What should we make of the midterm elections? Is it a political correction, a revolution or the repudiation of liberalism?
While many seek to define this election, I contend it raises more questions than it answers.
When only 33 percent of those polled feel the country is headed in the right direction, according to the most recent Ipsos/Reuters findings, change in political leadership is understandable.
The public's patience for Democrats to fix the problem was substantially shorter than the leeway granted to Republicans to initially oversee the existing challenges.
I understand many are angry and concerned about America's economic decline.
Why did we not see similar rancor when President George W. Bush instituted a prescription-drug entitlement without paying for it; when Wall Street firms received a $700 billion bailout; when the Bush administration led the passage of gargantuan tax cuts without the corresponding reductions in spending and when we fought two wars on borrowed dollars with neither appearing as a line item in the federal budget?
News that the country has rejected Democrat policies may be greatly exaggerated. It's not Armageddon for the Democrats anymore than it's Shangri-La for the Republicans.
Our system tends to work best with divided government. No matter how noble the cause, there is something about one party controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress that organically creates hubris, potentially blinding one to the flaws embedded in the policies they put forth.
Moreover, we cannot discount the bizarre aspect of this year's election that anger toward Democrats does not poll as high as disapproval of Republican policies.
Though the congressional Democrats' approval of 41 percent is nothing to write home about, it is still superior to the 35 percent approval for congressional Republicans, according to the most recent Newsweek poll. This hardly reflects a mandate.
Republicans benefit by not being Democrats for the past two years, just as the opposite held true for Democrats in 2006 and 2008. Whatever success realized by the Republican Congress being the party of "no" has been neutralized by now having skin in the game.
To fulfill a campaign promise, the new House majority will undoubtedly hold the ceremonial exercise to repeal aspects of the recently passed health care legislation. It will be ceremonial because there are not enough GOP votes in the Senate to overturn the legislation and the president has the power of veto.
But the GOP leadership has internal problems to contend with.
Is it possible for the electorate-- along with the candidates they sent to Congress -- to hate gridlocked government, while at the same time holding on to the notion that only their position is right?
The difference between campaigning and governing will determine how effective the newly minted Republican House majority will be. The Republican House majority is a strange coalition based in part by anger and a firm belief that its ideology is "the truth," which does not lend itself to compromise.
During the campaign, I recall a sign held by a supporter of the tea party movement that read: "No compromise when you're right." The fervor that this slogan inflames on the campaign trail becomes the admission of naiveté when it comes to doing the people's business and avoiding gridlock.
If this becomes the philosophy of the newly-elected members of the GOP House, it is difficult to see how Republicans discontinue their current role as obstructionist.
Are we headed for another government shutdown? Will new members of the Republican Congress balk at earmarks as they claim? How can tax cuts without spending cuts that do not include defense, Social Security and Medicare not reduce the deficit?
The questions that ultimately come from this election are can the new coalition of Republicans coexist with its leadership, and can those who ran on the absoluteness of their ideas function in an atmosphere where compromise is essential to avoid gridlock?
The real winner in this election may ultimately be President Barack Obama. The midterm results may force him to find his political voice, to be conciliatory at times and fight for the things he believes in.
It is the president who sets the agenda; he is still on the offensive. But he can ill-afford to allow presumed Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to remain on the sidelines.
The unknown variable in this year's election results: can Boehner and McConnell lead individuals who may not see any value in being led?
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or visit his Web site byronspeaks.com.
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But to minimize the situation as merely challenges...
I worked for a couple of years in an organization where we were culturally forbidden to use the P-word. What a crock of double speak. I mean, sometimes man, you just got a problem and solving it is beset with obstacles and setbacks, advances and fall backs. The challenges are what you take on to solve the problems.
Not true for Bill Clinton, and not true for Obama. The Republicans seize the offensive and set the agenda, even when they're in the minority. It was a major achievement to get Obamacare passed. But despite the name, it's basically the result of mixing the Republicans' counter-proposal to Clinton with Mitt Romney's version in MA.
They're on the offensive, no question. I just wonder what pretext they're going to use to impeach this time.
Democrats believe they must be good Fruit to be the good Tree of life
Republicans are happy with all the fruit rotten or not. Because they know democrats will eat and drink Apple Sider if that is all there is. Same profit with bad fruit.
We on the left have a good reason to say that only our position is right: not only have we heard the Republican talking points so many times we can recite them by conditioned reflex, but we've also responded to our relentless political defeats with equally relentless self-questioning. We've scoured the opposing views for any grain of truth, then gone back to glean any we might have missed the ninety-ninth time.
It's time to give up on this approach and look elsewhere for self-correction.
It's not that we're right about everything. Far from it: we're fallible humans, same as all others throughout history. We're not even right about everything where we disagree with the right-wingers. Rather, it's that on every single point where we're wrong, they're wrong too. We've checked.
A more telling indicator may be ballot measures in individual states, as those are generally less prone to influence by personality or party clout... yet that would only be applicable to the states in question.
Any thoughts?
If nothing else, political spending muddies any conclusion we could conceviably draw from ANY election result. For example: California's Proposition 19 (legalization of marijuana) failed, and so did Colorado's Amendment 62 (outlaw abortion)... yet we cannot really say that the majority of Californians are ACTUALLY against marijuana any more than we can say the majority of Coloradoans are FOR abortion, because we have no reliable means by which to meause the effectiveness of political spending in swaying voters one way or the other in these issues.
Republicans work outright and unapologetically for the top 1% in the country. They do not care about gridlock promises or defending what they do and are showered with corporate money to do attack adds.
THIS is all supported by a group of cruds who claim to have come together because they believe in fiscal responsibilty --- you know the same dolts who screech about the deficits but voted for candidates who promised them they would supported unfunded tax cuts for that would add billions to the deficit. You know that ilk.
There was. And that's a big reason why the GOP lost in 2006 and 2008.
And that's why the country is even more perturbed with Dems. They quadrupled the gross spending Bush did. Dems didn't come in and fix the problem - they made it four times worse.
Hence, the elections the other day.
People don't love the GOP. But they certainly love what Dems did the last two years even less.
figure in Berkeley who had an artistic flair, painted his car most eerily after Kent
State, three crosses at the front of the hood, and the moon, around which
serpentined those three words, BAD MOON RISING.
I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. Call it superstition. My generation gave up
and lit up at about that time. This time, we had better do better. Bad moon rising.
Not good.