I'm Giving This Another Try!
I have been without a computer for over a year and finances have been extremely tight, thus I was not able to renew the domain name registration for "In Darkest America and The Way Out" - Some domain registration company snagged it and was offering it for several thousands of dollars as a "premium" domain name. I paid $9.99 per year for the initial registration. Had I known, I'd have sold it myself. Oh well, life goes on.
Now that I have my laptop back, I can again think about directing my interest in news, politics, public affairs and popular culture toward something other than talking back to the T.V. during the evening newscasts - okay, yelling at the T.V. might be closer to the description my family would offer, but why quibble?
What the Hell Happened?!?!?
What happened to the Republican party? Donald Trump is, at the time of this writing, the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination for President Of The United States. That was, only four years ago, the punchline to a bad joke. Nobody took Trump for a serious candidate, let alone a serious threat to actually win anything beyond, maybe, the Ames Straw Poll.
How did Donald Trump become the 'sum of all fears' to the Republican Party establishment? What makes Trump so attractive to large numbers of Republican and conservative leaning voters?
In order to answer that question, we have to look at the recent history of American politics. By recent, I mean from the Kennedy administration through the present. Spoiler alert, the Vietnam war had a lot more to do with why Trump is leading in the race for the G.O.P. nomination than you might think. Here is my reason for believing that the roots of the Donald J. Trump candidacy can be found in the political turmoil of the 1960's.
It is interesting to note how those, like myself, whose initial introduction to American politics was the assassination of John F. Kennedy, view the role that "The Government" plays in American society, versus those whose introduction to American politics was during, or after, "Watergate". Not everybody remembers that the addition of "gate" to the end of a scandal originated with Watergate and Richard Nixon resigning the Presidency in August 1974 - I have a feeling that we may hear about "Nanny-gate", "Travel-gate", "Whitewater-gate" and other oldies-but-goodies from the 1990's. At least for the duration of the 2016 campaign, if not the duration of a potential Hillary Clinton administration.
How did Donald Trump become the 'sum of all fears' to the Republican Party establishment? What makes Trump so attractive to large numbers of Republican and conservative leaning voters?
In order to answer that question, we have to look at the recent history of American politics. By recent, I mean from the Kennedy administration through the present. Spoiler alert, the Vietnam war had a lot more to do with why Trump is leading in the race for the G.O.P. nomination than you might think. Here is my reason for believing that the roots of the Donald J. Trump candidacy can be found in the political turmoil of the 1960's.
It is interesting to note how those, like myself, whose initial introduction to American politics was the assassination of John F. Kennedy, view the role that "The Government" plays in American society, versus those whose introduction to American politics was during, or after, "Watergate". Not everybody remembers that the addition of "gate" to the end of a scandal originated with Watergate and Richard Nixon resigning the Presidency in August 1974 - I have a feeling that we may hear about "Nanny-gate", "Travel-gate", "Whitewater-gate" and other oldies-but-goodies from the 1990's. At least for the duration of the 2016 campaign, if not the duration of a potential Hillary Clinton administration.
I am old enough to, vaguely, remember when allegiance to the United States of America was more important than allegiance to any political party or more important even than religious belief. John F. Kennedy had to give a speech in which he assured the American people that his religious affiliation (Roman Catholic) would not affect his policy decisions as president.
When did we go from everybody being willing to compromise a little, or even a lot sometimes, so we can do what is right for the country and everyone wins - maybe not by as big a margin as we'd like, maybe having to give a little credit to "the other side", occasionally not getting everything we wanted, or perhaps even a little bit less than what we thought we should have. Yet, even with all that said, without "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" - to today's obstructionist mentality that seems to be based upon the zero sum premise, if "the other side" wins, "my side" loses?
Compromise has become a sign of weakness and lack of resolve (if not purity) and stopping the agenda of the other side is more important than working together cooperatively to solve problems that both sides acknowledge and that both sides say they want to solve. There are judicial nominations being held up for no reason other than the party affiliation of the President making the nomination. This is true for numerous appointments to various agencies and departments that would have, only a few years ago, sailed through with little or no objection. There are numerous examples where Republicans have publicly expressed support for legislation, programs, ideas and even judicial nominees only to completely reverse their position the minute President Obama states his support for those self same ideas, programs, nominations and legislation. It's been bad before, but nothing like the obstruction for the sake of obstruction that we see in politics all across America, not just in Washington, D.C.
There has always been opposition between Democrats and Republicans, that is simply the nature of politics. Generally, the Democratic party tends to believe that government can and should play an active role in society. On the other hand, the Republican party tends to believe, as President Reagan put it, "...government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." One of the things I have often heard Republican candidates say is that the Federal government should have as little impact on the lives of everyday Americans as possible. The belief that "government which governs least governs best" is rooted in the very fabric of the Republican ideal. So these two conflicting ideas of how government should look to the citizenry as well as how, why and when government should take direct, influential action which would impact the daily lives of the population.
Those differences have, until recently, been seen as secondary to the overall needs of the nation based on the circumstances at the time. As much as the Republicans opposed many of F.D.R.'s New Deal programs, they also understood that the need for action was immediate and desperate. The T.V.A., the F.D.I.C. and Social Security are just a few of the programs that most Americans are very happy to have and would not want to see disappear. In fact, even the most staunch, anti Obama Republican is damn glad that the F.D.I.C. was there to protect their back account balances (up to $250,000 anyway, but I don't know anyone who had more than that in a single bank, or lost even one penny thanks to the F.D.I.C.) - although they'd never admit to being grateful to President Obama for anything.
And there we come to it. What has fueled this obstructionist environment in Washington, D.C.? How did we get here and how do we get out? That is the point of this blog, to try to come to some understanding of how we arrived 'In Darkest America and The Way Out'.
In the coming weeks and months I will explore those questions and try to explain what I believe to be a workable plan for "The Way Out".
When did we go from everybody being willing to compromise a little, or even a lot sometimes, so we can do what is right for the country and everyone wins - maybe not by as big a margin as we'd like, maybe having to give a little credit to "the other side", occasionally not getting everything we wanted, or perhaps even a little bit less than what we thought we should have. Yet, even with all that said, without "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" - to today's obstructionist mentality that seems to be based upon the zero sum premise, if "the other side" wins, "my side" loses?
Compromise has become a sign of weakness and lack of resolve (if not purity) and stopping the agenda of the other side is more important than working together cooperatively to solve problems that both sides acknowledge and that both sides say they want to solve. There are judicial nominations being held up for no reason other than the party affiliation of the President making the nomination. This is true for numerous appointments to various agencies and departments that would have, only a few years ago, sailed through with little or no objection. There are numerous examples where Republicans have publicly expressed support for legislation, programs, ideas and even judicial nominees only to completely reverse their position the minute President Obama states his support for those self same ideas, programs, nominations and legislation. It's been bad before, but nothing like the obstruction for the sake of obstruction that we see in politics all across America, not just in Washington, D.C.
There has always been opposition between Democrats and Republicans, that is simply the nature of politics. Generally, the Democratic party tends to believe that government can and should play an active role in society. On the other hand, the Republican party tends to believe, as President Reagan put it, "...government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." One of the things I have often heard Republican candidates say is that the Federal government should have as little impact on the lives of everyday Americans as possible. The belief that "government which governs least governs best" is rooted in the very fabric of the Republican ideal. So these two conflicting ideas of how government should look to the citizenry as well as how, why and when government should take direct, influential action which would impact the daily lives of the population.
Those differences have, until recently, been seen as secondary to the overall needs of the nation based on the circumstances at the time. As much as the Republicans opposed many of F.D.R.'s New Deal programs, they also understood that the need for action was immediate and desperate. The T.V.A., the F.D.I.C. and Social Security are just a few of the programs that most Americans are very happy to have and would not want to see disappear. In fact, even the most staunch, anti Obama Republican is damn glad that the F.D.I.C. was there to protect their back account balances (up to $250,000 anyway, but I don't know anyone who had more than that in a single bank, or lost even one penny thanks to the F.D.I.C.) - although they'd never admit to being grateful to President Obama for anything.
And there we come to it. What has fueled this obstructionist environment in Washington, D.C.? How did we get here and how do we get out? That is the point of this blog, to try to come to some understanding of how we arrived 'In Darkest America and The Way Out'.
In the coming weeks and months I will explore those questions and try to explain what I believe to be a workable plan for "The Way Out".
