I will confess that the outcome of the 2010 elections is not wholly
what I had desired. This will likely elicit cries from the audience
that I am a closet liberal, but I assure you that this could not be
further from the truth. My political philosophy is far more nuanced and
does not lend itself to being shoehorned into neat ideological
categories. Despite this, I will gladly take the results, because I am
hoping that it means we will have a period of legislative gridlock
during which nothing gets accomplished. I mean this not in the
traditional sense; not much good gets accomplished when one party has
control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. Instead, I mean
this in the sense that I hope that little legislation detrimental to our
nation gets accomplished. In other words, I wish for a “do nothing”
Congress that, by default, stymies everything that the president wishes
to do.
This is contrary to what I’ve written in the past,
belittling Congress for doing nothing, with members working too little,
and mostly just collecting a paycheck while waxing ecstatic about their
own individual grandeur. I still advocate a strong, competent
legislature, but the operative word is “competent.” What we have
witnessed in the past 100 years does not evoke confidence in the
legislature, which is mostly a tool of the executive. Or perhaps the
executive is a tool of the legislature, as the latter body has
effectively delegated much of its responsibility to the former. But I
digress.
In 2006 I hoped for a Democratic victory, as I
did in 2008, both of which I've also written about. I wanted all of
these idealistic liberals and hopeful independents to have their hopes
and dreams crushed. They were simply trading one set of incompetents
for another. I suspect that many of them see that now, and I suspect
that many more simply refuse to believe it. But the seed of thought has
surely been planted.
The period of time after the
2006 elections, and more so after those that took place in 2008, has
shown me and hopefully others the dangers of giving one party too much
power. Democrats believed that the sweeping victories in those two
elections gave them “a mandate” to push through various legislative
agendas. It didn’t, but more on that momentarily.
I have
also come to more firmly believe that we are in need of a strong third
party to offset the slavish devotion to ideology the “Big Two” possess.
It seems, on the surface, that we are simply swinging from one extreme
to the other; each victory by one party being seen as a triumph of that
party’s ideological underpinnings.
John Boehner, the
presumptive Speaker of the House, said last night that change starts
now. I cannot help but to stifle a yawn and a snore. I vaguely recall
that I’ve heard such talk before. Despite his proclamation, which I
suppose is merely his effort to win graciously, you will likely see the
GOP attempt to rectify the “grievances” that Democrats have issued to
them these past four years. Nothing will change. Washington will not,
contrary to Boehner’s rhetorical musings, begin doing what’s best for
the American people. Boehner’s party is in charge, just as it was four
short years ago. They say that insanity is defined by doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results. If that’s
true, then Americans are collectively insane.
The sense
of supreme validation this election gave to the idolaters, those who
raise a fist in victory and say, “We Won!” is scary. I can’t help but
ask, “Who won, and what did they win?” Did Americans win, or did the
GOP win? Is the latter good for the former? And what did they win?
Power? If the answer to that question is yes, then we should be scared,
indeed.
This is all the more frightening when one
subscribes to the oft-mentioned notion that Americans have some manner
of collective wisdom in elections. Consider all the hoopla that is made
just prior to Election Day about how effective the massive amounts of
money spent on ads and campaigning are at swaying the electorate. How
things change the day after, nay? Now the virtues of the collective
wisdom of party-line voters, uninformed voters, and plain apathetic
voters is extolled to no end. Further, the winners wrongly interpret
this collective wisdom, and see it, again, as legitimizing their
personal ideology, which means they are less than likely to compromise.
Vae Victus, indeed. In this case, however, they fail to see the reality.
