The most infuriating thing about Republicanism to me is the fact that we keep trying it, and it keeps not working. American Imperialism doesn’t work. The flip side of the Republican Foreign Policy of bombing various Brown People, Isolationism, doesn’t work either. One of the main reasons Republicanism doesn’t work is because America is ot an island, it never has been. Like it or not, we are part of the greater world, part of the planet. Mishima’s headline and LithiumCola’s essay both talk about this. In perhaps the greatest oxymoron of all, the Republican philosophy of global trade and either bombing brow people or isolationism are incredibly mutually exclusive. That oxymoron is part of what is splitting the GOP now, along with another global issue, which no amount of Karen Hughes type diplomacy can solve, economic migration. Or as the Republicans like to frame it….dirty Mexicans stealing your jobs and threatening your families…or conversely, a cheap labor force to be welcomed and exploited. The Republican dream of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny just doesn’t hold up on a planetary scale. It’s internal conflicts aside, it simply cannot work on a planet that is now undeniably interdependent. It just doesn’t work. It especially doesn’t work without a Big Daddy figure to weave together the warring factions within the party. Without a Reagan or a faux Reagan like GWBush, the whole thing falls apart.
The two major factions in the Republican party are Business and the Traditionalists. (to put it as kindly as possible) Business wants to reap the harvest of globalization and if possible, if it doesn’t cost too much, resource hegemomy. Unfortunately for them they are finding out i Iraq that resource hegemony carries a heavy price, it may be good for the MIC, but it is bad for every other business sector. The Traditionalists want an Isolated America where through legislation and social pressures, everyone is “like us.” No Brown People, no gays, no weirdos. A safe orderly society that presents no challenges, but holds no fears for their ill-defined (since it doesn’t hold up to logic if it IS defined)”way of life.”
Sorry folks, it just won’t work…especially if you can’t meld the two factions and use that combined power to shout down the rest of us…you know us humans who value justice and fairplay and cooperation with the rest of the planet….because we have learned that….it works.
Fortunately for sane people, without this coalition they are toast…and none of their candidates except the Amazing Plastic Mitt has any hope of forming it, and he won’t be able to because his plasticness is so transparent. The only question is will the traditionalists hold their nose and vote McCain and “Amnesty?”
Trickle down economics doesn’t work. We have had seven years of Bush tax cuts to “stimulate the economy,” and now……we need to stimulate the economy? “nuff said…except to those who refuse to listen. Voodoo Economics indeed!
The Politics Of Hate doesn’t work. Like all of their recent strategies it works…for a while, and then the REAL Silent majority starts standing up to it and it is revealed as something that’s only goal is to hurt harm and separate. It’s only real appeal is xenophobia, and while America loves to flirt with xenophobia…it will never fully marry it. It is only when the politics of hate has a champion in power that it becomes popular. The REAL Silent Majority in America is not the white male evangelical…it is everybody else.
In conclusion then, it has once again been demonstrated….amazingly well…..that Republicanism doesn’t work. The only question now….is how to drive this point home. For GOOD this time, so we o longer have swing this low in the political pendulum again.
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If CERTAIN PEOPLE would stop enabling it and work to expose it instead.
that whole democracy thing and see what happens. America at the present time is a wonderful model of what not to do, our country is getting privatized, the public sphere is shrinking and there seems to be this notion that we should just not have a public sphere or a public, just indebted workers whose only value is to consume.
FEAR.
“Oh shit… they know!“
of an experience I had professionally a few years ago.
I joined a network of organizations who worked with runaway and homeless youth in the state. The network was run by a man who seemed to buy into the “king of the hill” kind of mentality. He wanted to keep other non-profits out of the network and maintain control in some misguided effort to garner the resources for his organization.
One day after he left a meeting and some of us were chatting, we discussed his rather blatant attempts at control and noticed that (because he’d kept the network so small) we had enough votes to boot him in the next election – which we did. He left kicking and screaming, but we were able to open up the network, grow members, and become a stronger voice in the state for runaway and homeless youth.
Afterwards, I wondered how someone can buy into the “king of the hill” construct as a way to maintain control. It seems to me to always be doomed to failure. Maybe I’m naive, but that’s what I see.
Oh, and by the way, if any of you think that non-profits are exempt from this kind of hard-ball politics, you are sorely mistaken. They just do it with a smile on their face, but you better watch your back!!
to live in an “adult” country, not an adolescent one. Empires are for kids with insecurity complexes, democracies are for adults. We have had our shot at running the world, I think we now need to figure out how to run our country properly. I am not preaching isolationism either, but the work should start here and then flow outward. We are in no position to be setting examples for others.
….the business faction and the traditional faction are united..they fear The Cosmic Thunderer (God).
Fortunately, Americans (and the Repuglicans) are seeing how full goose looney the Chritian Right is thanks to the Huckeroo.
There’s hope..but unfortunately there are stealth Republicans (business) currently leading in the polls and they have “D’s” after their names.
I have no doubt that we will nominate the only candidate that the R’s can defeat. The Business faction will be happy no matter what happens.
it is fundamentaly like a game of musical chairs…..
only more people keep arriving as more chairs are being removed…….
and each time a chair is withdrawn the remaining folks who have chairs clap their hands and yell, “more pancakes for me in the morning !?!”…..
at scale it fails utterly…..
but it takes a while for people to give up on it and come to terms with being at scale….
this delay is the most dangerous feature in our current journey…..
it will in the long run be the deciding factor for which way things go for us…..
the sooner the better…..
there is a point which could be called “too late” for civilization as we currently know it……
and we are standing in the door of our burning house listening to the maniacal music of a psychotic game of musical chairs wondering if somehow we just rearranged the pieces of the myth we could get it to work……