For most of my life I have been taught the “you say potato and I say potahto” lesson in regard to politics. It’s simple really, liberals have a donkey tattoo dress in blue and love the government, conservatives have an elephant tattoo wear red and hate the government. And if each side wouldn’t stop eating granola/shooting guns to listen to each other we would be much better off. This is a very common trope in the “grand conversation” as it is a pretty easy to digest way of ho-humming our way through political disagreement. Can’t agree on guns or abortions? Say both sides are to blame, and in no time flat you can get to a smooth comfortable equilibrium in conversations with friends. And why wouldn’t that be true, I’m not going to change your mind just like you aren’t going to change mine. However this piece of epistemic magic is just a simple farce to hide us from the real truth of why there is so much division in this country. Leadership of one party, the Republicans have bullied this country for more than forty years into thinking that their intransigence is just as acceptable to our everyday life as liberals promoting a platform that progresses our country. Why shouldn’t they? It’s just a difference of opinion. But I would argue that Republican leadership does not have opinions, and frankly they haven’t had one in years. They have had bumper sticker slogans to repeat, easy to remember canned responses which take the place of actual policy. It’s Democrats playing checkers while Republicans are playing 52 card pickup, or in more crass terms the Republicans are going to the bathroom in the Democrat’s cereal while Chuck Todd asks the Democrats why they won’t just put in less milk. It’s not that Democrats are not reaching across the aisle enough, it is that no one has asked what Democrats are reaching out to. It’s in understanding the shift in this paradigm where we can re-center the discourse towards a meaningful conversation. Also a key note when I refer to the Republicans it is my shorthand for Republican and Conservative leadership, not voters (unless explicitly stated). Got it, good!
Positions versus Outcomes:
If there is one thing I have been taught about Republicans it is that they hate taxes. Taxes are likened to theft because there is a cultural conditioning to see oneself as separate from the actions of the government. Large swaths of White Republican voters has been given loads of dog-whistle terms meant to separate your personal connections to what taxes do. So when a new policy comes in that raises taxes one may see it as an overall negative impact on your life, and be completely against it. While Liberals may argue about how taxes and the government allow our democracy to function it becomes increasingly more difficult to puncture the overarching position of “taxes and government are bad”. Republicans do not have to support that position because tribally that is where your ideology lies, and that is enough for their purposes. It doesn’t matter the deficits or income inequality left behind because I as a lone tax payer and hard working American deserve my money for my own purposes alone.
There was a time when Republicans in debates used to argue the merits of the outcomes of trickle down economics. George H.W. Bush called it “voodoo economics” because it was powered strictly by your belief that it will work, like Peter Pan’s ability to fly. In a surprisingly refreshing yet equally depressing video of the 1982 Republican Presidential Primaries, the argument was not that taxes are bad or good, but if we were to cut taxes what would that mean for the government's deficits and how was it positioned with other presidential policies in years prior. Imagine that. There was time in the past where it was valuable to have a recognition of a candidates continuation of the office of the presidency. It shows a respect for the office even if I starkly disagree with its proponents. Contrast that with the 2016 Republican Presidential Primaries in which all 19 candidates uniformly and unequivocally pushed for a flat tax and tax cuts
We as Liberals need to recognize what this shift means. Republicans are arguing their policy on their dogmatic positions while Liberals have been arguing for best outcomes. On education, Liberals want to invest in colleges and public schooling because of its potential to elevate generations of young people into being fully capable adults and not to burden them in financial insecurity. Republicans think government spending is bad. On the environment, Liberals want government to invest in sustainable infrastructure, and incentivize environmentally friendly practices to curb the damaging effects on climate change. Republicans think government spending is bad. Healthcare should be a right with our inefficient system needing an overhaul to keep people from going to ruin over medical emergencies. Republicans think government spending is bad. Liberals want their policies to matter by showing statistics and charts, but until we chip away at the ideals that Republicans hold tight with white knuckles, there will always be that standstill. Republican leadership doesn’t need to govern as long as the hold true to their positions.
Power versus Policy:
The Republicans do not want an end to abortion as is the case with the egregious anti-abortion law, they strike such policies because they want both support from their evangelical base, and to ensure a White Male hegemony over women’s bodies. In cases such as this, what is being argued is not policy, but power. It is not enough for Republicans to say we are for this policy, and would like to gain consensus from the public to its merits which will be supported in our votes. What is being argued is that they have the right to push their priorities because they hold the power. The perfect representative of this tactic is Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. It was wholly undemocratic and un-American to keep Barack Obama from getting his Supreme Court Justice from given a shot, or to keep all bills from the Democratic-led House of Representatives from getting a vote. He relishes in calling himself the “Grim Reaper” of legislation, when in fact he is incompetently not doing his job. One man from a state whose population in can fit five times in New York, or ten times in California is keeping democratically deserved initiatives from being discussed or voted on. It goes further. In North Carolina and Wisconsin the Republican State Legislatures are trying to remove the power from Democratic Governors, because it means a loss of power to their hegemony. Instead of having popular opinions that are supported democratically, there is a rush to consolidate power even more to hands of Republican control. Georgia Secretary of State now Governor Scott Kemp oversaw his own election, gerrymandering, and voter suppression laws are allowed keeping historically marginalized communities from having a voice. Nakedly the fight is not for claim of the soul of America, but the right to buckle it’s hands and feet.
Understand as opposition party members of Democratic, Progressive and Liberal alignments, that there needs to be a higher sensitivity and response to these actions. We are being pushed towards a Republican hegemony, and if we keep feeling as if we can discuss policy, we will miss the boat on what is really driving Republican leadership.
Democracy versus Privilege
What is the most jarring realization of the Trump Presidency is that our worst base instincts of racism and White Supremacy, are starting to gain normalized acceptability in our body politic. The deplorable tea bag that has been steeping over the entire history of our country has finally passed the lips of one of our two major political parties. Their vision of the United States has always had a wink and a nod to whom this country should be at the benefit for, but now it is explicitly stated. The Republican party wants America to be solely at the benefit of White people. Their policies use the warped comfort blanket of “freedom and liberty” to cover their wishes for oppression. The Muslim travel ban, the zero tolerance family separation policy, the courting and acceptance of neo-nazi’s into Black spaces is a harsh reminder that the Republicans don’t see the idealized version of America as a melting pot. They hold allegiance to the People’s Republic of White Privilege. A perfect example of this transition is highly demonstrated by the Executive Branch. Each leader is a caustic bomb of privilege meant to benefit one class of people over the other. From the Department of Interior removing tribal rights for extraction, the Department of Education removing civil rights for Black students, to a neurosurgeon being in charge of federal housing, allegiance to the United States is secondary to the allegiance to one’s privilege.
Starkly, this is a reminder that Republican leadership is the greatest threat to American democracy. Not because they think differently about government, but because they see no value in democracy as a means of seeing our values as citizens. Paul Manafort the now convicted campaign manager to President Donald Trump courted several dictators and authoritarians and offered his services to them knowing full well that it could/would negatively affect the United States. Why? Because he holds allegiance is to his privilege before his country. If we were remove the floorboards of our metaphorical house, we will see that he is not alone.
There needs to a recognition of where disagreements happen in our country. We talk almost exclusively on policy because that is the most comfortable space to be in with friends and family. We feel good when we enter into a debate in which my policy proposal makes more sense than yours, and that satisfaction gets us through these trying times. However, above all of our heads, is where the real political conversation is being had. One that argues based on cultural dogma, power and privilege, and asks for loyalty to those things before all else. Liberals don’t need to fight harder, they need to fight higher. We need to plant our flags in the spaces where our fellow citizens refuse to acknowledge. Because the results of ignoring this space can be catastrophic for our country going forward. The paradigm of our discourse has shifted to a place where only an elitist few are given space, and together the average Democrat and Republican need to meet them there before it's too late.