The Enemy Within

Think of this as Volume 14, Number 8 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

We tend to think of politics in two dimensions — left and right.

The Nixon Thesis of Conflict has accustomed us to this. Democrats accommodated themselves to it first through triangulation, the Clinton "Third Way," and later through confrontation, the Dean Netroots.

The President's Thesis is different. I have called it the Obama Thesis of Consensus. What I have learned recently is this thesis adds a third dimension to our politics, one that most have as much trouble seeing as all of us do the dimension of time.

Agreeability.

Rather than looking at where a candidate stands on the issues, the President wants us to look also at how willing they are to negotiate in good faith, and come to agreement.

What is most clear about this Congress is most Americans fail that test. Not just those in Congress, but those outside. I do, myself, quite often.

It's an internal battle. In order to compromise, you have to accept the humanity and good faith of the other side. Most of us don't do this.

Take FrankyD, a recent commenter here. His response to everything I write isn't just to disagree, but to claim my premises are flawed, that my intentions are dishonest, that all liberals are dishonest, that answers must lie solely within him, no one else.

But this is true across the board. Democrats threaten to torpedo bills they find too compromising. Even those in the middle, like President Joe Lieberman, refuse to negotiate with an eye toward agreement. Instead they demand personal concessions designed to be unacceptable to others.

On some things I can't compromise. Science is one. The scientific method has created this world, and it's the only force powerful enough to save it. We can't put that genie back in the bottle, we can't close Pandora's Box. Medievalism is not an option. I don't want to live in Afghanistan — do you? Really?

But on most questions the need for compromise is clear. And the real issue before us, the issue that has led 10% of the Congress to suddenly up and walk, is whether compromise is possible.

Being in Congress is no fun anymore. Even those Congresscritters who are staying say that. The other side won't acknowledge their basic humanity, their goodwill, they are constantly engaged in dehumanization.

And the press is worse.

The press is trained by the environment it lives in. The political environment of the last 40 years has grown increasingly poisonous. The media, as a result, has become a den of spiders, caring only for the short term, unable to see policy at all, capable of only reporting on the political moment.

It's time to take a deep breath.

Here is something you won't read anywhere else. It doesn't matter who "wins" the midterms. Left or right doesn't matter. What matters is the attitude shown by the winners once they have won. And how they act upon that attitude. Toward agreement.

Efforts over the last few Congresses to find common human ground between Democrats and Republicans, between liberals and conservatives, have been unavailing. These people don't eat together, they don't play together, they don't socialize with one another at all. They barely acknowledge the others' humanity. They have become so short-term oriented that the idea of doing the peoples' business is foreign.

This is most true among Republicans, from the top on down. Republicans will not negotiate in good faith, they will not come to any agreement on anything, they filibuster even routine business on the flimsiest grounds, but more important they have absolute support in this from their grassroots.

The Tea Party only wants to throw tea into the harbor, to wear makeup and destroy "the other." It's not willing to do something as simple as sitting down to tea. It's misnamed. It's really trafficking in the political equivalent of crack cocaine, not tea at all.

It's time to understand what's really going on. These people are frightened. They see the country changing, they see the pace of change accelerating everywhere, and they're scared. It has nothing to do with the President's skin color. It's a Pavlovian response against any Democrat to which most have been conditioned all their lives.

But it's that response that's the problem. And it's that response — not the issues of the day — that the President is really fighting. You can't have a functioning democracy if the citizens don't acknowledge the inherent honesty, humanity and goodwill of the other. It is democracy that is under threat here from all sides — not Democracy but democracy.

Fact is compromises have been available on all the major issues for years:

• On health care, everyone goes into the pool and the pool is rated, not its members. Everyone gets preventive care, and wellness services, but cures remain on the open market. Meaning people compete on price, transparently. As well as all the other values that make up a market. 
• On climate, we equalize treatment of all energy. Eliminate subsidies and start paying all externalities. Give new technology an even break in the tax laws.
• On the budget we can talk about the big issues — Social Security, Medicare, and the military. All have to be cut. Everything else takes too little of our money for it to be any other way. And everyone pays a fair share — if your income doubled but your tax burden rises just 50% you're getting too good a deal, when we're all in debt up to our eyeballs.

It's time for all Americans to stop thinking of ourselves as the sum of our interests, as issues, causes, and corporations — and to start thinking of the country as a whole. Regardless of your position on anything, refuse support to anyone who isn't willing to deal with the other side. And start dealing with the other side yourself.

Maybe over some tea. Tea's a good drink, you know. It's relaxing, mellowing, something you can take time over and speak civilly around.

How about a tea party?