Hello, Again

It happened rather suddenly.

From one day to the next I went Republican to Democrat. I used to assuage the personal effects that my conversion had on me by continuously repeating to myself—in my head of course—that I didn’t leave the party that the party left me. The reality is that I did leave the party, lock, stock and barrel. I went from being giddy with joy that Daschle lost his seat as Democratic leader to, a couple of years later, being relieved that Reid kept his as Democratic leader. I went from believing in the mantra of Rove’s “permanent” Republican majority, to supporting the mantra of “change we can believe in.” For some of my friends, it was quite uncharacteristic. Overnight I was called a liberal, a socialist, a communist. I now do proudly accept the liberal label.

And yet, I really don’t know if it happened as suddenly as I would like to think it did. It might have been some sort of subconscious linear development that eventually led me to leave the political party that I had grown up with, to accept that I was now joining the party that I always thought of as being the enemy. The party that I always thought hated America. I look back upon my nascent political growth and how ridiculous I was. Just a kid in middle school, but I knew I hated Bill Clinton and thought that he should’ve been impeached. I remember hearing Bush talk about restoring honor, dignity, and respect to the Oval Office, and how excited I was that there was going to be a Republican restoration—indeed a Bush family restoration. And, as silly as it may sound, at the same time that the 2000 election was beginning to get underway, The West Wing premiered on NBC. It was a parallel universe; in the era of Bush Republicanism, it offered a glimpse of what the country might look like in a Bartlet Democratic pseudo-reality. It was eerie. I think that is the moment that for the first time I began to hear the other side, and thought to myself, “You know, maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not that bad.”

And then, when the unthinkable happened on September 11^th, I was glad that George W. Bush was president. I was proud when he yelled from Ground Zero that the “rest of the world will hear all of us soon.” I was glad that a Republican was in the Oval Office, one who would unleash an assault upon terrorism that would make the world shake. You were either with us or against us. And I supported the rhetoric. In fact, that’s one trait that I have retained. There is no room for nuance or discussion in this. You are either with us or against us. You support, finance, or harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist. And Bush was intent on ridding the world of Al Qaeda. But in Tora Bora, Bin Laden escaped. Almost ten years later and no word of that coward. I remember I was so disappointed a couple of years ago, when Bush declared from the podium of the White House’s briefing room, that it didn’t matter that we haven’t captured Bin Laden, that he was irrelevant. This criminal was never brought to justice. And all because we diverted our resources from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda to Iraq and Saddam.  I was disappointed.

In the 2004 campaign, I still supported Bush. I used to quip that Kerry had a defeatist attitude. And I supported Bush because we did not yet know that Iraq was going to catastrophically delve into civil war, we did not yet know that capturing Bin Laden would take a back seat to whatever the Neocons thought was in their best interest at the time. In their best interest, not in the country’s best interest. And I winced when unscrupulous attacks against certain groups were made in order to motivate the Republican base to come out to vote. I reconciled these attacks by reassuring myself that the ends do justify the means, that all is fair in politics, that the majority of the electorate is motivated by their own salient issues, and if these result in voter turnout, then the administration can successfully conduct foreign policy and defeat terrorism. We were reminded over and over again that with Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, and Rumsfeld, that the grown-ups were in charge.

And Bush won and the war got worst. The curse of the second term. And 2005 wasn’t going so well for the president and Republicans in general. And in 2006, the Republican political machine went into crisis mode in order to try to maintain Republican control. And again, they used tactics that we saw in 2004, and in 2000. Campaigns have always been dirty, but the last couple of them—this last one especially—have hit new lows. Frank Rich asked if Hispanics are the new Gays? He stated that the same tactics that were used to attack gays in the 2004 campaign was now being used to attack Hispanics. Rich didn’t blame Bush personally, but said that his lack of leadership had allowed the Republican Party to plunge into becoming the party of intolerance. I knew that the campaign was getting ugly, but I still held on to the belief that the ends justify the means, that yes, there were maybe some fringes of the party that were anti-Hispanic, but that we needed that fringe, to combat terrorism, to maintain American hegemony.

By 2008, I was growing tired of defending the Republican Party to myself, especially, their tactics. Obama was talking about a post-partisan America where we didn’t have Red States or Blue States, but that we were one America. I always thought we should have an America Party. And I was inspired by Obama talking about Change and a new way to do politics. There was nothing wrong with being a moderate, that we had to strive, as a nation to be united, moderate, tolerant—that these had always been the best traits of America and in Americans. And yet, I was inspired, but still on the fence: Was this guy really ready to lead? I liked McCain—his personal history, his moderate positions. I remember, and was ashamed, of how the machine had attacked him in 2000, he a bona fide war hero. And then he chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate. To put that woman a heartbeat away from the presidency…what was he thinking? I blame McCain for introducing Palin to America. That is a great disservice that he has done.

In 2008, I did something I never thought was possible. I voted for a democrat to be president of the United States. I voted for Obama.

***

I have always liked politics because for me it was a spectator sport. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s leading and by how much? I used to just eat up poll numbers and track the internals. I thought it was just so fascinating. And I guess I further liked the Republicans because they were winners. And who doesn’t like winners? They know how to play the game of politics. They know how to mobilize people to come out to vote.

They just don’t know how to govern.

In college, one of my professors went around the class and asked each student which political issue, above all others, they really cared for? Everyone said something: the war, terrorism, Social Security, the environment, the economy, gay marriage, abortion rights, etc. When it came to me I didn’t know what to answer. Internally I knew that I really didn’t care about any of those issues that strongly. I cared about winning in politics. I said I cared about the war as a cop out.

I have now, rather obviously, come to realize that issues matter. That policy is important. That in this time of troubles, tough decisions need to be made to ensure the continuing greatness of America. It is not hyperbole to state that today’s debates are nothing short of a debate about the direction of our country, the continuation of our hegemony, of our very nature and our survival. Policies matter. Governing matters.

And governing is more important than winning.

***

In yet another re-incarnation of this blog, I’ll try to wonk out a bit more. I’ll try to unite both policy and the politics of, together. They’re both inter-related. I never paid attention to positions, but it’s about time I take them, and will write them down here, at least for myself.

A friend told me that this blog should be called, “You know what really pisses me off?” And lately, a lot of the things that are going on have been pissing me off. I guess then, I sort of understand where the tea party’s rage comes from. But then again, the tea party really pisses me off.

 

These are difficult times, not unprecedented though. America has always found a way to lift itself up, to get to work, to lead. That’s the American way.