The Balkanization of the Right

As the midterm elections grow near, Democrats find themselves in near orgiastic elation at the possibility of their capture of one, and possibly both, houses of Congress. This excitement is certainty justified; after all, six years of radical one party government has caused tremendous tensions in the American socio-political fabric. Today's feverish opposition to the Republican party is not inherent to one party rule, but is instead a direct result of the way the Republican majority has chosen to govern.

In today's Washington Post, Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey criticizes the current Republican majority for neglecting its conservative principles at the expense of pandering for votes on the Religious Right. Armey, in the appropriately titled "Where We Went Wrong", asks: "Where did the revolution go astray? How did we go from the big ideas and vision of 1994 to the cheap political point-scoring on meaningless wedge issues of today -- from passing welfare reform and limited government to banning horsemeat and same-sex marriage?". Armey's plea will not go unheard in intellectual conservative circles. Many on the Left have been far too self-referential to explore the recent balkanization of conservatives--an event, it should be noted, that is equally important as whatever electoral or philosophical successes liberals may achieve in the current weeks or months. Ask George Will or William Safire if they're happy with the state of modern conservatism; James Dobson
may give you a similar answer but a radically different rationale.

A balkanized opposition has been the Republican party's greatest natural political advantage over the last fifty years. If the Democrats wish to maintain the Congressional majority they will likely possess after November 7th, they should explore the fissures, dissonances, and ideological conflagrations that are quietly consuming the Republican party. This, coupled with a truly alternative vision for America, will provide not only a moral majority, but a strategic one as well.

A Dream Deferred (or does it explode?)

The title, of course taken from that very wonderful, as well as prescient, Langston Hughes poem. Although I believe Hughes--and my interpretation is basic and standard--was speaking of the African American experience, I believe it is an apt metaphor for the development of American democracy.

All nations are predicated on a series of half-truths; thus this unsettling claim about the U.S. applies equally to all nations. What differentiates the U.S. from previous governments is the very lofty goals enshrined in our revolutionary rhetoric. We are a nation endowed with a prophecy--the prophecy of equality and freedom, which, it should be added, are inherently in tension. And it sometimes appears like a cruel joke for our Founders to have embedded these principles so deeply in our national psyche. Other times, however, we cannot be thankful enough that these principles exist for us so concretely. It provides the philosophical backdrop for our internal revolutions: our suffrage movements, our civil rights battles, the various currents that have racked American society.

During the hypernationalistic currents that have swept America time and time again, dissent is suppressed, contrarians are marginalized for crimes against a reified State, and rationality is seen as secondary to unity. We may be slowly winding ourselves out of of one such period.

The upside to this recurring situation is this: these periods are as temporal as they are visceral.

It does seem like a lifetime ago that the Bush administration decided to cross the invisible line of democratic ethics by engaging in a war of choice; what remains to be seen, however, is where the events of the last few years have pushed the American people. More important is where our politicians will be led. Our chains may be daisy-covered, but their wilt is palpable.

Ex Post Facto

Welcome to the Conscientious Objector. I hope this can be a truly open forum--one beyond the normal right/left dichotomies present in political blogs. Not that I don't enjoy a little bomb throwing now and then, but I'd like this to be a different kind or discourse.

To begin: Foleygate, or Political Pragmatism in Lieu of Ethics.
It should come as no surprise that Speaker Hastert, or any of the Republican leaderships, for that matter, plausibly ignored the evidence that Congressman Foley was a sexual predator. Politics does not contain, at least in its current form (but perhaps throughout all politcal systems) any kind of moral imperitive. It is a purely pragmatic affair, insofar as it is an art of war. And although politicans can and do behave morally, it is only when it is their best interest to do so. That goes for Democrats as well as Republicans. Especially in electoral politics, we should remember that the accumulation of power, and the perpetuation of one's power, is what is truly at the forefront of the political. That's not to say, of course, that politicans do not act morally, or justly, or out of imperative. It's just that they won't--99 times out of a 100--do so when it threatens their own self-interest. Thus the deafening silence from the Republican leadership about who knew what when. But it is important for us to acknowledge this silence because it is where the heart of politics lies. And it is our civic duty, if such a thing exists anymore, to be vigilant of this silence even when the din of pragmatism drowns it out.