I generally hate those people who say things like "If [fill in the blank politician] wins, I'm moving to Canada" because 1. they never follow through and they're usually the kind of people whose move you would welcome; and 2. Canada? That's saying nothing about their conviction. It's a great country with better healthcare, cleaner air, better schools and a more logical system of government. It's probably a move we should all make anyway. Now if someone said, "If [whoever] wins I'm moving to Zimbabwe" - there's real commitment. They really hate that candidate.
However, these words almost passed my lips last night, as I sat watching the first (real) Republican debate on CNN. My roommates got to see me at my most ridiculous: yelling, rocking myself, babbling, grabbing my hair. It's more or less how I imagine getting through my twilight years. Only less cursing.
But before I discuss the many, many thoughts I had on this topic, let me talk about one place I went in the last week, which will actually end up connecting. I'm pretty sure.
Last week I went to happy hour with a good friend of mine from my grad program. She is one of the only Republicans, and she reminds me so so much of Ainsley Hayes. She's blond, she's adorable, she's uber-conservative, she is wicked smart. (One of my favourite West Wing scenes of all time: Ainsley arguing against the ERA). Anyway, we went to Nooshi, this great sushi place in Dupont Circle, and I highly recommend it. I had a "white peach bellini". I like my alcohol to be juice with nice after-effects.
We talked a lot about her job - she's an intern in the senate - and Weinergate and, of course, the Republican primary. (See what I did there?)
Of course, at that point the debate hadn't happened yet and so obviously my opinions have changed drastically since then. I sometimes wonder if anyone's mind gets changed by these debates. After all, if you like a candidate they either "showed their true merit" or "had a bad performance". And if you dislike them, you come up with equal excuses for a good performance - softball questions, empty rhetoric, etc. But then, I tend to hang around people with strong opinions, so what do I know.
The one overarching thing I did learn from this debate is why all my favourite Republicans are Republicans with a lot of caveats and qualms. In other words, I learned why the Republican party has abandoned its people.
First of all, read this article.
If you did not read that article, then let me summarize for you. Essentially, conservatism is supposed to be rooted in realism - in the belief that you must capitalize on what reality tells us people will do in certain situations, rather than what, ideally, we would like them to do. We limit government not because government is inherently evil, but because we have seen that leaders, left to their own devices, will seize more and more power. The current Republican party is based purely on ideology - we cut taxes because we're supposed to cut taxes, even though we see in historical evidence that it has led to massive deficits and does not help spur economic recovery. In debating healthcare, the Affordable Care Act was just wrong even though the final CBO numbers said it would reduce the deficit by $140 billion over the next ten years, and approximately .5% of GDP in the ten years after that. Repealing the PPACA would increase the deficit by $210 billion.
On Monday night, we saw seven people spewing ideology and ignoring facts. What I found most distressing was the lack of will to correct each other. Bachmann made so many idiotic self-contradictions (somehow Obama simultaneously led from behind on Libya AND acted too quickly! Amazing! In addition, she would support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman BUT would not overturn state laws! A totally new constitution!) and yet no one said anything. I understand they were all following Reagan's 11th Commandment, but there is no respect for true facts versus spin, in a way that I don't believe is true across the aisle. When the health care debate was taking place, you did not see every single Democrat supporting the legislation whole-heartedly. You did see every single Republican vote no, even though the bill had many of the same elements as were put forward by Republicans in the 1990's - an individual mandate, government-sponsored exchanges, etc. They stopped voting on logic and started voting on ideology and party biases. In the debate, the candidates were asked if they could think of a single thing Obama had done that they liked or agreed with. No one could say anything. That's either stupidity or intellectual dishonesty. I may have disliked W severely, but if someone asked me if there is anything he did of which I approved, I could come up with something. Because in a real, nuanced debate that is based in reality and not on partisan grounds, we all agree in some places and disagree in others.
Apart from the disregard for the facts, we also saw on Monday night that the Republican party truly is captive to its far right constituents. Now, to be fair, the reason Democrats don't have the same issue with the left is not because they are smarter, better people. As is true for most of these other issues. Kidding. Sort of. Democrats don't have the same issues because we are just a more right-leaning country. Thank you, American Spirit of Individualism.
But when a very smart voter in the audience said, (paraphrasing) "I'm a moderate Republican, and you kind of need us to win, and we're scared that you're too captive to the tea party, so how are you going to win us back?" the response was essentially, "Don't worry, you'll grow to like the tea party and they're not that extreme anyway". (You can look at the transcript here - the question comes in about a quarter of the way down.) That is a terrifying answer. The Tea Party is a nonsense, illogical organization that uses its status as kind-of-a-party-kind-of-not in an inconsistent and frustrating way, and they bring nothing but useless anger and a distrust of government as a whole to the table. It is disappointing that none of the candidates seem to want to separate themselves, especially since, from a purely political point of view, they don't need to pander. Those people are not voting for Obama anyway.
The thing is, I'm usually all in favour of saying both parties are just as bad as each other, etc, etc. But I don't buy that anymore. I think debate on the left is more rigorous, more based in fact, more honest. Someone prove me wrong.
On a side note, the opening remarks by the candidates on Monday were hilarious. In the contest of who has the most children, this was essentially the exchange (again, paraphrasing):
Santorum: 7
Bachmann: 5 children...oh yeah, and TWENTY THREE foster children. Bam.
Gingrich: Wait I'm supposed to talk about children?
Romney: 5 sons, 5 daughters-in-law and 16 grandchildren. (Biological ones count for more)
and my favourite, Paul: Oh we want to talk about children? Yeah well I delivered 4000 babies. Take that, bitches.
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