Tag Archives: US politics

Should Republicans Dump the Tea Party?

8 Oct 2015 By in The Republicans Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

Zachary Taylor uncomfortably balancing atop a scale filled with acrimonious legislators.
The answer is yes, unquestionably.

Dump the Tea Party, and the Republican Party may survive; the faction that is the Tea Party will die.

As it is, the Republican Party is imploding. Yes, on the surface, with Tea Partyiers included, the GOP looks like a majority party.  But what does it matter, when a party’s members cannot agree, when they cannot accomplish anything?

The paralysis gripping the House of Representatives tells the story.  Over the past few years, Tea Party intransigence has scuttled many constructive common-sense measures enjoying the assent of moderate lawmakers.  At the Tea Party’s insistence, the House has approved countless Tea Party-centered bills that then die because they are so far out of the established mainstream.  Americans want Obamacare; they want the federal government to continue to run; and, yes, Americans would rather have federal debt than to bring a protective Union to its knees.  Yet the Tea Party has striven again and again to demolish elements of federal governance that generations of responsible lawmakers and jurists have painstaking built up.

The speaker’s contest gearing up in the House showcases the dilemma of a party that cannot control or even influence its own destructive minority wing.

Yet some of the leading figures of this do-nothing faction are now gunning for the Presidency, figures like Mario Rubio and Ted Cruz, so naïve and uncooperative (and in the case of Cruz so despised by his Republican colleagues) that they are incapable of collaborative achievement.  Out of sync with everything but their own narcissism, these candidates would make poor presidents, since they haven’t a clue as to how to marshal party power.

Dumping the Tea Party would be painful for the GOP establishment but would leave the GOP free to forge legislation with centrists on the other side of the aisle.  In terms of presidential politics, a purge would reassure moderate voters, who might respond surprisingly positively to this disinterested gesture of patriotism and good will.

The Tea Party are anti-federalists whose views, goals, and tactics jeopardize the power and integrity of United States. Cut the Tea Party adrift, and be the Grand Old Party again.

Image: “Congressional Scales” (1850),
published by the firm of Nathaniel Currier, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Click here to go to the source.

The cartoon shows President Zachary Taylor uncomfortably balanced atop a scales filled with acrimonious legislators.  He holds two controversial pieces of legislation as weights.  Political opponents in the scales taunt one another, one declaring that ‘We can hold out as long as they can’; another that ‘My patience is as inexhaustible as the federal treasury.’

The Firearm Insurance Requirement Act

6 Oct 2015 By in American Conditions Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

World map of civilian gun deaths per capita (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

A post I wrote back in 2012, ‘Should We Treat Guns More Like Cars?’ is now the subject of a White House petition.  The idea is to require all gun owners to carry insurance on guns and to empower the insurance industry to set appropriate premiums based on risks posed.

Proponents of mandatory firearm insurance include New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof and US congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney.

In combination with other measures, mandatory insurance would help shift the focus of the gun debate toward the crucial issues of responsible ownership and community safety.  It would make it more expensive for sociopaths to acquire and stockpile weapons.

Please help promote this idea by signing the White House petition.  JUST AS IMPORTANT, share this post with your friends on social media.  The petition needs 100,000 signatures by November 1 to become viable.

To sign the White House petition for The Firearm Insurance Requirement Act, click here.

To read my original post, click here.

Image: RGlouster, World Map of Civilian Guns Per Capita, 2007.
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Click on the map to go to the source.

Recommended:
Rolling Stone, “How to Beat the NRA in 7 Not-So-Easy Steps.”

Pope Francis Speaks; America Dreams

29 Sep 2015 By in Pope Francis Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

Pope Francis speaks of American Dreams (screenshot), @2015 Susan Barsy
Pope Francis spoke to Congress in halting and heavily accented English.  His slow, thick cadence demanded utter silence.  For once, the government that talks of listening really was.  In this atmosphere of rapt attention, much emotion flowed.

The remarkable hype surrounding the pope’s address owed something to its novelty.  Here was a highly unusual interjection of moral consideration into institutional politics.  The pope is a teacher and gospeler whose authority is old and wide; he represents Christian thought as it has evolved over two millennia, from far before the birth of our American Protestantism; all which jibes uneasily with the secular, natural-rights foundation of our legislative government.  The Congress, mostly too curious to stay away, ostensibly has no need of persons like the Pope–or do they?

Francis’s remarks thoughtfully addressed the predicament of our politics, being inwardly eroded by the twin evils of narrow fundamentalism and moral indifference, while outside it witnesses the chaos that violent Islam is engendering.  The Congress is a sophisticated amoral entity, whose challenge is to act in a world that extreme religious passions are constantly agitating.

Francis used the theme of ‘American dreams‘ to recall the humane impulse that has been one of Western society’s glories.  The belief that all persons are equals, that all merit individual consideration, that all life demands respect: these ideals, deeply embedded in national history, continue to suggest a middle way of peace, generosity, and forbearance, that our atomized and materialistic society has lately been inclined to turn away from.

Many resist Francis’s call to end the arms trade, minister to the poor and friendless, respect the earth, and abolish the death penalty, though these flow from the most basic Christian teachings.  Others, though, will have quietly absorbed his remarks.  Will they be moved to create a more ‘modern, inclusive, and sustainable’ economy?

The GOP Candidates Debate on CNN

17 Sep 2015 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I expect Donald Trump’s support to wane slightly after last night’s debate.  Of the eleven Republican presidential candidates to appear, several of his rivals are likely to gain.

Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio pulled out strong performances; Chris Christie had some effective moments, too.

Scott Walker was allowed plenty of airtime but came off as bland; Mick Huckabee came across as pleading for our indulgence (he had least business being on the stage).  Ben Carson lost ground by relying too much on low-energy generalities.  Kasich had one or two strong moments but relied too much on his record of performance in Ohio and the Senate.  The demand was for vision, and a sharp take on policy.

The moderator, Jake Tapper, with occasional questions from Dana Bash and radio personality Hugh Hewitt, did a great job of keeping the three-hour debate focused.  It was a strenuous format.  Candidates were called on unpredictably.  Tapper shifted the topic of debate often and quickly, sometimes arbitrarily cutting off comfortable discussions.  By and large, candidates spoke spontaneously and avoided boring set speeches.  Ted Cruz and Scott Walker were the worst when it came to spontaneity.  Cruz, of all the major candidates, is the most personally unappealing.  And, although Fiorina came across as powerful and poised, she fell back on rehearsed remarks too much, both in her discussion of the military and in the closing.

It was fascinating to hear how the candidates varied.  Their discussions of the legalization of marijuana, of the consequences of US’s military involvement in Iraq, the Iran nuclear deal, immigration reform, and the role of the Supreme Court under John Roberts, were particularly revealing.  Only Rand Paul and Ben Carson resolutely refrained from saber-rattling.  The other candidates vied to out-do one another with violent promises.  Scott Walker promised that if elected President, he would undo the nuclear deal with Iran ‘on day one.’  Fiorina likewise asserted that we should have no dealings whatever with Vladimir Putin, a position that Bush, Trump, and Paul all used to draw a contrast.  Several of the candidates invoked Reagan, insisting that the US is strongest when engaged diplomatically with the world’s scariest players.

Trump claimed that he would restore respect for America and ‘get along with everybody,’ but, when asked about his limited knowledge of foreign affairs, said only that he would put together a first-rate team.  Bush pleaded, more effectively than did Kasich, for a foreign policy committed to multilateralism and steady global engagement.  When one of Bush’s rivals tried to attack his brother’s record after 9-11, Bush’s simple response, ‘he kept us safe,’ drew sustained applause.

Cruz’s worst moment came when he tried to disavow his one-time support for John Roberts, whom he now depicts as an arch-enemy.  Trump’s worst moment came when he tried to compliment Carly on her beauty.  He also failed to summon a convincing reply when Bush accused him of having tried to get concessions on casino gambling from Hillary after giving her campaign money.

Bush’s best moments came when he admitted having smoking pot forty years ago, when he argued for a nuanced approach to immigration, and when, in the debate’s closing moments, he threw out the goal of propelling the US toward a high-growth-rate economy.  Marco Rubio showed his command of a rational immigration reform plan, but looked callow when he proclaimed that he had missed votes in the Senate because (essentially) the entire direction of Congress is mistaken.  His announced determination to leave the Senate in order to seek the presidency shows how unprepared to be president he really is.

All in all, the debate was refreshing in its breadth and intensity.  In the press of competition, the candidates, desperate to differentiate themselves from one another, came across quite candidly.  The bracing back-and-forth of this, the second GOP debate, casts into relief the dangerously lackluster character of the Democratic field.   A Democratic contest between Hillary and Bernie is going to make for poor entertainment indeed.  For now, the energy is with GOP field.

When Nominating a President United a Party

31 Jul 2015 By in The Party System Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Party leaders calling on Theodore Roosevelt at home following his nomination for president.
This photograph provides a measure of how much our style of choosing presidents has changed.  In 1904, when this picture was taken, there was no doubt whatsoever of the power of political parties to select their presidential nominees.  In the century since, both parties have lost that control.

Admittedly, the star of this picture, Theodore Roosevelt (in the white vest), was immensely popular, and the incumbent.  His rise had been dependent, however, on his skill in gaining support of the major powers in his party–the political bosses who controlled large blocks of delegates, and the senior officeholders whom the bosses supported.  A presidential hopeful had to take into account established figures and personally win them over.  The months leading up to a convention were a period of intense jockeying, as hopefuls and their friends made the rounds, trying to gain traction within the organization.  No way could a candidate hope to become president without the party establishment, because the power to select a nominee really lay, not with voters, but with their delegates.

Ultimately, delegates to the conventions chose the nominee.  They could change their votes during the balloting if they pleased, and such changes were often necessary.  This process forced the people who were most invested in a political party to come to an agreement about competing nominees and decide which of them best served the party’s interests.  In the process of rejecting candidates, the party also closed off undesirable ideological directions it might have taken.  (Both the Democratic and Republican parties curtailed the independence of delegates after the tumult of the 1960s, gutting the conventions of their essential purpose and drama.)

Young Roosevelt understood that his individual destiny was interdependent with that of the GOP.  Early on, he labored to prove his loyalty to the Republican Party, despite his Progressive leanings and reputation for being an impetuous renegade.  He recognized that, whatever his personal talents (which proved to be considerable), he needed the vast organizing structure of the party to propel him upward.  After angling for years to get the party where he wanted it, the party finally acquiesced.

The ritualistic mating game they had played was epitomized in the nominating committee’s formal call on Roosevelt after the convention.  They visited Roosevelt at his home on Long Island, Sagamore Hill, where he personally received them and demurely accepted their invitation to be the party nominee.  The character of the event was not unlike an at-home wedding.

The accommodation that he and his fellow Republicans achieved gave Roosevelt the personal glory he craved, while benefiting the party, which, by organizing itself around Roosevelt, soared to new levels of popularity.  In the general election that pitted him against Democrat Alton B. Parker, Roosevelt won every state in the North and the West, including Missouri, which hadn’t gone Republican since the 1860s.  His margin of victory was 2.5 million popular votes, the largest in American history.

Roosevelt forgot what he knew about interdependence later in life.  Having declared that he would never again run for the presidency, he yielded his place to William B. Taft, who retained the White House for the Republicans in 1908.   In 1912, Roosevelt made a disastrous decision to run against his party, splitting it and effectively giving the presidency to Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats.  It was that party’s first presidential victory since before the Civil War.  Roosevelt’s go-it-alone mentality and determination to defy the stolid power of the parties betokened the ill-conceived and divisive presidential bids so prevalent now.

 Image: from this source.