| It's unfortunate that the window of time between the national punditry's accumulation of election trivia and its immediate ossification of that data into a narrative is so small. They decide it and run with it, and then they repeat it, even if it's woefully oversimplified.
I think the results in New Jersey actually embody my overall takeaway of this election: the tea party has more traction than it should, but it has far less traction than it would need to be seriously viable. The Republicans have the House, but I still think the pendulum's sway to the right should be taken in the context of the last decade. George W. Bush had an extremely difficult race for an incumbent in 2004; it seems almost superfluous to bring up the drama of 2000. Then, in 2006, the Democrats gained majorities in both houses of Congress, demonstrating even further popular dissatisfaction with the right. Then, of course, there was the humiliating moral implosion of John McCain and the disastrous Pandora's Box opened by his choice of running mate in 2008. Now in 2010 we have the tea party clowns of the midterms and Glenn Beck and his ilk as the ringleaders.
The Republicans have been struggling for a long time. While they've become louder and more aggressive lately, they're still floundering to define themselves in a credible way. Meanwhile, the issues actually at the root of our disgruntlement arose from mainly conservative policies, and that fact won't stay hidden forever. At some point, people will realize the middle class has disappeared and only a handful of people have profited. It's an indisputable fact.
It took a few decades then, but when this happened in the 1880s, it eventually inspired waves of antitrust regulation. At some point, when the country cools down or when our straits get more dire (hopefully it won't come to that), or when the House Republicans show by example that deregulation only makes things worse (maybe there's a reason for so much legislative gridlock -- if you can't show cause and effect, you can't be proven wrong), there's a chance people will wake up.
It wasn't very long ago that the public directed its anger rightly in the direction of robber barons, not government regulators -- Enron is the perfect example. Before it all crashed, there were split seams that showed in relief who was responsible. Now the chaos of the scene before us allows for more subjective interpretations. It might take the media to latch on the right story that invokes that zeitgeist (which could be difficult, because most reporters follow strict casting in any given climate), but moods can shift. Politicians dropped the ball on regulating private industry, but at least Democrats are traditionally bound to support it; Republicans are vocally averse to it.
Once more, we have the familiar story of politics as zen koan: Do the ends justify the means if the route to the ends people hope to achieve can only come through (fairly benign, if not benevolent) means they claim they don't want based on false information?
It just dawned on me, but when you have people suggesting policies like deregulation, cutting social programs, and lowering taxes to an untenable level that will legitimately harm people, you can only keep up the charade for so long. I'm glad the New Jersey House and Senate delegation will comprise, almost exclusively, people who know it's a fraud. |
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