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re: Gloating
Robert — (archived)

You're right, McFly, the gloating will be divisive. Mea culpa. In earlier posts I've talked about trying to minimize it, in the interests of national unity. I do consider that a duty as a citizen.

But it's not within my power to promise that there won't be any gloating at all, the bit that I can't keep in and feel I've earned suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous partisans; and certainly not the gloating of millions of other people who don't feel my sense of restraint and responsibility.

So I'm going to bleed it off a little at a time, and like in that post, I'll try to remember to admit that it's gloating.

I'm not interested in convincing anybody to join the Democratic Party. I don't live in a binary world in which being opposed to NeoRepublicans obligates me to love the Democrats. Democratic politicians will step up to fill the corruption void left when the Neos are ejected, and so I see them as just the next problem looming on the horizon. "See the new boss, same as the old boss", man.

And then it goes, "we won't get fooled again", and that's lately had me thinking about the center. The American center used to hold all the power, and the partisans used to have to negotiate with us to gain power. But those times are gone, and now politicians work for their Parties and advance extreme agendas, and the moderate middle has become disenfranchised. That's a bad thing, the source of all our "polarization"--the moderate middle hasn't disappeared as we're supposed to believe, it's simply been pushed off the field and stripped of political power. Only extremists have a voice these days.

I see the answer not in giving the Democrat's swing of the pendulum a shove, but trying to reestablish the center and force the two Parties to toe the line. As it used to be, and was meant to be.

A third political party would be an awful idea, but a nonpartisan group that gets big enough and represents enough discontent will be able to dictate terms to both Parties. Draw up a reform pledge and code of political ethics and get millions of people to promise to vote only for candidates from either party who take the pledge...maybe that would get through to the politicans.

So if you'll forgive me indulging in a little well-earned I-told-you-so about Dubya, maybe we can build a little political detente over time and save America from the politicians, down the road.

I'm done gloating for today. One post was enough. Thanks for listening.

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