On the Political Divide

Sports fans can be rabid, but I get the sense, at least in the US, that they understand sports is still just a game. Red Sox fans hate Yankees, but mostly because Yankees fans are so smug, with the largest payroll in professional sports (in the US), and the seeming ability to get any talent they want. Even so, a Red Sox fan would have to admit that a Yankees fan is just a Yankees fan by dint of location (they live in New York, or somehow sympathize with a winning team like people rooted for Chicago because of Jordan). They're not likely to say Yankees fans are totally stupid (well, they might), and not be able to comprehend why Yankees fans are Yankees fans, and should be Red Sox fans instead. Somehow, Red Sox fans are content for Yankees fans to remain that way.

The point is, they can offer no real compelling reason for Yankees fans to become Red Sox fans nor argue why they happen to be Red Sox fans.

This is not so with American politics. Democrats can offer plenty of reasons why Republicans are idiots, just as Republicans can offer plenty of reasons why Democrats are idiots. Both sides are firmly convinced the other side is so unfathomably wrong that they don't even understand how a reasonable person could even support the other side.

Political manipulators like Karl Rove like it that way. Pick sides, and be profoundly on that side.

I recently though of this issue when doing something I rarely do, and that is discuss politics at work. There is a reason Americans avoid it. It creates arguments unless you are preaching to the choir, in which case, it's just a rant-fest with your best buddies. This one guy said he didn't like Kerry because he flipped-flopped. I would say, if I had pressed him on it, he couldn't easily name issues that Kerry flip-flopped on (maybe Iraq? what else?). But it shows that perception is more important than actual facts and that Bush is likely to flip-flop on issues too, just not the really big ones that seem to matter now (i.e., Iraq).

What this divide means is that people no longer think all that rationally about politics in the US, and that certain positions are held because their party says so. Here's an example. Most people are ready to bash Bush on his treatment of New Orleans, that he should have known Katrina was going to be a disaster, and done something sooner. Would Gore have handled it differently? There's some recent suggestions that Gore helped pay for airlifting some folks out of New Orleans during the unfolding days of the disaster, though he has kept it quiet, presumably because it would look bad for him to be so obviously trying to make the government look bad.

Point is, enough Democrats believe Bush and FEMA were completely incompetent, and unwilling to help those in need. The Republican stance, even if not entirely espoused by the direct leadership, was that New Orleans was likely to flood at some point, and therefore, people should not have been living there where a disaster is likely to loom, and it was their own d*mn fault for being there in the first place. Why should the rest of the nation have to support the stupid follies of ignorant people?

However, had the tables been reversed, had a President Gore failed to respond quickly, no doubt the criticism might have been somewhat less, but the Republicans might have hammered away at this too, because the point is to make the opposing party look bad. And comments such as not wanting to help the people in New Orleans might have been replaced with indignation at how a Democratic president was incompetent in the face of disaster.

In other words, how people react is being pushed forward by party leaders whose goal, it seems, is simply to make the other side look bad.

So, at one point, Republicans might have criticized Clinton for his involvement in former Yugoslavia or what-have-you, but then be 100% behind Bush's involvement in Iraq. It simply boils down to, our side is right, your side is wrong, regardless of how hypocritical it sounds.

Reddit, for instance, has become non-stop Bush bashing. The Republican spin machine is already starting to attack Obama for everything from his name to his religion and so forth. Why the attacks? To put simple ideas in people's heads and hope it sticks. Let's not actually debate the topics in well-reasoned ways. Get people to have a gut reaction and vote on that gut reaction.

I'd almost be happier with a third party candidate that spoke reasonably about the topics, but you know, Americans seem to require irrational support for their parties, and to avoid having to think too much. It's not so much how much you like your side, but how much you hate the other side.

Thus, I had this idea of voting out the guy you hate most, because no one's perfect anymore. No one can say their candidate actually has any good ideas. But they can sure paint the other guy as the bad guy, the incompetent guy, the guy who doesn't deserve to lead. And surely, this kind of politics is bad for America, because it creates politics of hate vs. a politics of hope. I know, even this little diatribe of mine sounds like some retread of a political speech.

By the way, I was reading/listening to Obama's speech where he talks about his faith. It's intriguing only because you should never read and listen to a speech at the same time. Obama apparently hadn't rehearsed his speech enough. You see points where he gets off track, or phrases things differently (which usually worked out, but occasionally he really botched it up).

Although it was an interesting speech, one discussing the role of faith in politics, where he straddles between saying it's important, but realizing, as a man who grew up with an atheist father and a skeptical mother, that he understands and appreciates how someone might not be religious, I felt that the speech didn't quite have a strong enough point. My sense was that he wanted to say Democrats need to be aware religion is important to many people, and it is a way to communicate to the people. To a lesser extent, he wanted to assuage fears by saying he still respects separation of church and state, saying the earliest folks to support the idea were indeed evangelicals.

Anyway, thought it could have been a better, more focused speech, but then it is a touchy subject, so he wanted to tread carefully.

Well, there, now I've ended on an awkward note.