Midterms

The threatened grow, the herds panic, and the leaders bluster. The midterm election comes, and at long last some sort of change seems ever likelier.

The dedicated populist in me would love to grouse about how after all the lies and crimes of the Republican enablocracy, it would be a sex scandal that turned the public against them. Or about how the Democrats, who spinelessly voted for war and such prosperity-destroyers as the bankruptcy bill, are dreaming if they think their ideas are winning out. Most Democrats remain trapped in the rhetorical prison Republicans created for them. In an interview, NPR asked Nancy Pelosi to respond to Republican charges that she was out of touch with the mainstream. She emitted some pabulum about how she was a Catholic and a mother of five – haplessly yielding to the obsession with personal character that has deliberately rubbed out any notion of statecraft.

But I will not.

Politics has always been a chaotic muddle of rapacity, conniving, and rumor-mongering. “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!” This is not a reason to disengage; the stakes are too high. And despite the fantasies of some, we are still in an age where public discontent scares politicians.

Take revolutionary France. When Robespierre was killed, logically it should not have meant the end of the Terror. The rest of the ruling clique was as much complicit in the Terror as he; it was simple internal strife that brought him down. But since he was the face of the government, the public believed it was the end, and there was a great public outpouring – “At last it’s over!” Counterrevolutionary statements became more common, and gangs looked for sans-culottes to beat up. Bewildered but intelligent, the government eased off, and before long France had become a more stolid middle-class republic.

This does not represent the inevitable victory of democracy – for it is not inevitable, and democracy did not follow. Rather, it represents the practical power a politically aware people can exert over a ruling class not substantially changed.

Whatever one’s hang-ups about the Democrats, third parties are counterproductive in our political system, and wishing will not make it otherwise. Both parties are big tents. Right now the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, is anti-abortion, but is trying to make the party an effective, distinguishable opposition. With enough new ideas, and a revitalized public sphere, a new consensus can be formed around the sharing of prosperity and public trust.

Those are the values of America, and always have been. People still remember them and believe in them, if you ask. The problem is pushing them back into the national mission, where they belong.