So here's the thing. I keep posting here about relatively inane things because I don't know how to talk about what I really want to be talking about. No, that's not quite it, Matt and I talk about this all the time, it's just that I don't know how to make sense of this problem to people who don't already know what I'm talking about.
The political dialogue in this country is broken. It's too polarized, like everyone's picked a side and the two sides can't talk to each other. It's not that I think the past was some golden age of bipartisan hugs-and-kisses, but... but there's something poisonous in the air. I feel like all the voices in the political debate are starting from a position of hostility, starting from the assumption of malfeasance and malicious motives, and that doesn't leave us anywhere to go. I don't know how we back down from this.
The 2000 election is where it broke, clearly. The left refused to accept their loss, and the right refused to be gracious about their victory. Maybe we could have come back from that, gradually and over a lot of time, if not for the terrorist attacks. But now we're in a position where moderates in both parties have to pull back to the extremes or risk losing elections, and the extreme does no one any good. My own tendencies pull to the extreme of the left/liberal spectrum, and even I know that it's not good for elected officials to also pull to the extremes.
I don't know. I'm still not sure what I'm trying to say.
Posted by Susan at April 16, 2004 05:28 PMExactly.
Posted by: tingley at April 16, 2004 07:40 PMIsn't that why we're doing this?
Posted by: Peter at April 17, 2004 12:41 PMIt does seem to me that the larger political debate has been consumed and spat back out by the kind of strictly polarized, partisan debates that used to be the province of political operatives and their hangers-on. In other words, the kind of stuff that used to make my jaw drop when I was a spy and in fancy cocktail parties in D.C.
The outcome of the 2000 election that I hoped for at the time was a renewed sense of involvement in the process. There are so many people out there who just feel disenfranchised by the whole enterprise, perhaps rightly so. I do believe there are ways to change things, I believe it's going to be hard change, but that the best ways to do it in a lot of ways are through existing channels -- like voting, both for local and national offices, speaking loudly to your representatives, working in gov't maybe. Fucking shit up from the inside as it were.
I can't tell if people are more involved or not at this point, but at least if it's going to be party politics writ large there's the possibility that more people are involved. And buying a party's line is the first step to becoming disenchanted with it.
If that makes any sense.
Posted by: Gwenda B. at April 18, 2004 09:17 AMI agree that debate is fairly polarized these days (you and I talked about this a little a couple weeks ago), in the sense of there being two mutually hostile camps (although I don't see the camps' views as diametrically opposed), but I think I (respectfully) disagree with some of your specifics.
For example, I don't see the left and right moving to the extremes; in particular, I see the left terrified of moving too far left because that might result in losing the election. From my vantage point, Kerry is a moderate; I certainly don't see him advocating the far-left stances that, say, Kucinich was trying to take. On the other side, I gather that the main reason Bush waffled so long about endorsing the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment was because he was afraid of alienating moderate voters.
I would also say that variants of this kind of dualism had been going on for a long time before 2000. There was a lot of partisan vitriol being tossed around on both sides during the Lewinsky matter, for example -- and lots of mutual animosity long before that, too. I'm not entirely convinced that the debate is more hostile now than it's been before.
That said, I agree with your point that starting from a position of hostility is not a good way to engage in constructive debate or cooperation. Unfortunately, I don't have any good ideas on how to work on changing that hostility.
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