Although the daily give and take of political activity is entertaining and even important in some particulars, confirming a SCOTUS appointment for example, there is larger game going on which is as interesting to think about. The image of three self-identified “has been’s” of the Republican Party gathered at the behest of the Congressional minority whip at ten in the morning in a mall pizza parlor to announce a movement to rebrand the Republican party, is so bizarre that, as they say, if it didn’t actually happen, you couldn’t make it up. Our old friend, Conventional Wisdom, chief spokesman for the main stream media, gives the event blanket coverage with the sage, if implied, assurance that ours is a two party nation, Republicans and Democrats, who cycle back and forth in ascendancy, and that right now the former are enduring a hard patch, and the newsworthy questions to be answered are, “What rhetorical changes will they have to make for their comeback, and how long will it take them to do it?”
Maybe. The alternative possibility is that the gut-felt intuitive bedrock attraction of the Republican Party, that unfettered capitalism and individual power are the standards by which all behavior should be measured, is not so self-evident anymore. The Republican Party is not the victim of a slick political campaign, it is the victim of history. Fighting unnecessary wars, torturing our adversaries, distributing income so that some marginal individuals become inordinately wealthy while others of arguably greater worth, are made destitute, and behaving in ways that ignore ethical or moral norms, are all predictable consequences of Republican philosophy, and all were “acceptable” to many Americans who, for a long time, gave Republicans the benefit of a doubt. For a long time, but, perhaps, no longer.
Perhaps future historians will conclude that there came a moment when we Americans, abetted no doubt by technical advances in communication that, like the printing press, made possible an unprecedented sense of community, concluded that we are not without responsibilities to those with whom we share the planet, and that “empathy” and ethical behavior should and must be components of our politics.
