Bipartisanship is the answer to the question no one asked
Dear Livejournal,
Tonight you get to be my notepad. I want to flesh this out into a whole argument with lots of supporting evidence and maybe some great illustrations and figures and whatnot, but for now I have to eat dinner and just want to jot it down so I remember it.
Basically, the argument goes: with approval ratings of the Republican executive and the Democratic Congress have-beens hitting record lows, it seems to me that the would-bes realized that neither of their platforms were digestible, so they invented a problem to blame, and sold Bipartisanship brand snake oil as a cure. Somehow the answer to problems with the Republicans that even Republicans can't tolerate, and likewise problems with the Democrats that even Democrats can't tolerate, is to "reach across the aisle", and the way to "go against their own parties" is to work with the "opposing" party. In other words, after ages of demonization of one another in pretense that they are even politically distant, their solution is to "put aside their differences" and "work together" (as they have always done), and this is a "new kind of politics". A few key phrases aside, McCain and Obama ran almost identical campaigns, and were falling over each other to be more the same as the other than the other.
The problem is "divisiveness" and the answer is "unity".
Watching people praise Obama as some kind of departure from anything as he stacks his administration with neoconservative Republicans (who are, go figure, RINO liberals) is just astounding.
Meet the new boss, more the same as the old boss than ever.
Fuck hope.
Tonight you get to be my notepad. I want to flesh this out into a whole argument with lots of supporting evidence and maybe some great illustrations and figures and whatnot, but for now I have to eat dinner and just want to jot it down so I remember it.
Basically, the argument goes: with approval ratings of the Republican executive and the Democratic Congress have-beens hitting record lows, it seems to me that the would-bes realized that neither of their platforms were digestible, so they invented a problem to blame, and sold Bipartisanship brand snake oil as a cure. Somehow the answer to problems with the Republicans that even Republicans can't tolerate, and likewise problems with the Democrats that even Democrats can't tolerate, is to "reach across the aisle", and the way to "go against their own parties" is to work with the "opposing" party. In other words, after ages of demonization of one another in pretense that they are even politically distant, their solution is to "put aside their differences" and "work together" (as they have always done), and this is a "new kind of politics". A few key phrases aside, McCain and Obama ran almost identical campaigns, and were falling over each other to be more the same as the other than the other.
The problem is "divisiveness" and the answer is "unity".
Watching people praise Obama as some kind of departure from anything as he stacks his administration with neoconservative Republicans (who are, go figure, RINO liberals) is just astounding.
Meet the new boss, more the same as the old boss than ever.
Fuck hope.