If the explanations, theories and admonitions I’ve been hearing and reading over the past few days are to be believed, half of America just let out a massive, collective, primal cry of “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!!” It was a cry for attention from 60,072,551 middle children, and a demand that Mike and Carol and Alice and all the other kids had darn well better start paying attention to Jan.
But there’s something wrong with this picture.
Never mind that Jan’s solution to feeling unloved and unappreciated and put-upon was to run away from Mike and Carol and move in with Archie Bunker (or at least his less-lovable, schizophrenic, malignant-narcissist evil twin). Never mind that there probably is something to be said for the frustration that comes from living in a country and a political system that, in many ways, really does cater only to Marcia and Cindy. But before the ‘70s TV metaphor gets completely out of hand, try to imagine any political pundit in 2006, 2008 or 2012 saying something like this:
The Republicans lost this election because conservatives in middle America just stopped listening to well-educated coastal liberals, the people who live in our cities and our centers of art, culture and technology. If they want to win future elections, conservatives need to back off of the anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-government rhetoric, stop demanding that liberals respect their gun rights and religious beliefs, and start listening to the other side; start caring about their problems and their anxieties. Conservatives have to realize that liberals are good, decent, honest, hardworking, law-abiding, patriotic Americans, who have legitimate grievances with a system that has been ignoring them for far too long.
Yea, didn’t think so.
When Republicans win elections, we’re told that it’s because Democrats, their candidate (whoever (s)he is), and their liberal elitist well-educated coastal urban constituencies didn’t listen to what white rural conservative middle-American flyover-country pickup-truck country-music Joe-sixpack voters were “saying,” which is inter alia that they feel ignored and neglected and anxious and afraid and are sick-and-tired of politicians and Washington and political correctness and the corrupt system and all the other things they’re sick-and-tired of. We must start listening to them; we must take their grievances seriously; we must set aside the things we care about and start caring about their plight, their problems, their feelings, their priorities. We have to start agreeing with the other side if we ever want to win again.
But wait just a second. Clearly, we don’t hear the same thing when the shoe is on the other foot; indeed we were told that the Democrats’ sweeping victory in 2008 was proof that America is actually a “center-right nation.” Somehow both Democratic and Republican victories validate that thesis. But more to the point, we’re now being chastised for ignoring the other side’s “genuine” feelings of anxiety and resentment, and for our persistent “demands” that they care about the things we care about … while it is at the same time demanded of us that we start caring about the things they care about.
Huh? How does that work? We’re supposed to set aside our concerns about the environment, LGBT rights, income inequality, &c., and start “listening to” the “other side” that has (a.) never listened to us, (b.) never set aside its own priorities when we’ve won, and (c.) never been admonished to do any of that or chastised for its failure to do so? Liberals have to stop demanding that others come to their side, but acquiesce to the same demands from others? The former is a losing strategy for Democrats and the latter is a winner, but for Republicans either the reverse is true or it doesn’t apply either way? WTF?
And am I now doing the Jan Brady thing by feeling this way, pointing this out and asking these questions? Am I now personifying the self-congratulation and resentment I’ve been observing, analyzing and decrying for the past seven years?
I’m not here to talk about whether the metaphorical Jan’s feelings are legitimate or not; whether they’re based on reality, first-hand experience and observation or on the content of invidious, cynical, fact-free propaganda. Frankly I’m tired of that conversation, and apparently, telling Jan that she’s being unreasonable or selfish, that she’s being lied to, programmed, used and exploited by professional ratf***ers and well-paid propagandists, that her anxiety and fear is based on bullshit, is a losing argument as well.
So is comparing 60 million people to Jan Brady.
I think maybe the short version of what this all means is that liberals and Democrats always have to be the adults — let’s face it, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are pretty good analogues to Mike and Carol Brady — while everyone else gets to be the anxious, needy middle children whose feelings and desires must be acknowledged, respected, and attended to, with the GOP being the beneficiary (intended or unintended) of any failure (real or imagined) to do so. I know how that sounds (jeez, I really am doing it...) but I can’t think of another way to put it. As I’ve discussed previously, I don’t think any of this reflects well on the GOP’s constituency or on the Party itself, but this is where we are.
And I really don’t know if there is anything we can do about it.
I’m going to try to take a good, long sabbatical from reading and writing about politics. I want to go back to reading fiction instead of punditry, writing songs instead of blog posts, listening to music instead of talk radio, watching movies instead of The Rachel Maddow Show. I’ve lost a lot of that since I gave up teaching to become a lawyer and, at about the same time, became passionately interested in electing and re-electing Barack Obama. I need a new hobby. I need to re-program. Knowing me, I’ll be back sooner than I want to right now.
I just want to say in closing how deeply I appreciate the Rescues and Recommendations the DKos community has given my writing over the past several years. I’m glad I was able to participate and that some of what I’ve had to say has been meaningful.
