There’s an assumption about parties, candidates and elections that is much more toxic now in our polarized political pot-boiling that cooks above the flames of broadcast- stampeding … you know: only with news that sells rather than news that matters.
“Your favorite party is the only one that can produce an agenda and an “electable” candidate to preach that one true agenda.
Other parties are part of some nefarious conspiracy to destroy Your Favorite Party along with Your Beloved Country as You Know It.
Supporters of other parties are motivated by group-think that consists of less drinkable bathwater than Your own Favorite Party’s group-think.
Supporters of other parties are operating in bad faith and only pretending to be liberals, progressives, conservatives or tea-snots. ”
Everyone knows that Your Favorite Party is number two on the corporate lobby buy-in-and-sell-out respect ladder. But also that your party is moving up to number one some day soon if enough of the farm is given away.
The Country would be better off if parties were more accurately self-identified by their name and agenda – even if that meant more parties. We need at least a strong third party to keep the other two honest. Can’t think of a better way to un-dummy the electorate than candidates who ask the voters to:
Vote the Conservative Ticket,
Vote the Liberal Ticket,
Vote the Labor Ticket,
Vote the Social Conservative Ticket,
Vote the Tea Party Ticket,
Vote the Neocon Ticket,
Vote the Imperial Ticket
Vote the Jingoist Ticket.
… or combine the last two into the dumb notion as an American Exceptionalist Ticket.
That way, if we then befuddled our way once again down to two parties, you might see two surviving parties with a genuine philosophical and political differentiation.
Or am I only wishful for a party that believes in blunt truth telling and direct confrontation of bull crap from blowhards and civic nitwits when they see it?
Oh, I’m hoping the presiding party will stop running around in policy and philosophical circles posing as stragedy and tactics, but those who bleat and bray in defense of the party faith continue to demonstrate the selective blindness that cost the Demos the midterms.
We don’t need Demos trying to define leadership as primarily caution and timidity painted with statesmanlike wisdom.
The on-going foolishness in the Republican campaign perhaps overrides the one gigantic lesson learned from both his elections. Except for the most obtuse Democrats who are still stuck in some sort of presumed political graduate-school we can see plainly that voters tend to a leader from the junior high locker room who’ll talk straight-talk, walk tall-walk, speak directly to the people about his personal values and opinion, shoot (speak) from the hip and pose as a decider.
Such voters seem to blindly expect and assume a wise decider who looks for and accepts counsel.
George W. Bush (that would be Jeb’s older brother) demonstrated how not to fake the latter and his current disrepute demonstrates the former. Although Dubya also has amply demonstrated his intellectual lack of depth and the weakness of his rigid and inflexible thinking, it was never those views and positions that got him inside the door to the oval office. It was the projection of his posing as a religious American Patriot leader.
The electorate has demonstrated no proven dramatic wisdom recently when it has voted. It is not made up of a sophisticate majority dominated by folks who’ve read the political philosophizers.
… although the electorate has been a good field for the practice for cunning Machiavellians. (think spin-doctor)
We as an electorate vote more our gut than our reason … and we always will. Dubya also demonstrated how to lose that gut support.
Demo’s have not yet learned such and in fact have squandered that gut support since 2008. The reason is partially demonstrated by – among other things – Demo fears about discussing and sharing personal religious values – hoping that the voters are on the same page. But in fact that very reluctance suggests Demos are soft on all values and not just the judgmental kiddie-stuff like anti-gay, school prayer, allegiance pledges, creationism and wars on sacred holidays.
Demos as liberal progressives or progressive liberals behave as if they are dominated by an underlying assumption that the predominant inner and unspoken wisdom of a majority of citizens is some constant intellectual introspective pondering of civics.
American voters need arousal. They will follow the candidate who picks up the standard, waves it in our faces and says “FOLLOW ME!”
The friendly and reasonable candidate who hesitates is not fully prepared to lead effectively.
Rather, the image is that of of an intelligent and thoughtful candidate who in reality wants to become moderator of a forum-based democracy where rational thought and slow deliberation toward consensus are the literal wheels of the national wagon.
We don’t seem to have that kind of democratic republic because it’s so theoretical for a population that is too democratically unwieldy, too busy with unimportant distractions to pay sufficient attention.
The country doesn’t want to be governed by consensus but by a leader who acts like Lincoln, fights like Washington but talks like John Wayne.
Demos have an able and competent leader who doesn’t mirror the consensus desire.
Reflublicans have only the cockeyed cowboys(cowgirls) of Calico County.
Curmudgeon at Work 