These days, there are so many polls and political predictions, that you really can never tell which ones are going to be accurate, and which ones will fall by the wayside.
Of course, many people vote and believe with their hearts, and that too often leads them to unrealistic, and sometimes unreasonable, expectations. I remember the 2004 election, everyone was telling me that George W. Bush was destined to lose. As much as I wanted to believe this, I could not see any reason to. People thought that I was crazy, but if you remember, his poll numbers only sank to well below 50% after he was elected to a second term. It was as if the country collectively was hesitating to admit that he had been as enormous a mistake as reality suggested that he was. And we paid for it with four more years of nonsense that the nation, and indeed even the world, would have been better off without.
Some ideas that often are considered traditional staples of conservative ideology are, in fact, hard to argue against. After all, we should not be borrowing to keep up with excessive, wasteful government spending. Also, securing the country and keeping it safe is incredibly important, and anyone old enough to remember September 11th could surely remember just how important that is.
Indeed, when I look back to what some traditional conservatives espoused, I can see their logic, and believe in their logic and wisdom.
President Eisenhower was such a president. He showed restraint, and essentially allowed the country to govern itself.
The result?
An era that is remembered fondly and considered the golden era in the country's history. It was the leading economic, political, cultural, and military superpower of the world, enjoying far and away the highest standard of living of any country. The education system led the world. There was no end to how good things seemed to be here in the United States at the time.
That is not to say that there were no problems. Racism was clearly a huge problem, perhaps even more than it is now. However, there seemed to be a sense of hope for the future, as well as a what appears to be a serious belief in the country, how it was governed, and what it stood for. Those things have generally eroded and they seem to be lacking in this present age.
What conservatism was back then, and what conservatism has come to represent now, are two entirely different things. Today, so-called conservatives advocate things that are hard to stomach, frankly. When you contrast the conservative ideology as it appeared back then with what it appears to represent for many today, the differences are shocking!
Decades ago, conservatives had come to accept unions and the advantages that they helped bring to the middle class. Hell, they really probably created the middle class, and that was good for the country. These days, advocates of so-called conservatism suggest with broad brushstrokes that unions are decadent, evil, and even anti-American. Busting unions, along with cuts in salary and benefits, have become all the rage.
In his final days in office, Eisenhower warned the country about the military industrial complex. Today, the military industrial complex is both directly and indirectly responsible for more than half of the American economy, and has reached a point where it feels like an addiction. Deep down, Americans seem to know that spending on the military is excessive, yet it just keeps rising and rising, year after year and, yes, now even decade after decade. The influence of the military industrial complex on the nation's political leaders is more than clear.
Not unrelated, the influence of the major banks and other huge corporations, as well as very wealthy elite individuals, over the American government is equally obvious. Less than eight years ago, these so-called "too big to fail" banks and corporations nearly destroyed the economy. They received an enormous bailout package footed by the American taxpayer, and then without skipping a beat, resumed the very same practices that nearly pushed the economy over the edge of the abyss. One wonders why the taxpayer funded bailout money did not go to the homeowners first, as either way, the banks would have gotten their money. This bailout was the brainchild of a conservative administration and backed by most supposed conservatives. Clearly, help was geared to benefit Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.
This was all made possible by the birth of a fairly extremist ideology that relied the notion that all government was necessarily evil. Once this ideology grew powerful enough to itself represent much of the government, there was a craze known as "deregulation." This became all the rage, and suddenly, all the rules went out the window. At first, the harm that this created was disguised considerably by a temporarily strong economy, so people at large seemed to think of it as all good. The excesses and the less than savory results were either swept under the rug, remained unreported, or perhaps most damaging of perspectives, they were dismissed as the results of general laziness and/or incompetence of the increasing number of people who fell either into or closer to poverty.
The anti-government sentiment did not merely focus on "deregulation," but began to actively target government programs that were beneficial to many people. All sorts of things began to fall under the umbrella of "wasteful government spending." The result was a deterioration of the overall infrastructure, as roads and bridges and even whole neighborhoods began to fall into a state of extreme disrepair. There was no longer a sense of belonging to the community, or to society at large. It was all about individualism and privatization. Anything that got in the way of this focus on self was deemed part of the problem, even anti-American. Suddenly, people were suggesting that it was wrong for them to have to pay taxes that paid for things like education, even when they themselves had benefited from the public school systems. Indeed, schools began to be targeted, as budgets continued to be slashed and targeted for further budget cuts, and teachers were increasingly scrutinized and, too often, downsized. The result of all of these policies is unprecedented levels of inequality, and a general sense among the American people as a whole that things are worse, not better, then ever before.
Indeed, the military industrial complex and de facto corporate supremacy have become a two-headed monster that appears as a Goliath, with the average American being a reluctant David by way of comparison. The extreme and sweeping generalization that all government is necessarily evil has greatly helped in allowing things to have gone this far, to have grown this bad.
The good news is that more and more Americans are beginning to see the bigger picture, and beginning to comprehend how things have gotten this bad, and why it needs to change, before things grow worse. The bad news is that more Americans need to wake up to this unpleasant reality before things grow still worse.
The two-party system is in large part to blame. It was not designed as such, but what the two-party system has come to be in recent decades is a reflection of that focus on individualism and privatization. The two parties work together to shut other options out, and clearly, one major problem is that private corporations with a lot of money to spend give large sums of money to both elected officials and candidates for office.
The Democrats should rightly be blamed for allowing things to get as bad as they are, and either for not standing up to Republican ideas that have been to the detriment of the country as a whole or, in some cases, in actively assisting to make things worse. There are some voices coming from the Democratic party that finally seem to be speaking out against many of these injustices (Elisabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders come to mind in particular), but they are still too few and far between. Far too many Democrats have gotten wrapped up in the corruption and laser-like focus on "winning," which itself has become a pseudo-political ideology, that they have become as much a part of the problem, if not in certain respects more a part of the problem, than Republicans who outright champion the "government is evil" philosophy.
Still, things are infinitely worse on the Republican side, because the focus on government being evil and deregulation being the be all, end all solution has proven to be a politically profitable landmine for so long. Many of them conveniently see the money that they have ill-gotten through corruption or other shady means as an extension of the political ideology that they and their party have championed for so long. That is why many of them go further still, refusing to see the writing on the wall that these policies have gone much too far and created a monster. These days, Republicans who remain willfully blind to the increasing skepticism by the general public of their own policies seem to be ever more aggressive, and even willing to impose their ideologies on an unwilling nation by whatever means necessary. This, in turn, has given many the impression that the government is, indeed, at war with the American people that it is supposed to represent.
There seems to be no shortage of Republicans who still champion the cause that has led to the general deterioration of the standard of living in this country. And when they see that their policies are increasingly under attack. There is increased exposure to the horrors of the glaring inequality that this ideology, and the policies that advocates of this ideology have created. More Americans have grown opposed to this supposed ideology of "rugged individualism" and capitalism taken to an extreme, that the numbers supporting Republicans have generally consistently shrunk over time.
Since, however, it is hard to divorce yourself entirely from such an all-encompassing ideology, many prominent Republican candidates have tried to turn the focus on other things. They have either channeled the spirit of skepticism that has wildly grown among Americans of all political persuasions towards things that advance the neocon ideology, such as casting doubts on climate change or the always convenient "big government" monster, or they have focused on things that appeal to social conservatives by fixating on being opposed to homosexuality, or by promoting religious beliefs over more traditional, conventional American political traditions.
Much like the profit made from corruption can be justified using the individualist ideology, so can the present focus on initiating a political and cultural war, including the obstructionist tendencies of the present Congress, as well as to winning at all costs, even if this means gerrymandering and/or shutting out as many voters as possible by any means necessary. That is the problem with winning being the only thing - it hardly matters how you got to the top, so long as you are, indeed, on top.
But these means themselves are ever more unacceptable to a growing percentage of the American people. People grew skeptical particularly with George W. Bush's election loss in 2000 that still, nonetheless, saw him gain the highest office in the land. The extreme focus on secrecy within that administration also left a bad taste in the mouths of many, as did the lack of any real justification for the costly invasion of Iraq, which damaged America's reputation throughout the entire world. With numerous corporate scandals during those eight long years, culminating in the financial meltdown and the Great Recession of 2008, skepticism has remained firmly entrenched. For once, many people actually saw the bull crap for what it was.
Yet, despite all of this, many Republicans are urging to stay the course, to keep the old practices and their old way of thinking going. To win at all costs.
Only, it is beginning to cost them more and more, with each passing election. I once thought that Democrats winning the White House for three straight elections was impossible, given the generally conservative political mindset of America. Yet, that is a distinct possibility this year.
Frankly, the more Republicans latch onto the old mindset, the old ideology that has, up to this point, seen them win election after election since the early 1980's, the more it will cost them both in the near and more distant future. Many people, including some Republicans themselves, are beginning to see this, as well.
Chris Ladd, a Republican strategist and columnist for the Houston Chronicle, is one who expresses such skepticism about his own party's ability to adapt to a changing political and cultural environment before it is too late. He voiced skepticism for the party's future after it won the midterm elections of 2014, and wrote about his reasons why. In a piece for Dailykos, murphthesurf3 writes that Ladd predicted that "what the GOP will spend its time on is: Climate denial, theocracy, thinly veiled racism, paranoia, and Benghazi hearings."
According to Ladd, they will focus on these things instead of real issues, and it will be costly. Here, in Ladd's own words, is how he summarizes his feelings on the matter:
“It is almost too late for Republicans to participate in shaping the next wave of our economic and political transformation. The opportunities we inherited coming out of the Reagan Era are blinking out of existence one by one while we chase so-called “issues” so stupid, so blindingly disconnected from our emerging needs that our grandchildren will look back on our performance in much the same way that we see the failures of the generation that fought desegregation. Something, some force, some gathering of sane, rational, authentically concerned human beings generally at peace with reality must emerge in the next four to six years from the right, or our opportunity will be lost for a long generation. Needless to say, Greg Abbott and Jodi Ernst are not that force. ‘Winning’ this election did not help that force emerge.”
If he's right - and there is reason to believe that he might just be right about all of this - than even temporary and limited Republican election victories do not automatically translate to longer term success, as they once did. That might mean that the political climate is about to seriously change, or at least it would, if so many Democrats themselves were not so much a part of the problem. For disgust with one or two candidates, or even the entire GOP field, will not translate automatically to success for the Democrats if they keep fielding candidates who themselves have come to accept much of the anti-government, pro-corporate and pro-military industrial complex system that the Republicans have championed for so long. Candidates like Hillary Clinton, who the Democratic party leadership clearly wants as their nominee.
Still, things seem to be coming to a head. Candidates who champion change and reject the old way of thinking, or at least appear to on the surface, are enjoying more and more success over time. That was true when Ross Perot entered the presidential race in 1992 and shook it up, and it was true when a seeming outsider with little chance ended up winning the presidential elections in 2008. The fact that he turned out to be very much pro-establishment was simply a disappointing revelation to those who felt that he represented some real change.
Now, in the current presidential elections, there are two outsider candidates who are shaking things up dramatically for both major parties. Donald Trump is that candidate for the Republicans, and Bernie Sanders is that candidate for the Democrats. They may or may not win, but they surely signal a fatigue of the old, politics as usual practiced by prominent members of the establishment in both of the major American political parties.
Ladd is probably right that a denial of the new cultural and political realities will cost the GOP. The only problem is that too many mainstream Democrats are proving to be unwilling to adapt to these new realities as well. It just might cost them.
Here is the link to the article that got me focused on this particular topic, and from which I used both of the quotes in this piece:
GOP Columnist: The VERY Bad News FOR THE GOP in the GOP's Midterm Victory By murphthesurf3, Nov 20, 2014:
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