Wow ...
It just struck me.
We've all spent the past couple of years aggressively trying to parse the differences that separate Democrats and Republicans.
Does the rift have to do with class? Race? Region? Religion? Affluence? Gender? Values? Culture? History?
How does a Conservative Democrat like Hillary Clinton differ from a Liberal Republican like George Pataki? Do they differ at all? If not, why the fierce loyalty to two opposing parties?
And whence all this vitriol, the Rush Limbaugh/Mike Molley vitriol that is less based on policy than a tribal sort of passion?
Then it struck me.
Once of history's most complicated and perplexing rivalries is the one that tore Italy into pieces during the Renaissance, where city states intrigued, accused, boycotted, slandered and outright invaded each other over increasingly improbable, even ludicrous premises, the root of which no one could really understand.
The Guelphs and the Ghibellines.
It was a conflict, like ours, of church vs. state, of rural vs. urban, of liberals vs. conservatives, of aristocrats vs. the bourgeouisie. It was a battle between city state and empire. It was about faith, about money, about tribute ... and, ultimately, simply about power -- separate from any other sort of impetus or ideology.
Is that where we are now? Is that where we are headed now?
We have called ourselves "The Reality-Based Community," but, frankly, the last week or so has show that we are just as susceptible to self-delusion as the other side is.
We like to distinguish ourselves from Republicans by sayin that we have core values, while the other side merely pursues power at any means. But I'm wondering if the culture of triangulation among Democratic elites means that our value system has the potential to morph just as easily as that of the other side.
History fans know that the Guelph and Ghibelline conflict weakened the Italian states ... It kept them self-absorbed, unable to see themselves as others saw them, unable to modernize, consolidate or expand in the same way that other European nations were able to do.
What will our modern conflict between Democrat and Republican do to us?