Tonight the three housemates got embroiled in a quick and dirty political discussion, in which one of us said things that he firmly believes, one of us said a bunch of things in the hopes he might believe in at least one of them, and the third just tried to rile the other two up.
What, exactly, is "post-partisanship?"
I'm not sure I know. I said something tonight to the effect of: Partisans want to pull the entire country, to their "correct" way of seeing and doing things. Post-partisans (or non-partisans) seek compromise.
I think I believe that, but it's not a fully fleshed-out concept yet. On one hand, yes, it's good that people believe in some things and want to see policy enacted in one particular way. On the other hand, forcing that viewpoint on everyone else seems to be anti-pluralist, even if majority rules. Reasonable people, after all, may disagree.
There's been a lot of talk in the house about Thomas Frank's books. Mike is working on The Wrecking Crew, the new one, and I have been a fan of What's the Matter With Kansas?" for a few years now. In Kansas, Frank writes about the culture of conservative victimization. Even while holding all three branches of national government, as they did in the mid-aughts, many conservatives felt victimized by the liberal media and the liberal ideals taking hold in society. They elected far-right social conservatives as a way to combat those evil forces at work. They had an agenda.
Meanwhile, on the East Coast, or West Coast, or Third Coast, or wherever those dastardly folks drink their lattes, liberal Democrats were feeling victimized/oppressed by Bush administration policies. I mean, we had eight years of Bush, right? He screwed lots of stuff up, so why not give the DEMOCRATS a try for a change? They had an agenda, too.
Now, I have no interest in deciding whose victimization is "correct." The pendulum swings right, and then it swings just as far left, and onward and onward to eternity. The liberals pushing history forward as hard as they can, and Bill Buckley sitting on top of it, yelling "STOP!" But the net motion of a pendulum is zero.
There's never much talk about the people in the middle, the "post-partisans" or "non-partisans" who aren't part of the two gravity wells pulling the future of America apart by pulling in two separate directions. (Admittedly: this is extremely self-serving to believe my still-coalescing viewpoint is better than the well-vetted platforms of ancient political movements)
That said, I don't think politics is a battle that can be won in the aggregate -- even throughout the 20th century, liberal ideas slowly took hold and were accepted as truth, only for the conservatives to retreat and find a new foothold in something else. There will be no surrender and there can be no victory. So why is our system set up so, as the article says, there is no centrist party in the United States? Don't give me the "our Democratic party is still well to the right of most European political parties" business. What's so great about the Democratic or Republican parties that they deserve to be celebrated (as they will in their conventions in these next weeks) or even maintained at all?
And here's a homework question: What exactly is a partisan, and how can you tell?
3 comments:
Let's see if I can guess:
"...one of us said things that he firmly believes..."
That'd be Mike.
"one of us said a bunch of things in the hopes he might believe in at least one of them"
That'd be you.
"and the third just tried to rile the other two up."
Matt?
"And here's a homework question: What exactly is a partisan, and how can you tell?"
If you strongly support a political party and/or a set of political causes, then you are a partisan. That's the dictionary definition. This definition doesn't speak to the overall tone or character of (national) politics, which is what I think you want to get at.
As it's commonly used in this country, the word "partisan" has a negative connotation, vaguely and varyingly defined, depending on the user's own opinions and biases. It's a buzzword.
Since you're concerned with the tone of political discourse, maybe you want to find a definition of "partisan" that includes 1) a set of strongly-held opinions, and 2) one or more ways of advocating for those opinions. If 2) involves throwing mud at the other side, riling up one's fellow believers rather than seeking compromise or addressing "the center," then the subject is a partisan.
I don't think you can find such a definition that works for politicians. In general, I don't think (national) politicians can be usefully described as partisan or "non-partisan." High-grade politics involves so much posturing and maneuvering that a politician will appear centrist or extreme, reasonable or acrimonious, to the degree that his views coincide (or don't) with those of the observer. National politics naturally involve posturing and finger-pointing, so national politicians can't be "post-partisan."
For non-politicians, here's one way to tell: if the subject reads Publication X with sympathy and sincere interest, then she is a partisan.
For a partisan of the (American) left, substitute one of the folowing for X: The Huffington Post, The Nation, Mother Jones, et cetera.
For a partisan of the right, substitute National Review, The Weekly Standard, et cetera.
These are publications that exist for the sake of their own viewpoint. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. But, if you use one of these as your regular source of news and commentary (mostly the latter), then you're deliberately reinforcing your own biases. If you can stand to read such strongly slanted coverage on a regular basis, and you take pleasure in reading news from the correct and sensible viewpoint, then you are a partisan.
That sounds about right. What I'm really interested in, and I didn't get into this too much in the post, is the partisan mind. Or the mind of someone who takes in like views, and rejects unlike views out of hand. I know people like this on both sides of the spectrum, and it's frequent occasion for absolute mental acrobatics and feats of logical suspension.
Is it a failure of an open mind? Or the confident closing of one, having examined the facts? Then again, even the facts are malleable these days. Most liberals I know will occasionally watch Fox News not to experience a different viewpoint, but to marvel in incredulity and delight in their own outrage. Rarely does it cross their minds that people really believe this stuff, and they're not (necessarily) stupid or evil for doing so.
Conservatives on the other hand feel like the rest of the mainstream media is out to get them, so they get to feel victimized by the general culture rather than by a particular pundit or cable station. I want to write more about "truthiness" and the media later, as well as the two nights of the DNC I've watched so far, but it's late and work has been killing me. Thanks for the comments, and yes, you're right on all three counts.
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