There are those who currently expect that, when Congress returns in a week, a new era of bipartisanship will come into being. The nasty ideological battles of recent years will end, and pragmatic compromise will prevail. While this argument has its merits in theory, reality is a much messier affair.
Our incoming POTUS is widely hailed for his pragmatic streak. As Chris Hayes recently noted in the Nation, however, it is occasionally difficult to understand exactly what that oft-ambiguous term means. As Hayes notes, furthermore, events of the past 8 years, have thrown that term somewhat into disrepute:
Indeed, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, "pragmatists" of all stripes--Alan Dershowitz, Richard Posner--lined up to offer tips and strategies on how best to implement a practical and effective torture regime; but ideologues said no torture, no exceptions. Same goes for the Iraq War, which many "pragmatic" lawmakers--Hillary Clinton, Arlen Specter--voted for and which ideologues across the political spectrum, from Ron Paul to Bernie Sanders, opposed. Of course, by any reckoning, the war didn't work. That is, it failed to be a practical, nonideological improvement to the nation's security. This, despite the fact that so many willed themselves to believe that the benefits would clearly outweigh the costs. Principle is often pragmatism's guardian. Particularly at times of crisis, when a polity succumbs to collective madness or delusion, it is only the obstinate ideologues who refuse to go along. Expediency may be a virtue in virtuous times, but it's a vice in vicious ones.
These especially vicious times have set many past perceived truisms on their head. Alan Greenspan, for example, recently conceded the error of his ways in Congressional testimony:
You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others," said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. "Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?"
Mr. Greenspan conceded: "Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact."
On a day that brought more bad news about rising home foreclosures and slumping employment, Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken.
In other societies in other times, Greenspan, after being properly shamed in public, would have been sent off to a distant re-education camp. He might have even been at risk of losing his neck. While I am not advocating the meteing out of such punishment for being so greviously wrong for so long w/ such grave consequences suffered by so many as a result, letting the man retain his opulent lifestyle and letting him and his ideology to still be taken seriously is equally questionable.
At least Greenspan did a modified mea culpa. Our outgoing VP, by contrast, remains defiant to the end. His defense of torture in an ABC interiew is rather scary:
On the question of so-called torture, we don't do torture. We never have. It's not something that this administration subscribes to. Again, we proceeded very cautiously. We checked. We had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in order to know where the bright lines were that you could not cross.
The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful -- wouldn't do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal. And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong. Did it produce the desired results? I think it did.
His defense of the invasion of Iraq is even scarier:
I disagree with that. I think – as I look at the intelligence with respect to Iraq, what they got wrong was that there weren't any stockpiles. What we found in the after action reports, after the intelligence report was done and then various special groups went and looked at the intelligence and what its validity was. What they found was that Saddam Hussein still had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. He had the technology, he had the people, he had the basic feed stocks.
They also found that he had every intention of resuming production once the international sanctions were lifted. He had a long reputation and record of having started two wars. Of having brutalized and killed hundreds of thousands of people, some of them with weapons of mass destruction in his own country. He had violated 16 National Security Council resolutions. He had established a relationship as a terror sponsoring state according to the State Department. He was making $25,000 payments to the families of suicide bombers.
This was a bad actor and the country's better off, the world's better off with Saddam gone and I think we made the right decision in spite of the fact that the original NIE was off in some of its major judgments.
For 8 long years, Greenspanism has been the defining economic philosophy of the GOP, and Cheneyism has been the defining FP philosophy of our opponents. There was little, if any, intraparty opposition to those 2 highly destructive creeds. Lincoln Chaffee publicly objected, and Chuck Hagel occasionally demurred, but they were basically spitting into a hurricane in terms of their party's views. McCain made a few noises now and then, but his 2008 ambitions eventually brought him into line.
Even now, you don't see Goopers publicly repenting for the error of their party's ways. They don't like the idea of being in the distinct minority for the forseeable future, but they don't seem to be nearly as concerned about the actions that led them to that dead end. Hell, McConnell, Sessions, and Corker proudly scuttled the Congressional attempt to obtain an auto bailout.
Given this obvious set of facts, what is it that makes any Dem think that meaningful compromise can be attained w/ these people? There are at least 6 major differences separating the 2 parties:
- They think that torture is okay. We don't.
- They think that pre-emptive war is okay. We don't.
- They think that the US can and should continue to tell most of the rest of the planet what to do. We don't.
- They think that autoworkers making too much is a major cause of Detroit's current woes. We don't.
- They think that Sarah Palin should be taken seriously as a national figure. We don't.
- They think that our current health care system is acceptable. We don't.
While it is obviously advisable to enter into specific deals w/ willing Goopers on given issues, there is no evidence to support the proposition that we can make meaningful compromises w/ the broad mass of the opposing party. Any major bargains w/ people w/ whom we so visibly differ on so many core issues will ultimately prove to be Faustian. We need to be honest about that fact from the start.