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Events As We See ThemThe Aftermath: Presidential Elections and other Stories in the Meat Market
Brief Observations At the Still Point
James Madison, writing as Publius in the Federalist Papers remarks that, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." Thus, politics. And we are witnesses to what happens when one ambition succeeds to power and dominates. A countervailing ambition is busy undermining the ambition in power and as long as bullets don't fly it's fairly successful.
The political parties are the fullest expression of political ambitions. Ambitious men and women make their way through each party only to be met with other ambitions contrary to their own. This is simple enough to know. We expect the political parties to have one large ambition or vision, outside of wanting power, and fighting another large, nearly philosophical vision. We can say generally, that in the Democrats are the ambitions of those who have been slighted, excluded, impoverished, and are seeking both rights and opportunity. And in the Republicans are the powerful and those who want the same sort of power out of envy or ambition, especially economic power. That's a very safe thing to say but it's generally true. And it conforms to John Adams' belief that the political state had to be balanced between the need to create wealth and the need for the democratic people to flourish. Politics is often the attempt to re-balance this difficult equation.
As we noted before in Events, the 60's and 70's saw the successful ambitions of the slighted, excluded, impoverished, idealistic come to the fore in a time of great adrenaline. That tsunami was met head-on by a countervailing ambition contained in the middle-class tax payers, neo-conservatives, and fundamentalists. Both visions, at the height of their victory, appear eternal and destined to govern forever.
It never happens. A new ambition must arise to fight the successful ambition. Sometimes it is in the form of new ideas, other times it is a re-invigoration of political energy. This is why, looking back into the 20th century, politics looks pastiche and hardly recognizable as you begin to learn these things. It is a central necessity that politics will form and distintegrate and reform according to the needs of the vision and the nature of the imbalance that occurs in the system over time.
This was brought home by the election yesterday, of a Hispanic as mayor of Los Angeles. The Hispanic's are ecstatic, some observers believe it will awaken a sleeping giant of Hispanic political involvement. And others rightly caution that he is the mayor of Los Angeles not just Hispanics of Los Angeles and will have to step lightly through this ethnic minefield to be successful.
At the state or national level a candidate is always going to be judged by their leadership and not their ethnicity. Unless, that is, the polity has decided that ethnicity determines wealth and/or is fully representative of the people and what the people want to become. Ethnic identity can't be the basic ambition of a political party because there are other ambitions such as feminist, environmental, gay, and more interests who want their cause to be at the center. It's easy to believe that if my ethnicity is in power I, as a member of the ethnicity, will prosper or progress. Things aren't that simple. And there is something that resists the idea of meta-ethnicity as an identity, especially against a middle-class identity.
And ambition thwarts the savvy political leader who steps from local and city politics up to a larger stage on the basis of ethnic appeal. He or she has to widen the appeal to satisfy that ambition. There is only one "ethnic" politician at this point who could garner a national following and that is the Senator from Illinois.
I'm sure there are good and bad things about ethnic politics, especially if the ethnic group feels outside the larger society and needs a strong identity to bring pressure on the system and put forward specific policies for the ethnic group. It's foolish to fear ethnicity. The fear obscures the ignorance of the political system. And it is so foolish for ethnic groups to fight each other for different ambitions.
What transcends ethnicity?
There are two main problems when thinking of ethnicity. One of them is that majorities are always oppressive or can be. The majority invariably thinks and defines itself as comprehensively as it can. Ethnic politics arise when a group of people believe they are not part of that comprehensive identity. It can never be a zero-sum game because the majority culture is always stronger than the minority culture. And it doesn't matter whether that minority is defined by race, religion, political, or ethnic background. We're fortunate that the framers recognized it, it was a chief part of the debate, and resulted in the Bill of Rights along with the whole idea of checks and balances. So praise to those wonderful folks! They erred on the subject of slavery but the question was the same then as it was during the Civil War: Union.
The other problem, which is more contemporary, is that when majority populations sense their self-interest is threatened they tend to band together. And there's little question in my mind that the conservative mood in the country is related, somewhat, to the ethnic politics of the 60's and 70's. What political leaders needs to do is convince people that their self-interest is not damaged or destroyed by the ambitions of another ethnic group. In fact, the argument has to be put forward that the success of an ethnic group is very beneficial to all groups, since the group is absorbed into the more comprehensive culture.
That is the sort of awareness that happens over time and will happen in the United States I believe. And it's a good thing.
May 19, 2005
It's ironic but true that the worst trait in a democracy is contentment. Democracy should produce anger from time to time. The citizens sitting around watching the golf tournament or Survivor, believing that life could get no better; who drive SUV's down the freeways with bold contempt for everything else are not the ep[tome of democracy. And we hold nothing against those who do, we simply ignore them.We believe that the founders of the democracy did not want syphllis-riddled leaders who had simply inherited an office their families could get for them. They feared that a good deal because they were victims of it or saw plenty of examples of that in their own lifetime. To prevent such a malady they put in a lot of checks and balances against power and against those who sought power. Each party established fairly tough due diligance to weed out the scoundrals. But it all depends on a strong, intelligent citizenry, and a strong, critical press.
We live in a huge womb-like nation that is privileged and unprecedented. We should be happy about it and protect the system against the stupidities that led to the American revolution in the first place. It's the arrogance of power that leads to the downfall of many empires and societies. It's the willfulness of the people to forget how it was built; where it came from and why. The people get distracted and complacent. The political class gets isolated and self-serving. This is very disturbing especially as we see the types of blinders that's fallen down over the eyes of the people and the way wealth has gained control over the poltical system.
Democracy is activism. It is work. It is deferral of gratification because, one's hope and vision is greater than one's appetites.
More than any other system democracy depends on the quality of people who make it up. It is that and little else. All the armies and bombs and billions are meaningless if the people don't rise above a level prepared for them by parents, peers, professors, or priests.
I still believe there are excellent character strengths to Americans. The culture went through a terrific crisis in the 60's and 70's where nothing was believed and all was attacked. And the people outgrew that and became stronger, I believe, from the experience without giving up the belief that things will get better. Once the people give up on progress as an idea, they are cooked. They certainly need debate and what this progress is and how it works itself out in reality but it must sieze on something pointing toward a future it can strive for.
More things? Oh goodness, that's probably fait acompli. So what?
May 12, 2005