Polarization

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I'm coming late into the discussion of civil discourse.

This election season, following the trend of the last several years, there is a great deal of frustration against the Republicans at every level, on the part of the Democrats.  There is viciousness, and complete bafflement.  (A recent interview of a specialist of some sort asked the question: what are the differences in the ways of thinking of Democrats and Republicans, and what can Democrats do to be more persuasive?  There are major differences in thinking patterns, and I'll try to find the website and report on it.)

But it is important to remember that, no matter what the outcome of this or any elections, there is no future for the Democrats without the Republicans.  Tempting though it is to avoid our Republican friends like the plague, and to ponder vicious things we could be telling them, but which we won't, it is a terrible idea.

When I look out over the political landscape when I'm not involved in a particular political event or plan, I see fear and desperation under the bravado of the Republican rhetoric.  Quite apart from the determination to win this particular election, the rank-and-file Republicans are fearful that the Democrats are going to do something so horribly radical that it will change the face of America and make it an alien place.

How sincere this fear is among the Republican leadership is open to question.  It could simply be a ploy to mobilize the troops.  But some of the simpler-minded senators and GOP bigwigs (and there are thousands of them, make no mistake) are honestly fearful.

Part of it is a successful campaign by the Health Insurance Lobby, to persuade the entire party, and certainly its leadership, that nationalized health care will be the thin end of the wedge.  They visualize good-for-nothing unemployed, all healthy and breeding like flies, lolling on their front stoops, drinking mint juleps, while the faithful GOP is required to work for them, and pay outrageous taxes to keep these no-goodniks in gravy.

For upwardly mobile ambitious self-made millionaire wannbes, money is no use unless it sets them apart from the poor.  That is a cynical reason for putting the brakes on social reforms which, after all, enables the poor to keep a standard of living that their poverty will not otherwise allow.  This is all made worse by the widening gap between the haves and have-nots which the haves have enjoyed in the last several decades as never before.

But the fact remains that we can only go forward with these peculiar people who call themselves conservatives.  We may have to unilaterally extend our own personal olive branches, but in our minds, I think, those olive branches must be permanently extended, even if we're baffled by their thought-patterns.  They are deceived by their own people, and they misunderstand liberal intentions, but in the last analysis, we need their help and cooperation, and it will be impossible to live with a panic-stricken bunch of Republicans on the loose.

It is not just twisted logic that makes the GOP chant that They Built It, meaning their own little businesses, when Barack Obama says They Did Not Build It, meaning the infrastructure that made the businesses possible.  In some instances it was willful distortion.  In other instances it was a misunderstanding that was waiting to happen, because of the paranoia that is rampant in their ranks.

This is not a call for any sort of action, but just an observation, and perhaps a warning.

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