UPDATED: Kos Is Dead Wrong

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Thursday November 09, 2006 · 12:13 PM PST

2006/11/09 · 12:13

UPDATE: It seems that a lot of commenters who disagree with me are arguing that this isn't about revenge, just that Republicans need to "see what it feels like". This seems like an awfully weak rationale. Does anyone reasonably believe that there is any end to such "demonstration" of power? What stops the Republicans from doing the same thing whenever they get the majority back? An eye for eye makes the whole world blind and all that. But even more, this strategy is a winning one only for the party that wants to undermine government, not for us.

I could not more vigorously disagree with Markos's recent post stating that our Congressional leadership should reciprocate the Republicans anti-democratic procedural rules to "teach them a lesson". This is asking not just for Democratic collapse, but for a crushing blow to our democracy generally.

Instead I hope that the Democrats will wield their new power more responsibly than the Republicans did, and resist the temptation to use the full extent of procedural BS to freeze out Republican participation in Congress even if that is what the Republicans did to us.

As Barack Obama articulately expressed in a slightly different context "our job is harder than the conservatives' job".

Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

Similar to this, whenever we cheapen the process, we lose. When we do something which diminishes the respect we project for our institutions and encourages the electorate to see politics as something reducible to a cheap "power play" between people who are nothing like them, we lose.

As tempting as it is to get revenge, we must resist that temptation. Our job, as Obama said, is harder. Our job must be to instill confidence in the efficacy and relevance of government and to inspire reverence for the sanctity of our institutions as surely as the Republicans have sought to destroy that confidence and that reverence. Otherwise this recent Democratic victory will be little more than a bump in the road toward an even broader era of public cynicism about politics in general, and thus victory for right-wing, anti-democratic extremists.

Yes, it is harder to be the good guys, but we didn't sign on to this party to get victory for victory's sake. Our party believes that our country's democratic institutions do have a role to play in bettering the lives of its people.

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