I get hit with that number all the time: "The lesser of two evils is still evil." What is an evil, though? A difficult, negative choice. Some people don't appreciate that sometimes reality doesn't present you with an obvious good vs. evil choice. For people on both the Right and Left, it's a difficult thing to face.
As a writer, though, some of my education has been in drama, and one idea I can bring to the table here is this: the most dramatic and important choices we make, in fact the only real ones, are the choices between irreconcilable goods, or between the lesser of two evils.
In other words, it's not a true conflict until the alternatives suck on either side, or unless you have two different good things of which you can only have one. Unfortunately, some expect there to be clear alternatives, and if we don't get what we want, we just fail in heroic fashion and everybody thanks us for it.
The trouble is, we tried it once before, and it didn't work. Progressives in the House voted down the first TARP proposal, remember? Did we get a better deal? No. We got a hastier, less well-considered one.
Like some Republicans, some folks on the left believe in letting bad things happen so the voters punish the transgressors. Makes it simpler, doesn't it? Don't take the deal, don't bail out the banks, the bad things happen, and everybody sees the light, and goes for your policy.
Well, back in 2008, no, that didn't happen, in part because Bush remained President, in part because our majority in the Senate was only just big enough to hold the majority, not enough to prevent filibusters.
Some people here are actually saying it would have been better to let the debt ceiling go, than make this deal. They said, if only we were tougher.
Look, last year, we passed Healthcare Reform, whatever you think about it, over the objections of the Tea Party, and everybody else. Were they any less tough then? We pretty much slam dunked it down their throat. We extended the debt ceiling twice without fanfare. Were the Tea Party any wimpier then than now?
The difference here, even if members of our congress and the President can be called timid, is one of numbers in Congress. More than that, majorities, and control of the committees. There's a reason why Waxman isn't holding government accountable, and Darrel Issa's getting to play melon-blaster. There's a reason all the wrong people are making decisions on environmental issues, and a shit-ton of anti-abortion bills are showing up.
The majority isn't just the ability to pass laws, it's the ability to set the agenda.
But with that ability comes hard choices, that is if you want to get anything passed in a divided government.
We had a taste of it during the first Congress of the Obama Administration, and now are getting it shoved down our throats.
So, balking at the bad choices, vacillating, the Democrats here are sounding the same stupid note that Republicans and some Democrats did almost three years ago. if they succeed, the result will be about the same, only worse, but hey, who's counting?
For my part, I became a blogger and online political activist not because I was the world's most liberal soul, but because Bush Policies were not only not working, but the politics of his party were such that his political instincts were leading him to deny there were problems.
God help me, I don't like that attitude out of my own party, either. We should be the party that keeps this country working, and operating, not the party that lets it burn for our own political gain, out of some sense of offense to a bad deal, or simply because we think it would be better to just have people learn that awful lesson.
I get much the same frustrations with the Republicans. You should see my fights with them over on Watchblog. Try arguing with somebody who thinks that letting the default occur would teach Americans and their government to live within their means. To come back and listen to people make the same arguments is disturbing to me.
See, in my attitude, our politics isn't worth a damn compared to the good fortune of this country. When our politics doesn't match that standard, I consider those politics as worthy of opposition as that of my opposition on Watchblog. I did not become a more dedicated Democrat to watch my country be lead to disasters under my party that were just as pointless as the ones Republicans inflicted.
No, I do not like the deal. But I will not mourn the fact that it's better than the Republican proposals. I think our best option is to get the debt ceiling deal passed, and spend the next year and a half finding ways to beat the shit out of the Republicans on all the different issues. If we can get over our seemingly eternal crisis of confidence long enough, we can take those multiple debt ceiling votes, and turn them into a liability. If we get off our asses, we can take the fight to the Republicans on those triggers, and make sure kinder cuts and tax increases are on the agenda.
We should recognize the opportunity to make those debt reduction negotiations a hazard for Republicans. The Defense cuts work against them. The tax argument works for us. The possiblity of a medicare provider cut, though bad, is not a politically safe cut for the Republicans either. If we could put them back on their heels over the Ryan Plan, we sure as hell can pressure them with that provider reduction.
For those who think that we might see caves and other karst topography on this manner, I'd say, if you're so damn afraid of that, why don't you start putting pressure on your representatives not to cave. let them know you're there, and that you'll be voting in the primaries. Let them know what you're opposed to. Let them know what you want.
Let's be aggressive with every negotiation, Aggressive in telling Democrats what we want, aggressive in organizing Democrats around it, Aggressive in pitting Tea Party against mainline Republican, aggressive in taking the fight to the Republicans, rather than taking it to our own.
But aggressive in screwing ourselves over in order to show those bastards in Washington that we won't be taken for granted?
Look at the Tea Party. Look at that bloody mess. The victories these people get will be short-lived, in no small part because every compromise is hell for them. They already think their people compromise too much, so they make dumb votes that, in the course of things, get worse results rather than better from the deals they are offered. If you listen to what these people say, many of them are pissed with the deals. Some because they wanted to trigger a default, some because they were holding out for their perfect deal. The Tea Party, you must understand, is a brew of desperation and purism, of people who believe that their political order is threatened, who think if the other side wins, or even gets considerable concessions, then the fight is lost, even if benefits were attained They're a product of the rigid-minded Republican cult of policy, and their refusal to consider these deals isn't strengthening the party, it's tearing it apart.
To wit, we can expect a good number of Tea Party Republicans to say no to this deal, and a good number of Tea Party activists to treat this as a lost opportunity at best, a betrayal at worst. Like many Democrats, they are dissatisfied with their party, and as such, are prepared to bolt like many here. The irony is, the party that accepts what they see as a bad deal with the most grace may be the party that wins next November.
There's a difference between being a tough negotiator and a hardline negotiator, just as there's a difference between a hard material and a tough one. See, things that are hard like diamonds and certain kinds of steel put up a lot of resistance to being deformed, but when they fail, they just break, rather than bend and return to their shape. That's the irony, really: many hard materials are brittle.
There has to be a mix of stiffness and give to your politics, or otherwise the other side can provoke your reactions with ease, break up your support, undermine your political power. It is better, in my view to take a few bad deals and remain unified longer than the Republicans, than to self-inflict harm on ourselves politically, and then leave the Tea Party the last ones standing. The Tea Party must yield to despair first.
The more they do in the next year and a half, the fewer people may show up at the polls for the Republicans. That means many marginal districts could flip into our hands. If the collapse is bad enough, we could even get the old safe districts on board, too.
The way I think of the Tea Party is that it's the Republican's desperation to see their agenda realized, embodied in a faction that really functions to do nothing else but force that agenda all over the country. If we bog them down in the mud, in their frustrations with their own party, we could push the other party into destroying itself.
But we have to be able to hold up under the strain of dealing with these extortionists and abductors of America's future. We have to stop making this about purity, and start making this about our ability to better endure the realities of a divided government. If we can achieve that, push enough deals past the comfort zone of the Tea Party, they might defeat themselves, instead of our party defeating itself.