Further Into the Wilderness

For a political party long renowned for its message discipline and sunny optimism against all odds, the GOP and its surrogates have veered further from their A-game than at any time since I've been walking this Earth. Let's look at it from the policy approach, and then its delivery.

Part of any political genius is to get people operating under your assumptions before you even begin the discussion. Issues like flag burning are the purest examples, but this can also be found in the arguments around gay rights, abortion, gun control, even the Iraq war. Here's what I mean.

Flag Burning: "You mean you're in favor of desecrating our nation's greatest symbol?!"
The forced response: "No but..."

Gay Rights: "Gay marriage is a threat to our society's moral fabric."
The forced response: "No it isn't. Let me explain why..."

Abortion: "It's stopping a beating heart."
The forced response: "Yeah but..."

Gun Control: "Our constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms."
The forced response: "Actually blah blah blah..."

Iraq: "How can you undermine the efforts of our valiant troops?"
The forced response: "No, of course not. It's just that..."

It doesn't matter who's right or wrong. Some of those arguments begin with unfounded accusations, some with misrepresentation, some are just bullying. These strategies only work if everyone is saying the same thing, from the politicians to civic action groups to talk show pundits. When they strike the right cultural chords with a good, clean hit they are almost impossible to stop. Opposing views can only provide morally weak or logically abstruse reactionary responses. That's how liberals become the waffling eggheads of lore.

But there's a problem when people start disagreeing, or if people just don't care about the issues that propel this strategy.

People don't care about flag burning. Most of us understand that flags matter. Most of us would get pissed off if someone lit one on fire. Most of us would also like to avoid the desecration of our constitution for the sake of a symbol. But more to the point, most of us don't care. There's a recession and a war on.

Gay rights are happening regardless of this or that moral objection. The first reason is reason itself. There is no scientific evidence that gay couples can't be perfectly good parents. There is nothing out there that says that marriage or civil unions have any impact on the institution itself. Proposition 8 may pass in California, but taken over the longer-term this is a losing issue for cultural conservatives.

There is a growing consensus that abortion is not a desired outcome, that abstinence-only education only leads to furtive, guilt-ridden and unprotected sex, and that the best way to reduce abortion is to avoid it in the first place. Some people will always see a moral imperative to outlawing the practice, but this is far from the most parsimonious approach to their stated goal, stopping abortion.

Gun control has never been about the government taking away people's rights. It's been about safe, responsible ownership. Almost everyone agrees that people should be permitted to "bear arms", but where does it stop? Aren't bazookas arms? What about nuclear arms? The point here is that there are common sense limits to one's rights. Sure you can have a gun, but let's keep it registered, and if you're dangerous, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to own one. Cars are useful and fun, but they're dangerous too. We license their users and revoke that license if they abuse it. That's reasonable, just like most people.

Iraq has become overshadowed by Afghanistan and domestic issues. More importantly, it seems to be getting better, or at least to a point where we can leave it and go do other things. It's hard to get bogged down in patriotic fury when things have nearly reached their likely conclusion.

All of the bread-and-butter issues of the GOP are drying up and blowing away. They've ceded the sensible middle ground and decided to circle the wagons around Reagan, Heston and Wayne. The Indians have gone, guys. Come out and join the party.

While Rick Warren agrees to speak at the opposing party's inauguration, taking millions with him, the candidate for chairman of the GOP is releasing "Barack the Magic Negro" on his greatest hits list. I don't care if you think there's a double-standard when an LA Times column is taken out of context and made into a racist parody, or if you think it's all just a harmless joke. It doesn't matter what you think, guys. It sounds terrible, so you lose. DNC 1, RNC 0 and you scored on yourselves.

I knew Rush Limbaugh was deaf, but it looks like he's gone tone deaf too. The country is going be majority non-white in a few more years. White suburban men are not the voting bloc they once were, nor do they have the same social power as their forebears. They can go on living with their golf shirts and sense of entitlement, but it won't win many elections.

They need to throw Limbaugh out of the big tent. If I were a high-level GOP operative I'd seriously consider planting some underage pornography on his computer, combing through his taxes for missing money, or entrapping him in a bathroom stall. After all, these are the guys who brought us Watergate.

So how (and when) will the GOP redefine itself? There are some core values, some powerful messages that could gain some traction among the public, especially once the opposition takes power and the blame that comes with it.

All I know is...
The meteor has struck. The dinosaurs are going extinct. Keep an eye on the scurrying mammals at their feet, that is, if you believe in evolution.

To Coopt is to Coerce

On its face, Obama's choice of Rick Warren as the religious Master of Ceremonies for his inauguration looks like a disaster move. After all, the Christian Right and its sympathizers have been on the wane in recent years and many on the left are already seething over appointees who weren't on their short list.

Well, people asked for change and they got it. Here's a president-elect who's broken every archetype of who a president is, who they are loyal to, and how their own ideals shape our country's future.

The man's a constitutional lawyer. He views things in terms of rights before he views them according to any other moral framework.

Women should have the right to abortion, but that doesn't make it something good that should happen all the time. Nobody wants that. Everybody wants to reduce the number of abortions. It's just a matter of what policies take priority. It's an issue that can be resolved rationally if everyone takes a deep breath and is willing to compromise a bit.

Gay people should have the same rights under the law as straight people. Call it marriage, or call it a civil agreement. I don't think Obama really cares, at least on the terms of government's role in the institution of marriage. If a church doesn't want to marry you, so be it. Many synagogues wouldn't have married me and my wife, who doesn't share my lineage. But the state doesn't care about lineage.

The choice of Warren is a signal that Obama intends to end the culture wars once and for all. After this, he'll have 4 years to appoint Supreme Court justices and pass policy that allay the fears of many of Warren's mortal enemies. Nobody will remember who spoke at the inauguration beyond emotional memory. Down the road, Rev. Warren's followers may be more likely to think twice about their opinions of the incoming president, and that's the only conceivable impact of that choice.

The choice of Warren signals a few other things.

1. Obama won't exclude those who don't agree with him from the big discussions. How refreshing after so many years of fighting for control.

2. Obama won't be intimidated by the people who put him in office. He's going to be everybody's president, even for people who didn't and would never vote for him.

3. Obama won't fall victim to the old wedge trap. Wedge issues only work if the wedger can force the wedgee into viewing things along the lines of their thinking. It doesn't work if you bring them to your side.

4. Obama won't be swayed by knee-jerk reaction. We won't be divided along the lines of a few emotional issues when there is so much more at stake. Rick Warren and his ilk also do a lot of good in the world. This shouldn't be ignored.

The choice of Warren isn't a signal of weak-kneed compromise. It's the signal of someone who intends to lead everyone, unlike our current president who has marched in lock-step with the program while ignoring opinion or circumstance.

The Right should view this move, and many of Obama's appointees, as a sign that he is serious about bringing them aboard in solving today's problems. They should try to avoid the instant judgment and criticism that's become instinct for everyone with a strong party loyalty, on all sides.

The Left should view this move as a sign that the game's going to be played differently now. It's not going to be another round of "our turn, our program." Even if America is in dire need of many of the programs and views that the Left has to offer, it is not interested in whether this or that particular issue suits the tastes of a small minority.

In some ways, Obama's choices are a rude awakening, but it's better to be awake than polite.