There is a lot of anger in the air right now. Republicans are angry with Democrats.
Democrats are angry with Republicans. Both right and left are angry with the
“main-stream media.” Byron York reported a shouting match outside
a McCain event. Someone fired a few gunshots at the home of a manager of the
Central Florida Republican Headquarters.
Of course by this point everyone knows Ashley Todd’s story of an attack
by a black Obama supporter, is completely false, but the true story of self
abuse and attempted character assassination (of all African American Obama supporters)
is as much evidence of heightened emotions as it is evidence that Todd is suffering
from her own mental illness.
Anger is driving this election. Democrats are more than hopeful that just as
in 2006 anger at George Bush will deliver them a big victory. Republicans reading
the depressing poll numbers have already started imitating Democrats’
circular firing squads that have followed past Democratic defeats. So, in a
real sense, John McCain’s recent expression of a litany of differences
with the current occupant of the chair he hopes to inhabit, captured by Joseph
Curl and Stephan Dinan of the Washington Times was simply confirmation that
like Democrats and Independents, Republicans are also irked at George Bush.
George W. Bush is a uniter after all.
The level of anger nearly always rises in the closing weeks of a national election.
Elections are hard fought. But this year, the financial crisis is adding a whole
new level. The capitalists have let the whole capital system collapse. The “masters
of the universe” who have been living a lifestyle most of us see only
in fiction, are asking the rest of us for a handout just after making all of
us a lot less wealthy.
Both the political and financial situations present a danger of over-reaction
and both place a premium on restraint. We are not arguing that some amount of
this anger is unjustified. Partisans will be able to point to outrageous statements
and actions by the other side, and who isn’t angry at AIG executives who
continued their champagne and caviar lifestyle after receiving a government
bailout, or even the politicians – Republicans, but also many Democrats
– who failed to recognize the need for greater regulation.
But there is a danger of over regulation and over reaction. The current global
economic challenge will place a premium on cooperation and balance. Democrats
and Republicans are going to have to present a united front as the U.S. works
to find the right balance of policies, not only with Europe but also with Russia,
China and OPEC.
While some Americans fret, wrongly, that America is drifting toward socialism,
it must be remembered that Russia and China have been increasingly embracing
capitalism for at least a decade. We are headed globally toward experiments
in state capitalism where several European countries will have the greatest
experience.
Should Obama win on Tuesday, it will be a dramatic rejection of George
Bush’s economic policies and the right wing ideology of deregulation and
tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy, a philosophy which has been dominant
in the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan. But Democrats would make a serious
mistake if they embrace left wing economics too tightly. Anyone who believes
that either the economic philosophies of John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman
hold a monopoly on correct policy was not paying close attention as each philosophy
has run into difficulty when its adherents were in control of the global levers
of policy.
Opinion polls are quite clear in saying that the public has no desire to replace
conservative ideology with a liberal ideology. The public is tired of the bickering
blaming and gridlock in Washington and they want to replace that with non-ideological
political pragmatism. It is the passionate belief in ideology against all contrary
evidence, as much as greed or stupidity, that has led us to where we are today,
as Alan Greenspan as much as admitted when he testified before Congress last
week. As Pema Chodron warns, “The truth you believe and cling to makes
you unavailable to hear anything new.”
In the final days of the campaign, Obama is winning on the issues, and the
Republicans have everything to gain by upsetting the apple cart. This means
Obama’s supporters must take the lead from their candidate and, in the
words of Stephan Sondheim in West Side Story, “stay cool, real cool.”
At this point, and as Obama demonstrated in the debates, Democrats have everything
to gain by not taking the bait.
Too much fire can be uncentered. We need to balance it with equal parts water
and earth. We are entering a period where the conditions for growth must be
nurtured.
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