The Difference Between Two Parties, Part II

In an earlier post, it was made clear that the Republican and Democratic Parties have clearly-delineated differences between them that separate the two. Though there are still many aspects of the two that are more or less the same - witness President Obama's continuation of Bush-era foreign policy as a good example - there are nonetheless fundamental differences at the core of each party.

One of these core, fundamental differences lies in each party's base. A party's base is the soul of the party. They are the ones who will support the party above all else, who strive to make it the best it can be. The ones who are among the very low percentage of Americans who vote in primaries or non-Presidential election years. The ones who are the most rigidly ideological - conservative or liberal. The base pushes the party either more to the Right or more to the Left, depending on how far the party strays.

It is common knowledge that both parties are actually composed of several factions that together combine to make up a coalition of moderate-to-center-right and moderate-to-center-left organized political bodies. History has shown this to be the case for much of the last 100 years, with most policy being compromises that end up squarely in the middle of the political spectrum.

This common knowledge is, however, completely false. Two moderate, pragmatic American political machines, one center-left and one center-right, have not existed as such for at least 40 years, if not longer. Much of this is due to the increasingly right-ward drift of the Republican Party, whose conservative wing now composes the majority of members and for all intents and purposes is the party. There are barely any liberal Republicans any more, and moderate Republicans have mostly been purged.

With the Republican Revolution in the mid-1990s, when they took control of the House for the first time in over 40 years, the party's conservative wing had finally won an enormous victory (if you discount the 12 years of Presidents Reagan and Bush). This was followed up by the eight-year reign of President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress, who managed to spectacularly fail in essentially every single thing they did. Such failure was always going to happen because the Republican Party had become a party of fanatical ideologues whose only goal it was to enact their pet conservative policies, regardless of whether these policies worked.

Decades of right-wing economic policies and many socially-conservative victories in Congress have substantially shifted the country to the Right. The United States is now one of the most unequal industrialized countries in the world, while also managing to be the lowest-taxed, least-regulated, and most-dependent upon fossil fuels. It is a country in which it has become increasingly complex and difficult to get an abortion, receive already scanty unemployment benefits, but where it is spectacularly easy to purchase and carry a firearm in public.

The immense failure of the Right's policies can be seen in the explosion of the deficit, the racking up of enormous amounts of debt, engaging in two illegal, unfunded wars that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and severely tarnished the nation's reputation abroad, the absolute financial collapse of Wall Street which nearly completely ruined the U.S. economy, and allowed health care costs to rise unaccountably high due to intense opposition to the one thing is known to bring it down - some form of universal, single-payer coverage.

That this failure of conservative ideology has resulted not only in denial of its failings, but in a doubling down of voting in even more conservative conservatives is rather astonishing. But it speaks to the power of the Republican Party's base, and how the party itself caters to it. Republican office-holders will do anything, anything, to appease their base. They will pledge to destroy the economy unless taxes are not raised. They will stand on principle to oppose a health care bill that will lower costs. They will go back on literally anything they have said in the past that might compromise them now - Orwell would be nodding his head - all in order to appease their base. They will do all this because they are absolutely terrified of their base. And they have good reason to be. Republican primary voters have shown that they will not tolerate those who they consider to be insufficiently conservative. So, Republicans constantly harangue each other as to who is the most conservative, who is the true conservative, etc. They do this not only because they have to, but because being conservative is a good thing.

In contrast to the Republican Party's base, the Democratic Party hates their base. With a passion. It should be noted that, though Democrats are usually thought of as "liberals", most Democrats are not self-identified liberals. A plurality of Democrats are liberal, with many moderates and a substantial amount of conservatives. The Democratic Party, then, still embodies the old notion of a center-left coalition. Even though most moderates share almost every single belief that liberals do, "moderate" Democratic politicians often find themselves ostracizing their liberal colleagues. This has resulted in many moderate and conservative Democrats embracing right-wing, conservative, Republican policies that have truly been terrible for the country. As a result, national policies have skewed to the Right for several decades.

Whenever there is a complaint about this rightward drift from the Democratic Party's base - that is, from liberals - the "mainstream", "moderate" Democratic politicians like to push back against them to prove how "serious" they are. Liberals are branded as "extremists" and their complaints are not accepted. And they can do this because they know that nothing will happen to them. Nothing at all. Whereas Republicans are terrified of their base, Democrats hate their base. Democrats will not vote out a politician for not being liberal enough or for doing something that the Democratic Party does not stand for.

How many Democrats lost their primaries to more liberal politicians after voting for the War in Iraq? How many Democrats lost their seats after voting for the Bush tax cuts, or for cutting welfare, or for supporting de-regulation. or for passing the PATRIOT Act, or for voting against gay marriage, or anything else that went directly against liberal principles? The Congressional Progressive Caucus did not stand as a group and vote down the Affordable Health Care Act for not providing a public option or single-payer mechanism like the Tea Party Republicans almost certainly would have done (though this may or may not have been a good thing).

While Republican presidential candidates argue about who is more conservative, you would be very hard-pressed to get a Democratic candidate to admit that they are liberals. Being liberal is a bad thing, you see. It means you aren't "serious", that you are "out of touch". Of course, being conservative means exactly the opposite. This hesitancy to embrace liberalism and the corresponding "hippie-punching" that the Democratic Party regularly engages in with its base is due to the acceptance of the status-quo by liberal party members who do not vote with their principles. By accepting the Democratic Party's embrace of illegal wars, illegal torture, deregulation, unconstitutional surveillance activities, interventionist, warmongering foreign policies, liberals are accepting the status-quo. By not voting to change policies to fit their own values, like conservatives do, liberals allow the American political spectrum to shift to the Right. Inevitably this leads to compromise between the center-right and the Right. This is a terrible choice that inevitably also leads to terrible policies.

Therein lies another major difference between the two parties. Republicans are afraid of their base, while Democrats hate theirs. This divergence among the die-hard ideologues of both parties has resulted in creating a shadow United States, one that is somehow still a superpower but that also is only a fraction of the greatness it has the potential to be. One way to shift the dialogue, shift the spectrum, shift the nature of policies, is for liberal Democrats to gain a voice, stand up, and vote their conscience. They must make the Democratic Party responsible and accountable. They must return the party to its core whence it has for several decades been fleeing.

Staring History in the Face

The crimes committed by National Socialism in World War II were undeniably horrific; the atrocities that occurred in Europe by German soldiers were so terrible, that for many years after 1945 it was very difficult for Germany to fully accept and admit to what had been done by their countrymen. It has only been relatively recently that the entirety of the barbarity of the Nazi regime has become unquestioned in German society; it was understandably difficult for ordinary Germans to accept the fact that the Nazi Party had had mass support and that millions of Germans from all backgrounds did terrible things with the military or could not possibly have been unaware of what was happening to the Jews of Europe. This aversion with the past is gone now. Germany has stared its history in the face and no longer blinks at what it sees.

The German term for this is Vergangenheitsbewältigung - coming to terms with the past. While it has taken many years for Germany to truly come to terms with its Nazi past, the same cannot be said for other countries.

The crimes of the Nazis were so terrible that other countries were able to place the blame for the bad things that happened in the war entirely upon them. So it was that Austria was able to, up through the 1990s, claim that it was the first victim of Hitler - this despite the fact that Nazi membership was disproportionately high among Austrians, Austrians were overrepresented in the SS, and one out of every two concentration camp guards was Austrian. Calling themselves the victim when they were in fact not allowed Austria to escape the kind of post-war punishment that Germany received, as well as the general taint of the Nazis in general.

The French for decades after World War II liked to claim that their Resistance was of mythological proportions, fighting against both the Germans and the hated Vichy regime, which was little more than a puppet government. Yet, the Germans had relatively few administrators in France during the war, meaning that the government was autonomous and legitimate, and regarded as such by the vast majority of French citizens. This inconvenient fact means that all of the Jews that France willingly transported to the concentration camps of the East was not actually at the behest of Germany but rather a willing collaboration on the part of a legitimate, racist French government. What the French still are having difficulty coming to terms with is the way they treated their non-white colonial African soldiers - and this while they were fighting a regime that itself was extremely racist.

This myth of resistance and scant collaboration was prevalent all over Europe until very, very recently. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans willingly participated in the systematic murder of innocent civilians - Jews, gypsies, ethnic minorities - but for most of the post-war years were able to blame this on the Nazis. Most of the resistance movements were not nearly as large as they were made out to be after the war, as well. Having a significant part of your countrymen participate in genocide and mass murder doesn't feel or sound too good for most people, as it should not. But ignoring or misconstruing these facts does humanity and each individual country a disservice. More importantly, it is a continuing slap in the face of the millions of innocent people who were killed in the war.

One of the many tragic aspects of the Holocaust was how little anyone did to stop it. In the 1930s and 1940s, Americans consistently showed concern for the fate of the Jews in Europe, yet supermajorities of the population at the same time refused to allow them to emigrate to the United States. Britain certainly knew about what was happening in Eastern Europe, yet did very little to do much about it. Before and after the war, Poles engaged in pogroms that killed Jews - and this in a country that saw millions of its citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish, systematically murdered while being treated as sub-humans by Nazi occupiers.

The United States, generally speaking, likes to look back on the Second World War as one of its finest hours. America was a beacon of liberty, fighting a barbaric racist regime so that Europe and the world could be free. While this noble war was being waged, President Roosevelt rounded up hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese-American citizens, took them from their homes, and imprisoned them in camps - all because of who they were, not for what they had done. In the midst of fighting a country that had legalized discrimination, segregation, and racism, the United States itself had an entrenched system of legalized discrimination, segregation, and racism. The army was segregated until 1948; there was a legal, Constitutionally-upheld system that separated blacks from white society. Many of the American soldiers who fought to free Europe came back to a society that purposefully excluded an entire group of people for arbitrary reasons and did nothing to change it - Civil Rights legislation would only come some 20 years later.

While these uncomfortable truths are talked about in classrooms throughout the United States, they are almost never put into the context which they should be: that one country that practiced discriminatory and racist policies against a minority group was fighting against another country that practice discriminatory and racist policies against a minority group. And while the United States agreed that what was happening to Europe's Jews was unacceptable, they did nothing to stop it for years, while also continuing to oppress millions of their own citizens.

The Nazis are an easy scapegoat because they did indeed usher in humanity's darkest hour - they showed what we as humans are capable of, and it was terrible. But the Nazis' crimes should not excuse the crimes of others. It is right and just that Germany accepts the entirety of the actions of the Nazis, just as countries like France, Austria, and the United States needs to accept the uncomfortable truths buried in their pasts.

Anti-Semitism and racism was not unique to Germany or Europe - far from it. Recognizing and accepting this is one large step in making sure that the darker side of humanity never again resurfaces. We must all stare history in the face and not blink.

Der Mut, Weiterzugehen

Friedrich Nietzsche hat einst geschrieben: Was nicht tötet, härtet ab. Dieser Satz verkörpert etwas, das in jedem Mensch tief im Herzen liegt, aber nur, wenn man es orten kann.

Es gibt solche Zeiten während eines Lebens, in den man sich in einer unbeschreiblichen schwierigen Situation finden kann. Bei diesen Zeiten hat man zwei Auswähle - entweder aufzugeben oder weiterzugehen. Manchmal ist diese Entscheidung ganz leichter, einfach aufzugeben und den Schmerz hinter sich zu lassen. Aufzugeben bringt man zur Entscheidung, die vorher nie denkbar war. Das Undenkbar im Leben reisst so stark und mit soviel Macht das Herz mal ein, dass es besser oder leichter ist, das undenkbare nicht zu tun.

Einige der millionen ukrainer, die gestorben sind, als eine Hungersnot ihr Land langsam zerstört hat, gingen zum Friedhof, um in ihren selbstgebauteten Gräbern zu liegen, denn es war noch zuviel, das Leben fortzusetzen. Frauen, die vergewaltet oder zur Zwangsprostitution gebracht worden sind, versuchen sich das einzige Leben zu nehmen. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg haben Eltern manchmal ihre Kinder getötet, um Sie vor einer einmarschierenden Armee zu schutzen. Deprimierte Menschen, wenn Sie hoffnungslos sind und keinen anderen Ausweg erfinden kann, geben sich den einzigen Weg, an dem Sie glauben kann, den Schmerz zu halten. Und wie musste sich die Opfer der Nazis gefühlt, die in den Konzentrationlagern seit Jahren eingesperrt wurden? Eine Anlage, die die tiefesten Grausamkeit aller Menschheit gezeigt hatten.


Dieses Gefühl kommt ja auch nicht nur bei den gravierenden im Leben; die Tochter, die die Mutter vor einem Tag verloren hat, ist auch trostlos. Oder beim Verlust eines Haustieres. Viele homosexuellen Studenten, die in der Schule tyrannisiert werden, versuchen den Selbstmord zu schaffen. Man will manchmal den leichter oder schmerzlosen Weg nehmen. Bei solchen Zeiten muss man aber den Mut haben, noch einen Schritt zu nehmen.

Als Aron Ralston bei einem Bergsteigenzufall seinen eigenen Arm selbst amputieren musste, er zeigte etwas der Menschheit, das nur seltsam gesehen wird. Der japanische Mann, der auf seinem Hausdach für mehr als 4 Tagen gewohnt hat, nachdem den Tsunami, der sein Land übergestürmt hat und seine Frau entgenommen hat, der endlich gerettet wird, zeigt seine Menschheit. Die Juden und anderen Opfer der Nazi-Verbrechungen, die den Zweiten Weltkrieg und der Massenvernichtung des Holocausts überlebt hatten, zeigten dieses Menscheitsgefühl auch. Der Mensch, den dem Tod überlassen wurden, der zurück kommt und ein besseres Leben bildet, dient jeden wunderschönen Atem.


Es ist der Mut, weiterzugehen. Es ist das, das tief im Geist der Menschheit beerdigt ist. Was nicht tötet, härtet ab. Was wirkt unmöglich, ist nicht. Es gibt ja Zeiten im Leben, die die Menschengrenzen ausdehnen und man hoffnungslos machen können. Wenn man aber den Mut hat, weiterzugehen, versteht am Ende dieser Anreise, dass es besser geworden ist und kann immer besser werden.

I Know What I am, But What are You?

I am an idealist.

I am an elitist.

I am a historian.

I am a poet.

I am a naturist.

I am a romantic.

I am an empathizer.

I am of the Left (though it's not that black and white).

I am a naturist.

I am a pacifist.

I am the real-life physical embodiment of the fictional Eric Foreman.

I am a literaturist.

I am a (sometimes) unashamed hypocrite.

I am a converted urbanite.

I am a writer.

I am a monarchist (except when I am not).

I am a musician.

I am a monogamist.

I am anti-mainstream (though not on purpose, it just kind of worked out that way).

I am anti-totalitarianism, anti-fascism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, anti-discrimination.

I am trilingual.

I am ideological (except when I am not).

I am privileged.

I am a punk-rocker, a stargazer, a headbanger, a singer-songwriter, a hip-hopper, and so much more.

I am an amateur astronomer.

I am a gamer (of all kinds).

I am an honorable man.

I am biased (except when I am not).

I am imperfect (and very aware of it).

I am an athlete and a competitor.

I am a brother, a son, a nephew, and a grandson.

I am a traveler.

I am a dreamer.

I am a carnivore.

I am anti-smoking (except when I am not).

I am pretentious (except when I am not).

I am awkward.

I am a humanist.

I am all of these things - what are you?