Election Results
No need for me to tell you guys; you've seen the news. Big GOP wave into the House. But the Democrats kept the Senate. And, in my district, almost everyone I voted for won, so that was good. Other, national politicians whom I support won as well (Barney Frank, Chris Van Hollen, Manchin). Only two Tea Party people managed to get into office... the normal Republicans I don't mind as much, but those people are just unreasonable and scary the crap out of me. Speaking of, I may come to like Boehner after all (if his website would actually TELL ME WHERE HE STANDS ON ISSUES. ahem.); him crying during the victory speech was oddly endearing.
I find it odd, and a bit disconcerting, to look at a the winners and losers here on the Democratic side. Winning, you have Pelosi, Reid, and Barbara Boxer, far-left people who sided unconditionally with the president. Losing are people like Kratovil and Missouri's Ike Skelton, who looked at things issue by issue and didn't always vote the party line. Generally, the latter group followed the lead of their district rather than their party... and they get penalized for it. Is this what is happening to all moderate politicians in this country? Getting voted out for not blindly believing the party dogma? Not the best way to get us back to being a nation ruling from the center.
ALSO annoying is the pundits' rhetoric about this being a rejection of Obama's agenda. The Republicans are like "OMG we win so obviously the people LOVE 100% of our policies!" False. I refuse to believe that. Personally, I'd prefer a little from column A and a little from column B; both parties have some things I think we can agree on. If you take the best parts of both platforms, hey, you have a GREAT start. Like, tort reform in conjuction with a public option. Research subsidies and abortion prevention. Cap and trade and maybe some more nuclear plants (in remote areas where a meltdown wouldn't be catastrophic).
I'm well aware that it's ridiculously naive for me to believe that type of compromise will happen. Which is why I have zero faith that it will. But I think it's still important to put the idea out there as a possibility; maybe it'll catch on, and if enough people believe in it then officials will get it through their heads.
Obama said something similar to what I just did up there in his speech today (gotta love college; mid-day break means I can watch these press conferences now), about voters liking some Republican offerings and some Democrat offerings. I mean, some Dems won, too. Again, kinda naive to believe it, etc etc but at least he said it. The idea's out there.
I also liked what he said about "being too busy getting things done to change how things get done." THIS. I feel like had they started off with changing the process a bit (i.e. looking at earmarking practices, fillibuster usage, etc.), the whole health care thing could have gone smoother. Maybe, without the need for a supermajority, the Dems could have added in some things to make Republicans happy and get some bipartisan support; that way, people opposed to the bill wouldn't have as strong a rallying point. And the way it seemed like they forced it through without consent turned lots of voters off, so that would help with that as well. And people didn't like the earmarks and "backroom deals" (of which I have yet to see evidence, but I digress...), which would have been helped by doing that first.
Kratovil talked about changing the process a lot during his talk on campus, to make it work better and smoother. And to get the best outcome, the "truth" -i.e. compromise. Neither side has all the answers. If the Dems had done that, they may have been better off.
Obama also mentioned that there's a difference between a response to an emergency (financial crash) and a pervasive agenda. I'd never really consciously thought about it, but it makes sense: the bailout and stimulus were designed as measures to fix an immediate problem, not introduced public ownership for good. Obama didn't go in there saying, "Hey, let's have a national bank again! That worked really great in the past!" The media, unfortunately, puts every action into the category of "agenda" and allows fear-mongerers to complain about creeping socialism...
You know I hate blaming the media; they get too much blame. But sometimes, they deserve it. You are communicating. Use precise words, please. You know them. Like, the questions he got at this conference today... perfectly designed to incite factionalism. Not cool.
Speaking of factionalism: it's pretty rampant on teh interwebz. I try to see both sides (don't agree with both sides, but at least look at what they're offering), but others don't. And the opinion columnists and bloggers tend to be vicious to each other, and the subject of their blog.
This guy on Twitter, who I have since stopped following, tweeted about how "there never was civility in discourse to return to" (in response to Obama's speech and probably Jon's rally. This same guy- digressing again, sorry- posted an article about how "the left" (since the rally was a left-wing thing... if it was in actuality that wasn't the intent) is just as mean/bigoted as "we" claim the right is, and supported this with photos of two signs, as if they were representative of the whole thing. They weren't, not by a long shot. Most people were upset by the signs in question, actually. Now, logically, the left media does this too. I can admit that. But it really annoyed me nonetheless... blatant partisanism.) Now, not only do I have doubts about the veracity of that statement, I find it a bit much coming from someone who just a few tweets before had bemoaned Obama "coming to Washington to spread socialism." Slogan-throwing is not discourse, civil or not...
Bleh. It angers me... left=/= socialist. Or fascist (which rose out of opposition to communism and socialism, yet Obama's been called all three things...). Or whatever else it is this week.
Just, really, we should all relax. Like Jon's car metaphor (quite astute of him, if I do say myself :)), we can all just get on the road, share the road, and arrive in one piece, despite our different viewpoints.
In theory.
I find it odd, and a bit disconcerting, to look at a the winners and losers here on the Democratic side. Winning, you have Pelosi, Reid, and Barbara Boxer, far-left people who sided unconditionally with the president. Losing are people like Kratovil and Missouri's Ike Skelton, who looked at things issue by issue and didn't always vote the party line. Generally, the latter group followed the lead of their district rather than their party... and they get penalized for it. Is this what is happening to all moderate politicians in this country? Getting voted out for not blindly believing the party dogma? Not the best way to get us back to being a nation ruling from the center.
ALSO annoying is the pundits' rhetoric about this being a rejection of Obama's agenda. The Republicans are like "OMG we win so obviously the people LOVE 100% of our policies!" False. I refuse to believe that. Personally, I'd prefer a little from column A and a little from column B; both parties have some things I think we can agree on. If you take the best parts of both platforms, hey, you have a GREAT start. Like, tort reform in conjuction with a public option. Research subsidies and abortion prevention. Cap and trade and maybe some more nuclear plants (in remote areas where a meltdown wouldn't be catastrophic).
I'm well aware that it's ridiculously naive for me to believe that type of compromise will happen. Which is why I have zero faith that it will. But I think it's still important to put the idea out there as a possibility; maybe it'll catch on, and if enough people believe in it then officials will get it through their heads.
Obama said something similar to what I just did up there in his speech today (gotta love college; mid-day break means I can watch these press conferences now), about voters liking some Republican offerings and some Democrat offerings. I mean, some Dems won, too. Again, kinda naive to believe it, etc etc but at least he said it. The idea's out there.
I also liked what he said about "being too busy getting things done to change how things get done." THIS. I feel like had they started off with changing the process a bit (i.e. looking at earmarking practices, fillibuster usage, etc.), the whole health care thing could have gone smoother. Maybe, without the need for a supermajority, the Dems could have added in some things to make Republicans happy and get some bipartisan support; that way, people opposed to the bill wouldn't have as strong a rallying point. And the way it seemed like they forced it through without consent turned lots of voters off, so that would help with that as well. And people didn't like the earmarks and "backroom deals" (of which I have yet to see evidence, but I digress...), which would have been helped by doing that first.
Kratovil talked about changing the process a lot during his talk on campus, to make it work better and smoother. And to get the best outcome, the "truth" -i.e. compromise. Neither side has all the answers. If the Dems had done that, they may have been better off.
Obama also mentioned that there's a difference between a response to an emergency (financial crash) and a pervasive agenda. I'd never really consciously thought about it, but it makes sense: the bailout and stimulus were designed as measures to fix an immediate problem, not introduced public ownership for good. Obama didn't go in there saying, "Hey, let's have a national bank again! That worked really great in the past!" The media, unfortunately, puts every action into the category of "agenda" and allows fear-mongerers to complain about creeping socialism...
You know I hate blaming the media; they get too much blame. But sometimes, they deserve it. You are communicating. Use precise words, please. You know them. Like, the questions he got at this conference today... perfectly designed to incite factionalism. Not cool.
Speaking of factionalism: it's pretty rampant on teh interwebz. I try to see both sides (don't agree with both sides, but at least look at what they're offering), but others don't. And the opinion columnists and bloggers tend to be vicious to each other, and the subject of their blog.
This guy on Twitter, who I have since stopped following, tweeted about how "there never was civility in discourse to return to" (in response to Obama's speech and probably Jon's rally. This same guy- digressing again, sorry- posted an article about how "the left" (since the rally was a left-wing thing... if it was in actuality that wasn't the intent) is just as mean/bigoted as "we" claim the right is, and supported this with photos of two signs, as if they were representative of the whole thing. They weren't, not by a long shot. Most people were upset by the signs in question, actually. Now, logically, the left media does this too. I can admit that. But it really annoyed me nonetheless... blatant partisanism.) Now, not only do I have doubts about the veracity of that statement, I find it a bit much coming from someone who just a few tweets before had bemoaned Obama "coming to Washington to spread socialism." Slogan-throwing is not discourse, civil or not...
Bleh. It angers me... left=/= socialist. Or fascist (which rose out of opposition to communism and socialism, yet Obama's been called all three things...). Or whatever else it is this week.
Just, really, we should all relax. Like Jon's car metaphor (quite astute of him, if I do say myself :)), we can all just get on the road, share the road, and arrive in one piece, despite our different viewpoints.
In theory.