Trying to see all sides and make sense of it
John D. is not a politician or a party activist: He’s not hard-over on any hot-button issue, just trying to see all sides and make sense of it.
He’s simply a middle-class Midwesterner hundreds of miles from the coasts and from D.C., in a medium-size metropolitan area surrounded by farms, factories (some boarded up), office complexes (some for sale), and endangered shopping malls.
John D. used to be a Republican (he wrote letters to support Ike), become a Democrat when he thought the GOP cared more about corporations than people, and is now confused.
He saw the GOP try to enlarge its tent, first by catering to religious conservatives, which he saw as completely antithetical to the big business guys. He saw it improve its country-club Wall Street image by projecting itself into middle-class good ol’ American values, which he saw as hypocritical. Meanwhile, he witnessed the Democrats emphasizing social issues, small groups, and causes, catering to women, minorities, the LGBT community, new immigrants, and even ex-cons and illegals ... all good issues to be sure, but neglecting what he saw as the mainstream.
He saw the GOP wrap itself in the flag, implying that Democrats are not patriotic, and proclaim that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough. He witnessed what he saw as the Democrats’ desire for more government bureaucracy, laws and regulation to achieve social equality and provide social justice regardless of personal responsibility or merit.
He saw the Republicans as anti-science and pro-unregulated destruction of the environment, and the Democrats as promoting unregulated immigration and promulgation of bloated bureaucracies and governments.
Poor John D. felt he had no voice. He even thought that lack of recognition of the concerns of his demographic had impacted an important recent election.
He sees both parties in turmoil. But maybe that’s a good thing for John; we may need more parties. Other nations have several parties across a broad spectrum, and successful governance requires coalitions and agreements among multiple parties. And more cooperation and compromise than we can ever expect from our twoparty mentality of “I win; you lose!”
Our John D. noticed that many factions within the current two parties have political interest in only a single issue, like the no-tax tea partiers, right-to-lifers, NRA stalwarts and some organized union groups. So he mused that there should be sufficient party options available for factions like these to find their homes, as well as for moderates who discuss pros and cons and are open to compromise.
“Let’s see,” he mused, “We could have the social conservatives, conservatives, moderate-right (traditional rational Republicans), centrists, moderate-left (traditional rational Democrats), liberal, and pseudo-socialists (party names pending).”
He knew he was encouraged to write locally and a bit personally in his proposed columns, and that he shouldn’t try to out-pundit the national pundits. Well, (a) all politics is local and the Midwest is more local, (b) he admits his personal confusion, and (c) the national pundits don’t.