Friday, April 05, 2019

Circular Firing Squads

"Whenever the powers of government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which government exists." - James Mill, "Government" (1820)
Just under 48 weeks until the California Primary and the out-of-office major party has already started to pick off its major candidates.

There's quite a bit about Joe Biden that I would probably find annoying. I was personally counseled in 1974 for putting my hand on a female sailor's shoulder at work, and he's frequently been observed to be a lot more effusive than that. Should that taint his suitability for public service? Certainly not for the in-office major party. I have little to no idea how other countries manage their elections, but my experiences with ours have left me a little cynical.

The first campaign I was involved in was Goldwater's and he lost because it was feared that he would get us into the war in Vietnam. I went with Nixon in 1968 because I blamed the Democrats for all those Marines coming through my operating rooms in Japan, and then I stayed with him in 1972 because he actually was getting us out of Vietnam while I was in the Tonkin Gulf. After that things got fuzzy.

I liked Gerald Ford, but the Republican Party was already just a bit too sleazy for me so I went with Carter in 1976. At that time I didn't deduct points for being overtly religious, but he pardoned people who had fled the country to escape the draft and I was feeling aggrieved in 1980  I went with John Anderson because the Republicans ran an actor for Pete's sake. (Little did I know they would do worse.)

It's about here that I kind of got into politics for a while. I was getting pulled over a little more often than I thought was necessary and being frisked and interviewed by San Diego Sheriffs Deputies while standing next to my motorcycle, and it felt like involvement in local politics might be in order. We worked to get Pete Wilson elected to the Senate for which I apologize. In the same election cycle, we worked to get Jim Bates elected to the House of Representatives (for which I also apologize). I did get to appreciate the power of moving small numbers of voters within specific areas and the power of Primary Elections.

I didn't so much vote for Walter Mondale in 1984 as I did against Reagan, and given everything that went on in Reagan's second term, tell me I was wrong. I think this brings us to "ratfucking" or the normalization of dirty tricks. It's a pretty common tactic we see usually from smaller people who try to compensate by belittling their opponents. For instance, a strapping war hero and Naval Aviator with an absolute wienie as his running mate makes fun of how funny his opponent looks in a tanker's helmet. I know it started in the Nixon campaigns, but it got its legs in the '80s.

It's partisan politics and has nothing whatever to do with political ideals. For example, to defeat Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania in 2006, the Democratic Party went to some pains to enlist the most politically conservative candidate they could find.  Neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party is going to correct the shortcomings of our democratic republic. They created those shortcomings including capping the number of seats in Congress and effectively ensuring the primacy of either of these two parties. So long as neither party needs to compromise to pass legislation, neither will.

No comments: