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CSotD: Chapter MMXIII: A New Beginning

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Mike Peterson Published: November 10, 2012 1 minute 1 comment

I like this Tony Auth panel, because it's more about what happened than it is about spiking the football.

The Republicans badly misjudged the country. It wasn't a landslide, but it was a clear loss and, yeah, they missed the bus, and I don't think it's coming back. For the Republican Party, and conservatives in general, the question now is how they can reposition themselves to remain relevant.

To do that, I think they have to do some soul-searching in the sense of defining their core values apart from some of the specifics that they have allowed to become iconic. They need to look back at Barry Goldwater and Scoop Jackson and some others in somewhat the same way that liberals look back at Jefferson.

Jefferson was a great political theorist, but his ownership of slaves was hypocritical not just in retrospect but also in comparison with others. Samuel Johnson wondered  "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" and many of Jefferson's contemporaries and allies freed their slaves, at least in their wills if not in their lifetimes.

And yet the values he espoused were valid, however far he may have fallen short of them himself.

Similarly, conservatives have to divorce themselves from the specifics of how their leadership has historically related to minorities, to women, to those of different religions, to the poor, and try to identify the values and to redefine those principles apart from this outdated and increasingly unacceptable baggage.

This process is going to necessarily involve separating from those who cannot make the jump. Aside from the degree to which they actually drag you down by demanding pledges and defining positions, you are judged by the company you keep, and Republicans cannot afford to be seen as they appear in this Mike Luckovich cartoon:

When Bill O'Reilly declares with obvious regret that the Obama victory represents the decline of "the white establishment," identifies that as "traditional America," and states his belief that minorities and women are greedy grabbers, you have to either embrace the one-color rainbow on the right or actively and specifically separate yourself from O'Reilly and his ilk.

See Tony Auth, above.

The Republicans will do what they need to do, or they will, as a viable political force, fade from the scene. I guess it's their call.

Meanwhile, what needs to happen now really is a new beginning.

I keep hearing talk about Obama facing the fiscal cliff, as if he were the only person responsible for fending off disaster. That's bull — budgets are a Congressional responsibility, and the president's ability to direct things only goes so far — but the point is to deal with the cliff, not bicker over who did what.

The creation of the fiscal cliff was one of the key achievements of Congress and the Obama administration, not because it solved the problem but because it laid it out as a game of chicken, a way to force the two sides to stop posturing and start talking.

With the election over, the cliff does loom, but it's not entirely Obama's challenge to solve the dilemma, not is it going to be his fault if Congress can't make it work. 

Ben Sargent sees it this way:

But Tom Toles is a little more specific in where he sees the problem:

I'd rather take Sargent's view and approach the issue as if both sides had been intransigent, as if they were both to blame for the gridlock, even though …

Okay, look, here's the real metaphor:

Liberal and Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, however you want to denote the two sides this nation has divided itself into, are like a couple whose marriage is in deep trouble.

They know it, and they don't want a divorce. They're willing to get help. They're willing to go to counseling and straighten this all out.

And all either of them really wants is to find a qualified professional counselor who will listen to each side, and then turn to one and say, "If you truly want to save this marriage, you have to admit that everything was your fault and then you have to start doing everything the way your spouse has been wanting you to."

And their idea of "compromise" is that they won't demand an apology, as long as they get their way from here on out, and that all the change is happening to the other partner.

That never works, but they never learn.

Here's another metaphor, and a suggestion: Quit combin' your hair and start rolling up your sleeves, guys. No, really: Roll up your damn sleeves.