To paraphrase (I think) Jennifer Rubin, the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing pulled back the curtain and revealed that even the Supreme Court itself has been commandeered by sheer power politics. The sort of power politics that feels not only entitled to be abusive to outsiders, but understands that it must be abusive toward outsiders in order to sustain itself.
But shouldn’t it have been obvious, or at least suspicious, when people like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were nominated and confirmed?
And shouldn’t it have been clear that brutal power politics was taking over when people like Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott and Dick Armey were carrying on with their shenanigans? There are other names that ought to be put on this list. And some of them are still around. Names like (surprise!) Lindsey Graham. And even Brett Kavanaugh himself. The fact that he was far lesser known 20 years ago doesn’t matter. Most of us hadn’t heard of him then. But he was one of that bunch.
Heck…...you could see this foul attitude in people like Ed Meese back in, say, 1981 or 82. Or Spiro Agnew in 1970.
I’ll admit, though, that I wasn’t actually alarmed until the mid-90s. Until then I just didn’t believe that these people would ever be able to gain actual control over the conservative political agenda.
As early as about 1995 I started asking people what they thought and telling people what I feared. While it is true that I had some hope of convincing some to start opposing people like this, I really didn’t expect to accomplish very much along those lines. I was more focused on simply gauging public opinion and trying to determine for myself whether liberal/progressive attitudes outweighed conservative attitudes.
I got some blowback and hostility from conservative types, of course. But not very much. Mostly because I did not even try to engage those who showed me their attitudes without my asking. I understood that they were un-convincibles and that I was wasting my time with them. If they’re ever to learn any lessons, it’ll only be the hard way.
But what depressed me far, far more is the the sheer indifference I encountered. So many, many people would only grunt out two or three non-answers until I realized that they were not interested and resented any implication that they ought to think about just who ought to be trusted with power and who should not. They just didn’t want to be bothered with it.
I’ve spent the last twenty some years resenting it. I’m trying to talk myself out of that resentment for reasons that I hope to flesh out in the next few paragraphs.
I don’t talk politics very much anymore except with my wife (a bit) and kids (a bit) and a couple of close friends. Here on Daily Kos is where I talk politics the most.
The reason, of course, is that here at least people are interested! At least people will listen and respond. And I count all of you as friends for that. I’ve tried to return the favor and I’ll try to even improve on that in the future.
There are forums on the other side. I think one is called “Red State” and I’m sure there are others. I’ll bet that the people who go there do it for similar reasons to us when we come here.
But, and I think this is too easy to forget, between us on the ‘blue’ side and those on the ‘red’ side is a figurative ocean of people, perhaps 80% of the total, who just don’t want to be bothered with this whole debate. People who want to just vote for the party they’ve chosen, if they vote at all, and trust that everything will be okay.
Is it foolish? I think it is. But it could be that judging it in such terms is not useful. Maybe it ought to be viewed as merely a fact of life. After all, it never occurs to me to resent gravity even though that can be inconvenient. Resenting it would seem to be pretty irrational, right?
But there can be moments when the press of events might, and should, wake up this ‘sleeping’ majority. I thought that the rise of Gingrich Republicans would be it. Wrong! Then I hoped that their resurrection in the form of the tea party would be it. Wrong again!!!! Then I thought that the R nomination of Trump was it. The election itself, of course, made it horribly clear that I was wrong, wrong, wrong………..again………..
But now we’re closing in on two years. That ‘sleepwalking’ majority has been watching this clown and his ‘best people’. How can they not be disgusted? Most of them anyway. And this includes those who are inclined to be conservative. I’m not talking about partisan conservatives here. I’m talking about apolitical types who are conservative when pressed. Surely even they are starting to spend some time pondering just how badly things are destined to go when you grant chimpanzees the power to determine your fate.
Can it be that they’re beginning to ponder just how badly things are destined to go when you grant evil chimpanzees the power to determine your fate?
One would think that most of them must be looking with some alarm at the situation we’re in now. Is it at all possible that they can’t see the need to put their oar in the water and start rowing?
I’m inclined to think that this election is going to be a ‘wake up’ moment along the lines of 1974, if not bigger.
But even that is troubling, in a way, since the Democrats managed to blow that chance quite badly. But maybe they’ll take lessons from that experience.
Anyway…….if the apolitical majority realizes that they need to really take one side or the other, then I think things can work out well. This is because I believe that a solid majority will choose fair play and decency over cannibalistic power politics.
My faith, in younger years, that the good in humanity outweighs the bad in humanity has taken such a horrible beating over the last few decades that it’s been nearly dead. This could rejuvenate it.