Brian M Downing
Conservative attacks on President Obama and his agenda are fierce and seemingly everywhere, especially on talk radio. The president’s healthcare program is alleged to contain provisions for government bureaus to decide who lives and who dies. His fiscal policies are said to have created or at least profoundly worsened the economic situation. Claims are leveled that the national debt is mainly his responsibility. And of course we are on the brink of fascism – their word, not my exaggeration. I just spell it right for them.
In recent elections the GOP has lost both Houses and the White House, and hysteria has set in. Facing marginality, it’s launched attacks that are loud, boorish, and often with little if any basis in reality. The GOP emerged from the ashes of the Whig party; it may be on the same path to self-immolation. Ordinarily something heading for self-destruction should be left alone, but the GOP is damaging the nation as well.
The GOP plan is to thoroughly discredit the Democrats and pave the way for big wins in Congress in 2010. History is on their side: the party out of power usually picks up more than a few seats in midterm elections. But the GOP plans may gang agley, as they aft do. Their shots are thus far not helping their cause. Statistics show declines in the president’s approval rating and also in trust in the Democrats, but they do not show increases in support for the GOP.
The Republicans appear increasingly off-putting to many in the public, and without a leader to provide adult supervision, the party will be a difficult sell to large parts of the public. The GOP is becoming seen, especially by younger voters, as the party of clods and louts. (Rockefeller Republicans at least knew good gin, enjoyed Puccini, and might have read Reinhold Niebuhr but never John Hagee.) Fewer middle-class people will wish to be associated with the present-day GOP, not by membership, not by financial support, not by electoral support. Many will turn away from politics, seeing it akin to professional wrestling but without the tongue-in-cheek quality of Vince McMahon.
New and disaffected voters might also shift to a third party, possibly one further to the right than the GOP, if the adults regain control of the party and this dismays the others. Alternately, a different kind of third party might emerge, one drawing support from those discontented with the stale packaging and hackneyed salesmanship of both major parties. They might find the left-right spectrum of politics to be archaic, lifeless, and all too convenient for the duopoly. A new movement could build upon popular discontent with the duopoly’s support for free trade and global military presence, and its blithe ignorance of the impending debt crisis and the need for an industrial policy that will revitalize the middle class.
Another possibility occurs – one whose denouement would take far longer to come about. The anger, incivility, and cynicism, which are increasing in scope and intensity on both sides, might someday prove to be part of a political dynamic more ominous than anything we’ve seen in recent memory.
~ ©2009 Brian M Downing