Over at TPMCafe they've been having an great discussion all this past week on the subject of partisanship. Its part of their Book Club, and is organized around Juliet Eilperin's Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives. From the title of the book you can clearly see Eilperin believes that heightened partisanship is hurting the nation. And truth be told I couldn't agree with that idea more. (Although, since I've not read the book myself, I can't comment on the specifics of her argument). But sadly, although I would like to see a return to bipartisanship, for now we must, I would argue, accept reality for what it is.
Anyway, I say all this as a way of introducing a post offered up over at TPM's Book Club by Mark Schmitt entitled "We're All Partisans Now." Mark takes the debate one step further by examining the upcoming election from a more national perspective. Because it is usually centrist and independent voters who swing in realigning elections, it is the "moderates" within the party in power who are most at risk. It's not just Chafee in RI; its moderate Republicans everywhere who are likely to get voted out this fall. And here's where I think Mark makes some great observations:
| One consequence of this outcome, however, is that the partisanship we’ve been discussing in the Book Club will become all the more acute. Not all of the Republicans who hold these seats now advertise themselves as "moderates," but many are allies on environmental causes and/or try to maintain good relationships with organized labor.
This November, even if the Democrats fall short of capturing the House, we are likely to find a Congress made up of two parties that are more ideologically homogenous and more regionally based than ever in history. There will be no truly conservative Democrats (some opportunists, of course), but that’s been the case since 1994 and the party-switches that followed. But there will also be no significant number of Republicans who are pro-environment... This will be an enormous challenge for, for example, environmental activists, because they are accustomed to operating across party lines, and in general it means that those trying to move any good policy will find themselves, through no choice of their own, more deeply embedded within the Democratic Party and more consistently opposed to Republican policies. The alternative is to wait around for the Northeastern moderates to reappear, which is as futile as waiting for Waco, Texas, to suddenly start electing Democrats. [Another error caught in comments: Waco is represented by Democrat Chet Edwards, one of the few survivors of the DeLay redistricting. Let's substitute "Gwinnett County, GA," for Waco.] This is an important point about partisanship that needs to be made: Even someone who doesn’t have an ounce of partisanship, who has no interest in or respect for the Democratic Party, but who cares about one or several issues, is going to find herself increasingly in the position of a partisan. Since resistance is futile, it’s best to embrace the role. |
Here Mark has put much more elegantly the point I was trying to make this week. The terrain has shifted under the feet of many long-time activists, and it is important that they recognize this and adapt ASAP. Although both they and I would prefer a more bipartisan world, the reality is that right now that world simply does not exist. And that's the message that many of us around the 'sphere were trying to send to Sierra last week. It was criticism for the sake of construction that we were offering, not destruction. We all realize that they're on the side of the angels, and we were just trying to do our part to help them help themselves.
The death of bipartisanship wasn't an accident of history; it was a conscious choice made by Republicans under the leadership of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. Govern with "a majority of the majority," they said, pitting group against group until they could marshall enough votes to enact their agenda without compromise. And should the legislative route fail, there's always signing statements and executive fiat. Make no mistake about it: so long as the GOP retains the majority, there is no hope for a return to bipartisanship. None. So long as they continue to win elections, they will have neither incentive nor reason to change. If we want to see even some of our goals achieved, we have no choice but to work together to see that come 2007, the majority is no longer in their hands.
UPDATE: Want more? Mark has been a busy boy!
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