Entering the Fray

Hey Guys. This is my first foray into this blog so I thought I'd keep it light-hearted and start out with some simple observations on the political front /sarcasm. One up front admission: I'm as liberal as can be. I don't believe in the motivating power of punishment, which sums up the essential difference between conservatism and liberalism. I believe we lose little and gain much by helping our fellow man. And, as has been observed countless times before, governments are the best--and sometimes only--security that small minorities have against the cruel majority.

With that out of the way. Let's talk about what's on everyone's mind: the political upheaval in Congress. As The Daily Show observed on Thursday, the Democratic retirements announced last week are few in number compared to the Republican ones. Yet, as other political pundits have observed, this is to be expected when comparing the majority and minority parties in an election year. One clear message that comes through the noise is that these retirements are demoralizing for the Democratic constituency, but politically uninformative. The Democrats have, at the moment, neither gained nor lost any votes in the senate relative to the scenario in which these retirements did not occur.

The momentum that is causing this negative coverage of Democratic resignations actually began with the Tea Party protests, the genesis and popularity of which are simple to explain. Since the Reagan Administration, where America first swallowed wholesale the fairytale that "government is the problem," polling has consistently showed higher favorables for personality candidates than political incumbents. That is, when a voter believes they know a person's character without knowing their politics, they are happy with them. Once that same politician begins to vote, however, these favorable views tend to diminish. The reason for this is obvious. People appreciate ideological purity more than they do practical solutions. Once someone latches on to the idea of tax cuts, they can purely cling to this slogan without pondering the consequences. "Cut government spending!" Okay, but which programs would you like to eliminate? Thus, since this Tea Party has yet to test itself politically, it is polling well with the Americans that fancy themselves politically involved without taking the effort to actually become politically involved.

The only way that we liberals can make true political progress in the face of this lazy opposition is if we stop typing our angry messages into the ether of internet comment forums and start making phone calls and donations in favor of legislation and causes in which we believe (causes that make more goddamn sense than "cut taxes and government spending," like ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and Universal Healthcare). An ironic message on an internet blog, I know, but (IMHO) a true one nonetheless.