The Long View
I don't think it's just that I've been sick all weekend, or that the Phils suffered one of the more painful losses I can remember against the Braves last night, or even that between the O'Connor retirement and the Plame/Rove Affair, it feels like some truly heavy shit is about to go down in this country--but whatever the reason, it seems to me like this Fourth of July has brought out a lot of introspection about where our country is, where it might be going, and where we should try to steer it.

The New York Times has a moving op-ed about how the meaning of freedom and liberty is arguably starting to get away from us, perhaps because of the relentless politicization those concepts have had to withstand over the years. Another Times piece, perhaps of greater importance, notes that last week's Supreme Court decisions on church/state questions offer two future roads for jurisprudence on these questions--and expresses fear, which I think unfortunately is justified, that the Court will take the more dangerous one.

The Carpetbagger offers a terrific and funny reminder that the Pledge of Allegience has always been something of a political football--and asks, "[if] we added "under God" at the height of the Cold War because our enemies were godless communists, should we take the phrase out now because our enemies are religious fanatics?"

And on the Daily Kos site, a poster opines that progressives should take a moment on this holiday to give quiet thanks that Bush won the 2004 presidential election.

It's not a trollish piece, and in fact it's an argument I've entertained off and on ever since I got my mind out of the depressed post-election sludge it wallowed in for the first week or so after the voting. Summed up, his argument is that Bush's misrule will end the threat of conservative Republican power for a generation, because they're "trashing the brand."

I'm still not sure whether or not I agree. On the one hand, the reign of Bush/Cheney/DeLay/Rove/Norquist/Dobson presents the total unchecked id of what the Republican Party has come to: ignorance, arrogance, self-righteousness, malice, dishonesty, greed, and prejudice. These are not only the personal characteristics of the principals, but of the government they inform and/or lead.

These aren't good traits on which to govern a great country, and the U.S. is already seeing some of the results: terror, interminable war, international disrepute, economic stagnation, cultural division, the codification of inequity. Other consequences--mostly in the realm of missed opportunities--won't be fully evident for awhile: how we've squandered most of the "human capital" advantage we've had since the end of WWII, just what it means to have lost the respect of the world, the gathering storm of simultaneous demographic (aging/retirement of the Baby Boomers) and economic transformation (switch to a knowledge economy). And there are no counterveiling positives, at least none everyone could agree upon (e.g., whether or not you hated Reagan and Bush I, the end of the Cold War was certainly a good thing).

So that's the "for" argument. Two things are unknowable at this point, though: 1) whether the benefits of this signal failure of Republican governance will outweigh the very real human damage done; and 2) if American voters remain sufficiently "reality-based" to understand that the dismal prospects they see are directly connected to the leadership they've chosen.

This last one is what really gives me pause. Last year I thought Bush couldn't possibly win because so much of this was already apparent. 9/11 shouldn't have been a political benefit for him: HE FUCKED IT UP, focusing on missile defense while his own CIA and anti-terror advisers screamed at him to focus on the threat they saw. And then he exploited the tragedy to push through a partisan agenda and a war started under false pretenses. The economy was, and is, a stagnant mess, with real wages declining while corporate profits skyrocket; Iraq was already clearly a problem, if not the running sore we now realize it to be.

And yet, we lost--because Bush, his advisors, and their media enablers somehow made the election not about his record in office, but about the character of his opponent, and the emotions the two candidates triggered.

I won't say that the country "deserves" Bush; Americans are too good a people for that. But unless you buy into the various "stolen election" scenarios that have circulated in some left circles (and I don't; even if Ohio itself was stolen, I just don't see how a three-million vote popular margin can be faked), "we the people" brought this shitstorm upon ourselves--and there's no guarantee that we're going to wise up in 2006, or 2008, or anytime.

I can certainly see the thinking that it's for the best that this bunch of criminals, liars and sociopaths so undeniably "owns" the mess they've made. But I'm not yet convinced, and I won't be until they're gone from power and we can start the work of digging out.