A Sea Change Is Happening In American Politics

11/11/2005

Paul Munnis

When Garrison Keillor came to Rochester this year to dine and talk with fellow Democrats he remarked that the neo-cons have to kick out of the GOP Party all who disagree with them. It’s an essential continuing purge in order to consolidate power; this Machiavellian manipulation must happen and is inevitable.

As we talk with friends and neighbors it is clear that many members of the GOP have indeed left the GOP Party and are in alliance with Democrats right now. There is a sort of tacit understanding that once Bush is gone these folks will once again reclaim the Party of Lincoln and close ranks and we will go back to bi-partisan politics to rebuild America. That is creating an interesting set of fellow-travelers.

Democrats understand this and we are happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with fellow Americans in battling this neo-con menace, a force that is mutually disliked by all of us.

Yet something weird is resulting, something quite unexpected, and lacking a name for it then I have decided to call it: “Bi-Partyianship.” The term sort of connotes the merger of the two parties and the notion of bi-partisanship as both groups struggle to work for the common good of this newly formed group. The new group is not fragile either. The GOP people who have joined with Democrats have all carefully thought things out and they are quite resolute. The Democrats have had their meditation moments too and realize its all about America first and Party much further down the list of things of importance.

As Mr. Keillor pointed out, with each iteration of the neo-con ethos, yet another group must be split off from the GOP until it winnows down to just the core neo-con party faithful. At that point they lose power because their majority has disappeared. With current polls showing roughly a 70-30 split it looks like the neo-cons are going down fast. Currently it looks like it might be about 17 percent of Americans who make up the neo-con faithful. So there is another 15 percent or so defection yet to happen. It appears tha the budget reconciliation bill in Congress is serving as the catalyst for that to happen. But the plurality is gone as there are now more who oppose the neo-cons than who support them. Yes, it does translate into votes and yes, it will cost the GOP the 2006 election.

We note that prior to any new political Party fracture, the targeted Party is first split by a divisive wedge issue and those that disagree with the neo-con gang then leave the GOP and join up with Democrats. That’s how it seems to work in the Karl Rove model at least.

How odd it is to see the neo-cons now splitting off Mr. Bush and Mr. Chaney and whoever thought we would see that happen? Yet, they have been making it clear to Bush and Chaney that they will be dropped like a hot potato if they don’t toe the neo-con ideological line and advance the neo-con agenda. Bush and Chaney are actually the targets of their own movement as the neo-cons cannabilize their Party an eat their children. How strange is that?

This is having a lot of impact upon the New Democrats. We are moving over and making room for the incoming folks and we are finding that we have a lot more shared values than we originally thought that we had. We are pretty much on the same page where deficits are concerned for example and we want them managed and we thought we were doing pretty darn good as a nation on deficit and debt management up until the 2000 election. We were all proud of the bi-partisan agreements to manage debt down and to build up fiscal reserves until Bush along came and raided the Treasury and then spent us into deficit ridden bankruptcy.

We are also of a common mindset about the Iraq War and the need to manage it much more astutely. We have come to see that Bush and those of us now aggregating together are just not on the same page concerning the justification for the Iraq war, the morality of the invasion of Iraq, or the conduct of the war. We have come to see that while we hate the occupation of Iraq we are stuck with it and we need to manage it much better. We agree on a need for a Project Plan for Iraq and serious efforts at managing the Project Plan. We have called for this only to be told “No” by Bush/Chaney. That “No” is uniting us in these matters and many others too.

When it comes to a need for America to maintain separation of Church and State there is amazing convergence of opinion. Most of us feel religion is a private matter and that personal moral behavior cannot be legislated and people whom you disagree with cannot be thrown into jail over their beliefs, especially when those beliefs that are based on faith and cannot be quantified, measured, or witnessed. We in fact seek to, and we want to, split over religion even as we also seek to assure each other of religious privacy and that we will respect this privacy. 

A new ethos of respect for the individual is also arising and is over-riding issues of homosexuality or prayer in school, and other faith based wedge issues including abortion. Again privacy is taking on a new meaning to include sexual preference privacy. We are becoming a much more inclusive and tolerant Party as a result.

There is also a common social safety net that we value, that we agree upon, with a need to save and improve and rescue those programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Student Loans, and a few more key social programs. We do not trust the neo-cons to touch them.

There is now a growing sense that America should be a place where it’s live and let live and that we are a pluralistic nation “a rainbow coalition” to borrow a term. That is a new tolerance that Karl Rove has unwittingly instituted even though he had never planned for it to happen that way.

What is happening with this new Bi-Partyianship is that a new group is forming in American Politics. It is a merger of Democrats and Centrist Republicans and even classic Liberals are influenced by it and in a bigger way than they ever thought that they would be as they are being pulled towards the center. There is a dialog afoot that is causing a new kinship among Americans and instead of being divided we are uniting and rebonding. We are not just united in determination to throw Bush out of office and send the neo-cons into political obscurity either. We have come to see that true bi-partisanship may become much easier for us in the future once the neo-con impediment is gone from the scene. A new vision of an American Social Contract is emerging. We theorize that this new convergence can make for much more efficient government and for rapid recovery once the neo-cons become history and that is happening even now as we write this editorial.

If the polls hold until Election Day 2006, then the neo-cons will be gone from Congress and Bush/Chaney will become moot as an influence on American government. The sentiment is now strong to rebuild America in the image of its prior greatness and to deal intelligently with the challenges of the new millennium as we do so. There is also a new toughness of American spirit that says that we can cope with dunces and we can count on the American ship-of-state righting itself because our Constitution is much more resilient and robust than anyone thought that it was.

There is growing evidence that Karl Rove has spotted this phenomena and that he is now trying to find wedge issues that will split the newly aggregated Party members. He will likely find some and it will be interesting to see what happens when people agree not to split over their disagreements but rather to respect our legitimate differences. Rove will then become impotent and it will be either over, or just beginning, depending upon your viewpoint.

When that happens then the politics of division and hate will disappear from America and the political landscape will be quite different. It will be as if a big political storm had passed. The calm could last for a long time too and usher in a new era of co-determination and prosperity for Americans.

Stay tuned for the next phase in the American Experiment – the post stress phase. We can’t wait for it to come and it’s almost here. Watch this new emergence and marvel at it because this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.