2008 Election

The American economy has been strained to the breaking point by eight years of reckless fiscal policies. Our international stature has been compromised and diminished by arrogant and unilateral foreign policies. Our government has helped create a global energy crisis, and has done nothing about climate change. You could be forgiven for assuming that those issues are central to the upcoming elections, but I’m going to suggest that war and peace, economic prosperity and even national self-respect are in a very real sense subsidiary to what is truly at stake on November 4th. 

This election is a contest between the past and the future; its outcome will determine whether Enlightenment rationalism or religious fundamentalism prevails. In short, this is the election that will determine who wins the “culture wars.”

There are some arenas where the culture clash is front and center; even James Dobson has said that losing the referendum on same-sex marriage in California would mean that the Christian Right has unambiguously lost the culture war. But the conflict is more consequential than the future of same-sex marriage and gay rights, important as that is. This election will determine who gets to control what America will look like in the 21st century. It is a fight between absolutely incompatible worldviews.

I’d been convinced for some time that this election would be a fateful battle between culture warriors, but the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate confirmed my thesis.  I don’t say this simply because Palin represents everything that is wrong with social conservatives’ ideology, although she does. (She’s anti-choice even in cases of rape or incest, she opposes stem-cell research, she’s anti-gay, and she’s really anti-science—she’s an advocate of teaching creationism in the schools who does not believe that human activities contribute to global warming).

I also don’t say this simply because her social conservatism was more important to John McCain than her absolute lack of any qualification to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

I say this because her selection was part and parcel of the way in which culture warriors really see the issue of gender—and by extension, how they see every other issue of diversity, including but certainly not limited to gays and lesbians.

Think about it. Had McCain chosen a male running-mate with Sarah Palin’s resume, the choice would have been laughed off the national stage, dismissed as absolutely unserious. Tim Pawlenty, the equally socially conservative Minnesota governor who was on the McCain short list, was widely criticized for being too insubstantial, for having qualifications too likely to be dwarfed by Biden’s greater experience and gravitas. And Pawlenty looks like a seasoned elder statesman compared to Palen. What, then, did she bring to the table, other than (excuse me) a vagina? And just how cynical—and revealing—does that make this selection?

Here’s the calculus as I see McCain’s folks analyzing it: 1) a lot of women voted for Hillary; 2) social conservatives in the GOP base still aren’t excited by McCain. We can energize the base by choosing one of their own, and as a  bonus, we can pick up disappointed Hillary voters because she’s a woman, and women are interchangeable. Women just want to see someone who looks like them in office, bless their pretty little heads.  It seems genuinely never to have occurred to the McCain camp that for women voters to believe that a candidate “looks like them” might require more than shared secondary sexual characteristics.  At the very least, it means sharing a particular worldview, being a particular kind of woman.

The Christian Right approaches issues of gay equality the same way, by constructing a monolithic “gay agenda” that everyone in the gay community is assumed to share. It is also the way they see African-Americans—and in fact, as one friend of mine remarked, the choice of Palin is based on precisely the same worldview that put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. He’s black, so the black folks should be happy. So what if everything Thomas stands for is in stark contrast to what the vast majority of African-Americans believe? So what if Sarah Palin’s positions are profoundly anti-woman? She’s female. Surely that’s all Hillary’s supporters—and by extension, other women—care about.

It is ironic that, as the Democratic party has moved past tokenism toward genuinely pluralist politics, the Republicans have bought into the worst kind of identity politics. Those differences between contemporary Republican and Democratic worldviews are consequential for all of us.

  • The emerging Democratic philosophy requires that we look at individuals—gay, straight, Christian, Jewish, black or white—and evaluate those individuals on their merits, their talents, their characters. It isn’t that race or religion or gender or orientation becomes irrelevant;  it’s just that those markers of identity aren’t material—they’re just one aspect of this particular human being, and we are grading this human being on the basis of everything he or she brings to the table. Everybody gets to compete on a level playing field, where being gay, female or purple is neither an asset nor a liability. It’s simply a description.
  • The worldview of the right-wingers who control today’s GOP, on the other hand, is paternalistic. It begins by assigning people to categories, by dividing the world into “us versus them.” Members of the group labeled “us” are the elect, the rightful rulers of the universe. Political considerations do, however, require some concessions to the fact that “they” have the right to vote, and so some tokenism is required. (It never seems to occur to those holding this worldview that tokenism is as insulting as outright bigotry. Tokenism assumes that members of those “other” groups are interchangeable, that unlike white Protestant straight males, they are not entitled to be accepted or rejected on the basis of their individual merits.) When you view the political landscape through this lens, you believe every debate must have winners and losers. There is no “win-win.” There is no “live and let live,” because allowing people to live their lives in accordance with any rules other than your own is—by definition—defeat.

At its base, this election is a choice between those two worldviews. It’s a choice between the past—where the color of your skin, the denomination of your church, your gender and/or your sexual orientation determined your place in the social order—and a future where behavior, and not identity, determines how far a person can go.

 

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Constitutional Culture

As Americans prepare to go to the polls, the nation is teetering on the edge of an economic meltdown. If we are to avoid electing someone who will make things even worse—never mind beginning to turn things around—it behooves us to consider how and why we are in this mess.

Permit me to suggest that our current problems—including our economic problems—are rooted in the fact that for the past eight years, we have been governed by an administration that has operated far outside of what I call America’s constitutional culture. As we prepare to say “adios” to the Bush calamity and to choose a new President, we would be well advised to look closely at each candidates’ approach to the constitution, because a willingness to operate within its constraints will tell us much more than the issue papers and campaign promises that are the staples of electoral strategies.

A constitution does many things: in its more pedestrian provisions, it lays down the mechanics of governing—how old must a person be to run for President? How shall the legislature be selected? Those sorts of things. More fundamentally, however, constitutions provide a statement of national values—a moral code governing our necessary civic infrastructure. America’s constitution places a high premium on protecting individual rights by limiting the scope of government power, by the separation of powers, and an insistence on checks and balances and the rule of law. 

For the past eight years, the Bush-Cheney Administration has shown nothing but contempt for those constitutional constraints, and the policies it has favored have been consistent with that contempt.

It’s not just the Patriot Act, NSA spying, or the establishment of the prison at Guantanamo, alarming as those and similar measures have been. It’s not just the careful selection of judges who can be expected to favor the prerogatives of government over the rights of citizens. It’s not just the use of signing statements to circumvent constitutionally prescribed policymaking processes. It can also be seen in the proliferation of no-bid contracts, privatization, cronyism, and lack of regulatory oversight that has precipitated our current financial crisis.  (Make no mistake—the administration’s anti-regulatory fervor is part and parcel of its general disdain for the rule of law, and has been a major contributor to our current economic crisis. Notwithstanding the florid rhetoric from self-proclaimed advocates of the free market, markets cannot function without clear ground rules and impartial umpires willing to enforce those rules.)

Fine, you may say. I agree the people we elect ought to be bound by the rule of law. But what does the constitutional commitment and knowledge of a Presidential candidate  tell me about his or her policies most likely to affect me?

 

Consider the following:

·        A President who understands the First Amendment’s religion clauses will not try to change the laws to incorporate particularistic religious beliefs about abortion, homosexuality or science. That means supporting stem-cell research. It means no Terry Schaivo dramas, no “Defense of Marriage” acts, no creationism in the classroom.

·        An administration respectful of the Fourth Amendment will not  read your email or eavesdrop on your telephone conversations.

·        A President who respects the rule of law, who enforces laws and regulations impartially (and thus prevents the wholesale looting of the treasury by the well-connected) is far less likely to preside over an economy where jobs are lost, homes foreclosed and retirement accounts devalued.

·        A President who understands the philosophy and intent of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment will respect diversity and insist upon equal rights for all Americans.

Barack Obama taught constitutional law. He and Joe Biden have given ample evidence that they understand, and are committed to, constitutional principles. John McCain’s embrace of constitutional limits has been spotty, at best; Sarah Palin has given no evidence of ever having read the constitution (or much else).

I am as aware as anyone that this country has often failed to live up to its highest aspirations and constitutional institutions. But the damage done by the Bush Administration has been both systemic and insidious, because it has called those very aspirations into question. It will not be easily repaired.

Political partisans always insist that “this election is the most important ever.” It’s easy to dismiss overheated pronouncements (like my own!) as predictable election-year rhetoric. But as the old sayings go, even paranoids have enemies and even stopped clocks are right twice a day. When Americans go to the polls November 4th, we will be voting for far more than a President. We will be voting to reclaim—or to jettison what is left of–America’s constitutional culture.

 

 

Redefining Sexism

The GOP is playing identity politics with stunning incompetence.

Think about it. Had McCain chosen a male running-mate with Sarah Palin’s resume, the choice would have been laughed off the national stage, dismissed as absolutely unserious. Tim Pawlenty, the equally socially conservative Minnesota governor who was on the McCain short list, was widely dismissed for being too insubstantial, for having qualifications too likely to be dwarfed by Joe Biden’s greater experience and gravitas. And Pawlenty looks like a seasoned elder statesman compared to Palin.

What, then, did this brunette version of Ann Coulter bring to the table, other than her gender and an impressive mean streak?

Here’s the calculus as McCain’s folks apparently analyzed it: 1) a lot of women voted for Hillary; 2) social conservatives in the GOP base still don’t trust McCain. With Palin, we can energize the base, and as a  bonus, we can pick up disappointed Hillary voters because she’s a woman. Women just want to see someone who looks like them in office, bless their pretty little heads.  Plus, we can dismiss the inevitable criticism as sexist.

It seems genuinely never to have occurred to the McCain camp that for women voters to believe that a candidate “looks like them” might require more than shared secondary sexual characteristics. (It isn’t only women, of course. Remember when the right wing thought Alan Keyes would appeal to African-American voters?)

Is misogyny real? Of course it is. Sexists—and racists—operate under a double standard; they demand higher performance, better qualifications, and harder work from members of disfavored groups than they demand from members of their own. (And yes, women and blacks can be sexists and racists under that definition.) Genuine advocates of civic equality don’t want preferential treatment; we want—duh—equal treatment.

What most feminists want is a truly level playing field. We want to be evaluated on our merits. We want to compete on the basis of our competence to do the job at hand. We don’t want either success or failure to be based upon our gender.

Hillary Clinton did face substantial sexism, as her supporters have alleged, but her defeat in the primary was primarily the result of a poorly-run campaign. She lost for many of the same reasons that John Edwards, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd lost. The men and women who supported her never tried to argue that her bona fides or positions should not be scrutinized—they supported her because they genuinely believed she would be the best for the job, not because she had ovaries.

There may be voters who believe that Governor Palin is the most qualified person to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Others will welcome her selection as evidence of John McCain’s total capitulation to the far right fringes of the Republican party. The rest of us will wonder what the selection says about John McCain’s judgment—and what it tells us about his promise to “put America first.” And we aren’t all sexists.    

 

           

 

 

Comments

The 2008 Election & The Culture War

The American economy has been strained to the breaking point by eight years of reckless fiscal policies. Our international stature has been compromised and diminished by arrogant and unilateral foreign policies. Our government has helped create a global energy crisis, and has done nothing about climate change. You could be forgiven for assuming that those issues are central to the upcoming elections, but I’m going to suggest that war and peace, economic prosperity and even national self-respect are in a very real sense subsidiary to what is truly at stake on November 4th. 

This election is a contest between the past and the future; its outcome will determine whether Enlightenment rationalism or religious fundamentalism prevails. In short, this is the election that will determine who wins the “culture wars.”

There are some arenas where the culture clash is front and center; even James Dobson has said that losing the referendum on same-sex marriage in California would mean that the Christian Right has unambiguously lost the culture war. But the conflict is more consequential than the future of same-sex marriage and gay rights, important as that is. This election will determine who gets to control what America will look like in the 21st century. It is a fight between absolutely incompatible worldviews.

I’d been convinced for some time that this election would be a fateful battle between culture warriors, but the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate confirmed my thesis.  I don’t say this simply because Palin represents everything that is wrong with social conservatives’ ideology, although she does. (She’s anti-choice even in cases of rape or incest, she opposes stem-cell research, she’s anti-gay, and she’s really anti-science—she’s an advocate of teaching creationism in the schools who does not believe that human activities contribute to global warming).

I also don’t say this simply because her social conservatism was more important to John McCain than her absolute lack of any qualification to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

I say this because her selection was part and parcel of the way in which culture warriors really see the issue of gender—and by extension, how they see every other issue of diversity, including but certainly not limited to gays and lesbians.

Think about it. Had McCain chosen a male running-mate with Sarah Palin’s resume, the choice would have been laughed off the national stage, dismissed as absolutely unserious. Tim Pawlenty, the equally socially conservative Minnesota governor who was on the McCain short list, was widely criticized for being too insubstantial, for having qualifications too likely to be dwarfed by Biden’s greater experience and gravitas. And Pawlenty looks like a seasoned elder statesman compared to Palen. What, then, did she bring to the table, other than (excuse me) a vagina? And just how cynical—and revealing—does that make this selection?

Here’s the calculus as I see McCain’s folks analyzing it: 1) a lot of women voted for Hillary; 2) social conservatives in the GOP base still aren’t excited by McCain. We can energize the base by choosing one of their own, and as a  bonus, we can pick up disappointed Hillary voters because she’s a woman, and women are interchangeable. Women just want to see someone who looks like them in office, bless their pretty little heads.  It seems genuinely never to have occurred to the McCain camp that for women voters to believe that a candidate “looks like them” might require more than shared secondary sexual characteristics.  At the very least, it means sharing a particular worldview, being a particular kind of woman.

The Christian Right approaches issues of gay equality the same way, by constructing a monolithic “gay agenda” that everyone in the gay community is assumed to share. It is also the way they see African-Americans—and in fact, as one friend of mine remarked, the choice of Palin is based on precisely the same worldview that put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. He’s black, so the black folks should be happy. So what if everything Thomas stands for is in stark contrast to what the vast majority of African-Americans believe? So what if Sarah Palin’s positions are profoundly anti-woman? She’s female. Surely that’s all Hillary’s supporters—and by extension, other women—care about.

It is ironic that, as the Democratic party has moved past tokenism toward genuinely pluralist politics, the Republicans have bought into the worst kind of identity politics. Those differences between contemporary Republican and Democratic worldviews are consequential for all of us.

  • The emerging Democratic philosophy requires that we look at individuals—gay, straight, Christian, Jewish, black or white—and evaluate those individuals on their merits, their talents, their characters. It isn’t that race or religion or gender or orientation becomes irrelevant;  it’s just that those markers of identity aren’t material—they’re just one aspect of this particular human being, and we are grading this human being on the basis of everything he or she brings to the table. Everybody gets to compete on a level playing field, where being gay, female or purple is neither an asset nor a liability. It’s simply a description.
  • The worldview of the right-wingers who control today’s GOP, on the other hand, is paternalistic. It begins by assigning people to categories, by dividing the world into “us versus them.” Members of the group labeled “us” are the elect, the rightful rulers of the universe. Political considerations do, however, require some concessions to the fact that “they” have the right to vote, and so some tokenism is required. (It never seems to occur to those holding this worldview that tokenism is as insulting as outright bigotry. Tokenism assumes that members of those “other” groups are interchangeable, that unlike white Protestant straight males, they are not entitled to be accepted or rejected on the basis of their individual merits.) When you view the political landscape through this lens, you believe every debate must have winners and losers. There is no “win-win.” There is no “live and let live,” because allowing people to live their lives in accordance with any rules other than your own is—by definition—defeat.

At its base, this election is a choice between those two worldviews. It’s a choice between the past—where the color of your skin, the denomination of your church, your gender and/or your sexual orientation determined your place in the social order—and a future where behavior, and not identity, determines how far a person can go.

 

Comments