lose sight of how change happens. Some of us always thought Bernie's message was naive--that his "political revolution" was an inspiring message but one that would run up quickly against a Republican-held House and dozens of Republican statehouses, and that without the immediate change he promised, his disillusioned supporters would conclude that change was impossible and turn their backs on the political process altogether.
Instead, we should work together in the direction of the change we want, looking forward instead of back, as Americans have always done. We should work to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. That arc is long, Dr. King reminded us. And the work requires compromise.
We don't want to find a Democratic version of Trump owning the party a cycle or two from now. But if we forget how to compromise, that's where we're headed.
This Week in Oratory
Last week's Republican convention won't be studied by future speechwriters and orators (except perhaps as an object lesson in the dangers of letting amateurs handle the writing and vetting processes). But the Democrats this week have really delivered, from Michelle Obama's riveting opener on Monday to Bill Clinton's unexpectedly sweet description of his life with Hillary on Tuesday--perhaps his only speech ever in which someone other than him held the starring role--to Wednesday's unabashedly patriotic paean to the everyday American by Joe Biden and President Obama's farewell address. We expect to see him return as a featured speaker at Democratic conventions to come, fulfilling a role held by Bill Clinton for the past several cycles, but we'll never see him speaking as president before such a large audience again. If you missed it, watch the president's speech or read the transcript here. And dig the rhythm of the words he spoke; as Charles Pierce writes at Esquire, part of "an aesthetic of cool that is his alone."
"We're not a fragile people. We're not a frightful people. Our power doesn't come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don't look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that We the People, can form a more perfect union. That's who we are. That's our birthright—the capacity to shape our own destiny. That's what drove patriots to choose revolution over tyranny and our GIs to liberate a continent. It's what gave women the courage to reach for the ballot, and marchers to cross a bridge in Selma, and workers to organize and fight for collective bargaining and better wages. America has never been about what one person says he'll do for us. It's about what can be achieved by us, together—through the hard and slow, and sometimes frustrating, but ultimately enduring work of self-government."
President Obama defined Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan, "Stronger Together," in a way that made sense and echoed his optimistic, progressive view. Conservatives so often look to a past that may or may not have existed. Liberals accept the past, but look to a future where we build on it, improve on it. Those who founded our country weren't satisfied with the way things were, and they didn't expect that we would ever reach a perfect stasis--they envisioned a nation that could keep changing, that people of ambition could keep making better. Obama said:
"That’s why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That’s why our military can look the way it does, every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end.
"That’s America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it, embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own."
Hillary Clinton is no one's idea of a great orator, and to her credit, she didn't try to change that perception on Thursday night. Instead, she was just herself, reveling in the feverish excitement of an arena full of people celebrating their role in history.
But one of the most powerful speeches of the four days happened earlier Thursday evening, when Khizr Khan, the Muslim-American father of a US Army captain killed in Iraq, spoke. Captain Khan earned a posthumous Purple Heart and Bronze Star for sacrificing himself to save most of his unit.
At the midpoint of the speech, Khan says, "Donald Trump, you're asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you, have you ever read the United States Constitution?" Pulling his own copy from his breast pocket, he continues, "I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words 'liberty' and 'equal protection of law.' Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You'll see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing, and no one!"
While Khan was speaking, Donald Trump was delivering a very different message. According to the Washington Post,
"In a small town in eastern Iowa, Trump warned his mostly white audience that President Obama is already allowing thousands of Syrian refugees with ‘no real documentation' to pour into the country and that Clinton would increase that rate by 550 percent. 'They put them all over the country. Nobody even knows where they're being put … but all we know is we watch these people with the slashings and the throat cuttings and the cutting off of the heads and the drowning in steel cages,’ Trump said. ... 'These are people, they have to be stopped. They have to be stopped. And they have to be stopped very, very strongly and very viciously, if we have to.'"
The speech is only 7 minutes long, and worth watching.
This Week in Black and Blue
The Republican convention featured supporters of the Blue Lives Movement. So did the Democratic Convention, which also featured supporters of the Black Lives Movement. Some people find that contradictory, and believe one can't support both at once.
In fact, anyone who wants either movement to succeed has to support both. Cops need to be respectful of black citizens and to stop treating them as disposable. And black citizens need to see cops as a necessary part of society whose presence makes their neighborhoods safer.
Historically, the Civil Service was an important ladder into the middle class for black families. Before anti-discrimination laws were passed and enforced for private businesses, federal, state, and local governments had to comply with anti-discrimination rules. As a result, blacks sought employment as post office and DMV clerks, bus drivers, teachers, and, yes, police officers, as well as in thousands of other roles in government service. The salaries and benefits were good, the positions stable, and many black families attained middle class status for the first time.
But too many black families were left behind. Too many still live in segregated neighborhoods, where employment opportunities, good schools, and safe streets are hard to come by, where structural disadvantages, like lead in the paint, unsafe drinking water, and poor nutritional options still plague them. That's an ongoing problem in a country where every life should be valued.
To make cops stop targeting black Americans, we have to teach them to be less fearful of black Americans. Theirs is a hard, dangerous job, and when they feel threatened, they're more likely to respond with violence. We need better training, more women in blue (the vast majority of police shootings are performed by male officers; women are largely better conditioned to seek nonviolent solutions), and more minority officers. Cops need to understand that black lives matter.
And black Americans need to learn not to fear the police (which will only happen when police stop giving them reason to be fearful). When they can accept a police presence, feel that cops are their friends and neighbors--just folks who, like many in their own families, are working at civil service jobs to attain or maintain a middle-class lifestyle--and cooperate with the cops they see day to day, then cops will stop feeling inordinately threatened by black citizens. Black Americans need to understand that blue lives matter.
It sounds easier than it is, of course. There's a horse-and-cart situation there. Which comes first? The reality is that it all has to happen at once; neither side can be the first to give. It'll take time and effort.
But a start would be for people to stop insisting that only one side has a valid argument. Both do. And until both sides acknowledge that simple fact--as the programmers for the DNC seemed to--progress is impossible.
This Week in Confusion
Indiana Governor and Trump running-mate Mike Pence doesn't think President Obama should have called Donald Trump a demagogue in his convention speech, saying, "I don't think name calling has any place in public life." Could Pence have already forgotten who he's running with?
Merriam-Webster, by the way, defines "demagogue" as "a political leader who tries to get support by making false claims and promises and using arguments based on emotion rather than reason." If the shoe fits, Mike...
This Week in Reality
Watch director James Cameron's short film on climate change, Not Reality TV.
This Week in Bears
Since it wouldn't be TWiA without bears, here's a bear in Minnesota trying to cope with a heat wave, a bear physician in Missouri trying to diagnose what the heck's wrong with a wooden deer, and one in Colorado with its head stuck in a cheese ball container.
Welcome back! I've sorely missed your insightful commentaries and your exceptional dissection of what is happening in the often confusing and always chaotic political climate in which we now live. Thank you so much for helping me to understand what is happening, and, in turn, enable me to intelligently defend my progressive views to the glut of seemingly shallow thinkers here in my bright red Ohio county. Please don't disappear like that again!
Posted by: Deb Boyer | 07/30/2016 at 03:03 AM
Thanks, Deb. Ill try to get back on a regular schedule. Its been hard with life/work obligations to find the time to do it right, but encouragement like that really helps.
Posted by: Jeff Mariotte | 07/30/2016 at 10:50 AM