What is the Middle of the Road?
(My thanks to Kevin and all the kind folks at American Street for letting me get this off of my chest–Emma)
Compromise (n): to adjust or settle by mutual concessions.
So Iā€™m disconsolately wandering around blogtopia (ysctp!), and Iā€™m seeing a lot of lefties talking about finding ways to compromise with Republicans in order to get back into power. Find common ground with them, I am told, and we can win back the electorate.
All right. Letā€™s try this exercise:
1. Gay Rights. The folks who now speak for the Republican party demand that gays be shoved back into the legal and social closet; at the loony fringe, they want them exterminated. Jim deMint, senator from South Carolina, supports a platform barring gays from teaching school. John Thune supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Both these gentlemen were handily elected by constituencies that presumably approved of their positions.
Now, the contention is that out there somewhere there is a mass of silent Republicans who disapprove of this extremism and would happily accept some k ind of middle-of-the-road solution.
WHAT IS THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD BETWEEN FULL CITIZENSHIP AND SECOND CLASS STATUS?
2. Abortion. The same Republicans who support second class citizneship for gay Americans also advocate the outlawing of abortion even in cases of incestuous rape or danger to the life of the mother; Senator deMint advocates the execution of doctors who provide abortions. These people favor giving full citizenship rights to a cell mass, and, incidentally, turning women from citizens into walking incubators, powerless to affect their own destiny, always and forever defined and controlled by the cell mass they could be carrying.
WHAT IS THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD BETWEEN A FREE WOMAN AND AN INDENTURED SERVANT?
3. Religion. The hugely powerful Jesus-freak wing of the Republican party wants to institutionalize fundamentalist Protestantism as a state religion. Mandatory Bible study. Teach creationism instead of science. Accept the Bible as the court of last resort, even if its answer contradicts all physical evidence. Actually, especially if it contradiccts physical evidence.
WHAT IS THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD BETWEEN A REASONING HUMAN BEING AND A FANATIC?
What should be clear by now is that we are not in a political fight; we are in a full-throttle cultural war. These people want to drag all of us back to the fourteenth century. They LIKE the idea of a world where every thing and every one had their allotted place, where you were certain of heaven if you followed the strictures of Church and King. They don’t care that their lives might be brutal and nasty; they have a promise of eternal rewards in heaven.
That is the mindset we are up against and I, for one, have no desire to compromise with it. These are the people who are the fuel of the Republican party, and I want no part of them. And I wan even less a part of those of you who are considering giving in to them in order to grab a tiny piece of a shoddy brass ring.
There is another definition for compromise: a concession to something derogatory or prejudicial.
But Emma–I can just hear you wailing–we’re are not talking about the fanatics, but the moderate Republicans! All I can say is that the moderate Republicans seem to be more interested in keeping their party in power than in voting their consciences or their morals. The only ones who spoke up were either those long out of power or those who were disgraced and had nothing to lose. The Great White Hope of the Republicans, John McCain, decided that keeping his ass in the Senatorial chair was worth kissing the boots of those who smeared and humiliated his family. Like McCain, all those moral, ethical, moderate Republicans swallowed hard and pulled the lever for their guy.
We need to start thinking not in political terms but in cultural ones. That’s how the soulless, amoral, unchristian leadership of the Republican party manages to motivate 22% of Americans to vote against their self-interest and for “moral issues.” We need to motivate those who don’t want to live in a half-assed science-fiction dystopia. We need to show those folks who sat out the election why it is important to get up and into the voting booth. We need to articulate clearly why our way of life is infinitely preferable to theirs.
We need to stop thinking about what we can do to attract Republicans and work on attracting new Democrats…and Greens…and Libertarians…and anyone, of any political stripe, who hates what the loons are doing to America.
November 4th, 2004 at 11:07 pm
Emma, we’re not going to win a culture war. And if you declare one, you sound like a fanatic and tar the whole party with that fervor, as Buchanan tarred Bush I in ‘92. As a gay guy, I know that cultural progress on gay issues happens mostly inside of families and friendships, one person at a time, and it keeps happening no matter who is demagoguing the issue at the moment.
November 5th, 2004 at 1:40 am
I hardly think the Dems can be accused of demagoguing here. First, very, very few indicated support for gay marriage, so the media - and bloggers - casting this issue as some sort of morality play is accepting of the campaign hype that Rove spun to turn out the Christian Right base.
However, it remains true that Dems not only welcome gays and lesbians under our voting umbrella, but we remain committed to full and fair human rights even for gays and lesbians who don’t vote Democratic, like Log Cabin Republicans.
Support of human rights - to us - is not an election year ploy to garner results that we can quickly discard because others say their morals only permit full and fair rights to white heterosexual Christians.
Emma’s right. There is no middle ground here, no way to compromise on any of the points she’s made. Similar exit polls 40 years ago would likely display a divide on the voting enfranchisement of Black Americans. But if 20% to 25% of Americans said ‘No, they shouldn’t vote’, I certainly would reject the interpretation that the rest of the country needs to rethink their ethics, nor would I use the word ‘moral’ in writing about the views of an electoral bloc of bigots.
November 5th, 2004 at 3:57 am
There is no middle ground on gay rights (or abortion). And the reason for that is that as the Dems move to the middle on this issue, the Republicans will move further to the right. The next battleground for the Republicans is to get rid of the non-discrimination laws. We are going to see, I’m afraid, a flurry of “no special rights” amendments and legislation, so that God-fearing people can fire gay employees for, well, being gay. And if that position is accomodated, the next step is the re-criminalization of sodomy. And if we cave on that? I certainly don’t think that pink triangles are down the road (although I’m sure some slack-jawed, bible-thumping confederate flag wavers wouldn’t be opposed to the idea) but things could get ugly.
November 5th, 2004 at 5:00 am
Ugly was a quarter century ago. We trend towards greater civilization, not less. Despite the loud wail of a dwindling minority, we will not be swayed by those who evolve in reverse.
November 5th, 2004 at 7:16 am
Jarret, if we don’t win the cultural war, you’re screwed.
November 5th, 2004 at 10:22 am
I think it will be clear why “our” way of life is superior in about two years, when the giant scaly prehistoric chickens come home to roost. Let’s take back the House at midterm!
Welcome back, Emma.
November 5th, 2004 at 11:43 am
Emma, it was the new Sen from OK not DeMint that wanted abortion doctors killed.
November 5th, 2004 at 11:56 am
Yikes.
Kevin: I hope you didn’t mean to imply that I accused democrats of demagoguing the gay rights issue! Read my comment again!
Emma: We’ll win the culture war by not thinking about it as such! The term plays to conservative stereotypes about armies of homosexuals sweeping across Witchita raping the firstborn. Why fight to reclaim the term? Let Buchanan and his ilk keep using it; it’s theirs, for better or worse.
You won’t find the gay rights establishment using that term. They use terms like rights, justice, equality. And when the electorate isn’t as spooked as it was this year, those can still sing.
Peace,
November 5th, 2004 at 12:07 pm
Don’t take the GOP bait, Emma. It’s not a culture war it’s a class war. If you want a culture war, then you’ve got to find a party that is willing to stand up and say that the lunatic Xtian fringe are just that. Gasoline, meet fire.
I say stay firm on our cutlural issues. Force the Xtian Right to answer for what they’ve done over the last six years in 2008. But hammer the class war. Reach out not to the culture warriors but to the always-ignored and disenfranchised poor. We need 100% participation and transparent elections. As for the latter - we must stop the spread of eVoting - and any system, like op-scans, that use central tabulators. Failing that, we face national disenfranchisement. What will we do without the vote? The answer is too horrible to contemplate.
Bev at BlackBoxVoting.org is raising money now for her FOIA request for records from the 2004 elections. Help her out. She’s the only one I know of doing this work.
Nothing matters - and I’ve been saying this for four years - no grand strategy, no air-tight argument, nothing matters if we lose the vote. And some of us (NE, GA, FL, KY, OH) already have.
November 5th, 2004 at 12:41 pm
There seem to be two very different versions of the “reach out to evangelical christians” concept.
The first one, which you focus on and I agree we must totally reject, is that Democrats should betray gays and women in the hope of winning a few extra votes. We’ve seen how much betraying blacks and poor people in the 90’s did for Democrats, so I don’t even think this is a good idea on a tactical level.
The second is attempting to reframe progressive democratic values in a form that is meaningful to evangelicals. Right now the republicans say, “Yes, we are the party of greed and war, but we also hate gays and women,” and win the evangelicals. The democrats need to learn to say, “Yes, we are the party of gays and women, but we also support peace and justice,” in a way that speaks to evangelicals.
Actually, trying to win over evangelicals is propably hopeless (although we can try to convince them to care less by convincing them that we aren’t actually tools of the Devil), but the broader category of devout Christians (and particularly Catholics) is propably reachable by such a reframing.
Large numbers of devout Christians voted Dem, even though Dems support gay rights and womens rights. We need to figure out why they voted Dem, and mobilize them to convince their fellows to do the same. We don’t need to abandon our principles to do that.
November 5th, 2004 at 1:35 pm
I have been what you would call a fairly typical Republican for most of my life. My father is from Cuba, so it greatly affected my political thinking. Now, I’m here to offer my viewpoint from that side of the aisle. First, I do not believe that the Constitution allows prohibition of gay marriage on the basis of religion. This, to me, would be a separation of church and state issue. Second, I think that the Mayor of San Francisco (if I have my facts straight - no pun intended) made a huge tactical error in “allowing” all those gay marriages to take place. In my opinion, most “normal” Republicans fancy themselves as law and order types, so, this kind of activity will never play well with them. To me, it backfired, big-time.
Now, while progress may seem glacially slow to those who are gay, in my opinion, progress has been made. When you have Presidential candidates talking about the issue on national tv (in front of children, mind you), it means that you have made great progress. This may be small consolation, but you are moving forward. Soon, civil unions are going to be accepted and at that point, I believe you have won (if it means you can have the tax benes for instance or health care coverage for your mate). The Christian/heterosexual types (and this includes women, men, blacks, hispanics etc. etc.) just have a problem with the idea of marriage, because I believe they see that as somewhat biblical and these folks won’t amend the bible.
Anyway, I am a Christian and a Conservative (but I voted for Nader because I wanted to vote for someone who wasn’t a whore), and I believe that we should not amend the Constituion prohibiting gay marriages. I also believe that Jesus would be scornful of the pharisees predilection (spelling is horrible) with personal judgements while simultaneosly engaging in harmful acts of power.
Mark
November 5th, 2004 at 8:24 pm
I have moved back from my liberal roots as far as I will. I was quiet when Clinton implimented welfare reform as the Rethugs wanted. I was quiet when we started arresting everyone in America and putting them in prison for non-violent crimes. I as quiet and complient during the stupid war on drugs and I now have the specter of my local police flying over my alfalfa field every fall with their helicopter gunships (everyone is still on drugs). I have sat silently (trying to minimize division) while legal abortion has become defacto illegal for the poor as it is unavailable without traveling to a large city. I have watched as stupider and stupider people run and are elected to low and high political office based solely on their anti-gay anti-women creditials (our drain commisioner let us know in the Repug primary he was against gays marrying). I never cared much about the gun issue, I have one as everyone does in the country. I use it to shoot racoons in my henhouse.I hated it when Kerry felt like he had to talk about damn religion all the time. I do not want to say a prayer with my political leaders. Get over it they are not my daddy.
To those that say Kerry’s “defeat” means we need to go further to the right I say screw you. I will never send any money to the DNC again unless they get over trying to out-Rethug the Republicans. If they can’t stand up and be liberal than I will give my time and money to candidates, groups, parties that will.
November 5th, 2004 at 11:43 pm
On compromise.
I’ve got a lot to say here and I don’t know if I can actually say it all. To begin with, though, I’ve now gone past depression regarding the outcome of the election and am now angry — nay, furious…
November 7th, 2004 at 5:03 pm
Do not try to compromise with fanatics. You may move your position; they’ll never move theirs. Right now, Republicans have no need to compromise; they’re winning on every front. Their strength is in their unity, and they know it.
January 21st, 2007 at 3:41 pm
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