Missing Traditional American Politics
Monday, October 26th, 2009
I have a love/hate relationship when I read Thomas Friedman of the NY Times. Sometimes, he seems brilliant on foreign policy and political issues; and then, he swallows the whole line on global warming and Big Government intervention to fix this looming armageddon. Early in October, he wrote a story lamenting the loss of traditional American politics.
Partisan politics is not new; they began with Jefferson and Hamilton opposing one another within George Washington’s first cabinet. Read about the Adams-Jefferson campaigns (1796-1800)and those of the Age of Jackson (1828-40). They were brutal. The difference, before 1992, was the President’s ability to deal with issues facing the Nation using the pronoun “we”. Once an election is over, the President-elect is the leader of the whole republic not just the voters that put him in office. He has to rise above the natural fractionalization of congressional politics and govern for the good of the nation. Americans have to be won over to believe he has their best intentions in mind.
As Friedman writes, ” ‘we’ have these huge problems- the national debt, the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change[sic] and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan- that ‘we’ can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective ‘we’ at work.” The change in how America looks at the occupant of the White House began with the election of Bill Clinton. Friedman ponders whether President Bush ‘41′ was our last “legitimate” president. Upon reflection, Friedman seems right in his analysis. The Right’s ‘politics of destruction’ was unleashed full bore on Clinton immediately after his election. The Clintons’ small-fry Arkansas scandals and the president’s moral pecadilloes were like gasoline while the new up and rising conservative Media struck the match. George W Bush was elected by a hair and had to be confirmed by a similarly hair’s width-conservative leaning Supreme Court. The Left never let him forget it. And that brings us to Barack Hussein Obama. The president’s citizenship (his father was Kenyan and his step-father was Indonesian); his choice of religion (Islam in Indonesia and radical Black-militantism under Rev. Wright); and ideological bent (friends with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, close ties with ACORN community organizers, and supporter of BigGovernment-Single-Payer Health Insurance) concertedly have led to an attack of his legitimacy by the Right. These attacks come not only from Conservative Talk Radio and Fox, but from Lou Dobbs of CNN and outspoken members of the US House of Representatives.
Going back to Friedman’s conclusion, the answer is not to cease from attacking the President’s politics; “politics is a tough business”, but can the country survive going “24 years w/o a legitimate president?” Can political leaders make their cases in an intelligent manner to sway American opinion w/o stooping to use slander and innuendo to “paralyze the genius of our system”? Can parties be honest w/ their platforms laying out plans for Americans to choose from to decide issues facing us and future generations? The excesses cannot be fixed overnight, but Americans must pressure their political leaders to move back toward the traditional American political system. Stricter limits on lobbyist money in campaigns; non-partisan drawing of political districts instead of equal-opportunity gerrymandering; equal access to ballots by third parties and independents to provide greater voter choice; and an end to the permanent presidential campaign “that encourages all partisanship” would be the place to start. The current system is unsustainable in the face of a growing list of deepening crises threatening our Republic.
