Watching the Democrats completely lose their shit over one special election loss is fascinating if one can get past the that horrible feeling of bile rising in one's throat. Oh, and the despair -- that's a bit of a bummer too.
Anyway, this made me contemplate how the Republicans would react to a similar setback. And the answer is that they would not have backed off an inch. They would ratchet up whatever their issue de jour was and push it twice as hard.
The Republicans now operate as if they are the natural governing party of the United States. Electoral setbacks prompt neither reflection nor course correction. The fact that they had their asses handed to them in both 2006 and 2008 only made them double down on their positions, to push further to the right, to make intransigence a religion. In their eyes, the Democrats are forever illegitimate, even when they win -- they are never truly the majority party, even when they demonstrate overwhelming electoral superiority.
Of course this has come at a price -- they do only have 41 seats in the Senate, are down by 79 House seats, and have lost the White House. But despite these setbacks, they have basically stymied the Democrats over the last year. They have shown what a disciplined minority party can do in the American system to prevent the majority from being able to govern. And they are unapologetic, nay, gleeful about it.
The Democrats seem to have bought into the Republican world view. Even when possessing majorities of a size that the Republican Party hasn't seen since before the Great Depression, the Democrats still seem to buy into the narrative that suggests that they aren't quite legitimate, are not fully American. And at the first hint of slippage in popular support they assume the worst and want to apologize and retreat. They seem congenitally unable to play the kind of hardball that is a reflex for the Republicans.
The differences are not simply true of the party's respective elected officials -- it is also true of their political bases. The Republican base is rabidly loyal and will sing the praises of just about anything the party leaders do. Although they have airbrushed Bush out of the current family photos, they stood by him with a slavish devotion throughout most of his disastrous reign, even when he brought electoral disaster upon them. Much of the lefty base seemed ready to denounce Obama as traitorous at the first hint that he was not going to be able to deliver all that we had hoped.
Part of me envies the Republicans -- their collective certainty, their hard-headedness, their fierce discipline, and sheer bloody-mindedness. Now, of course, these are also the qualities of a borderline personality, of a bully who lacks any ability for empathy or introspection. I don't want to emulate a party that is grounded in hatred, greed, and anti-empiricism. But I do want my leaders and my ideological fellow travelers both to see the strength that can come of standing firm, or being loyal and steadfast, of not bending with each small storm.
It's time for all of us to pull together and get shit done, to fight the good fight and to do so unapologetically. Let's go toe to toe with these assholes and if we go down, go down swinging. Our leaders owe this to us and we to them.