By John Romano
(YBH) – Over the last week friends old and new have lambasted me on Facebook for posting articles I wrote that they disagreed with. First, my friends on the right took issue with my analysis that Rick Perry looked like a Nazi in his college photos. He did. Never said he was a Nazi, BTW, but with the 1972 hair-do and the boots to match, Mr. Perry looked like my idea of someone asking me for my “papers” in Germany circa 1939. On the other side, a buddy got on me heavily for posting the “list of demands” from an Occupy Wall Street forum poster and implying it was an official OWS tome. The absurd list of demands made the internet rounds this week, and along with countless other websites we printed it and, semi-tongue-in-cheek, referred to it as an official list. I don’t remember the same friend having anything to say when the Tea Party was branded as racist over and over again simply for being primarily made up of white people. Last I checked, Occupy Wall Street’s crowd looks to be 80%+ white as well. That being said, this guy is an incredibly fair dude in all of his endeavors. Something doesn’t fit. Something is not right with the politics of our nation. Things are way too personal. NOTE: When Occupy Wall Street did release an official statement we printed that too and labeled it as such.
Yesterday, political consultant Doug Usher wrote a very insightful piece in the Wall Street Journal. In it, Mr. Usher argues for team Obama to get involved in the GOP primary process in order to help nominate the least electable candidate. Mr. Usher bases his thesis on Gray Davis’ re-election strategy in California in 2002. Back then the well-funded incumbent spent millions to knock former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan out of the Republican primary. The strategy worked, and the GOP-nominated, little-known businessman Bill Simon was the nominee. Davis won. The whole affair smacked of foul play at the time. It went against what many of us here in the Golden State see as fair. Davis would be recalled a year later after it was revealed that his administration hid the depths of how bad the California economy had become. Had Riordan been elected, California would likely be in better fiscal shape today and we would have avoided the failed Schwarzenegger years. If Obama does the same, he may help himself stay in office, but he would further divide the country. Not sure if he cares.
Politically, America is divided between two philosophies almost straight down the middle. What I’ve been arguing for on this blog for the most part of two years is that a true path of understanding between left and right needs to be paved. Understanding, not agreement. Agreement is all but impossible. As an acquaintance of mine, radio host Dennis Prager, likes to say, “I prefer clarity to agreement.” I couldn’t agree with Dennis more.
It is simple really. Liberals see everything through the eyes of compassion, while conservatives generally see things through the lens of freedom and liberty. For instance, take the issue of illegal immigration. Most on the left see a poor person from Nicaragua, breaking our immigration laws, as someone trying make a better life. That is compassion. Someone on the right sees the same person and may feel for their predicament but realize that without the genuine rule of law there is no freedom or liberty. The law is the law. Two sets of people, most good and just, with two different outlooks. (I’m purposely leaving out the scary authoritarians on the left and the true racists on the right from this analysis. They are nowhere near a plurality on either side.) Almost every other issue in American life can be parsed according to this paradigm. Unemployment insurance? The left sees someone out of work for longer than six months and wants to offer an unending helping hand. A conservative asks: how much is enough and when does someone go from getting a leg-up into bondage? National defense? The environment? Taxes? Each have a cogent argument through the lens of compassion or the lens of liberty and freedom.
Liberals will not like the following analogy, but it is apt. Conservatives are the dog-walkers restraining the dog of liberalism. Without a leash liberalism and socialism end in either chaos or totalitarianism, just as the dog is more likely to get lost or hit by a car if he is allowed to roam free on the street. For conservatives? Well, anyone with a dog knows that life without one can get lonely. Conservatism without a compassionate counter-weight leaves us aimless. There is a reason most artists are liberal, and it’s not just the juicy NEA endowments. For years the “dog walking” analogy has served this country very well. Progress at a slow and steady pace with occasional leaps forward.
Unfortunately, this delicate balance was usurped after the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and the terrorist attacks of 2001. From day one the left sought to portray the Bush presidency as illegitimate. Whether Bush lost or not in Florida, most of the left’s anger was really over the fact that their guy wasn’t calling the shots. Had Gore won his home state of Tennessee there wouldn’t have been an issue in 2000. Food for thought, as Mr. Gore was out of touch with those in the state he once represented. Much like many liberal leaders in Washington today. Throw in 9/11 and an ill-thought-out Iraq war and well, here we are. This de-legitimizing effort by the left of Mr. Bush, especially after 9/11, was not forgotten by conservatives when Barack Obama took office in 2009.
The divide grew worse with the nasty fight over the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010, which led to the formation of the Tea Party (notice I eschewed the term ObamaCare there). The left did everything in its power to destroy the movement (they failed). The media was largely to blame for this. They really couldn’t believe that such a groundswell of real anger was possible so soon after Mr. Obama’s landslide win in 2008. Now, we on the right are supposed to accept that the union and Democrat-backed Occupy Wall Street movement is wholly organic. A tough pill to swallow.
To add a wrinkle to the mix, because of America’s racial history, the press and Republicans (and Democrats for that matter) handle the President like a spiny cactus. Being as clever as he is, Mr. Obama uses this to his advantage at every turn when it suits his aims. An early example is when nominee Obama decided to forgo public funds in the 2008 general election despite having pledged to be bound by public spending limits just months before. In essence the future President lied on an issue that mattered to many because it benefited him to do so. No one outside of the FOX/Breitbart/Drudge/Limbaugh orbit gave the President’s deceptive move a second thought. Only Obama could get away with such a move. Like I said, he is handled with gentle care lest a critic get stung. However, for all of his lofty rhetoric, Mr. Obama showed in that moment that he was just a typical politician and not America’s post-partisan savior. Alas, after almost three years of Obama rule, the economy is in the gutter and the country is as divided as ever. Don’t think for a moment that the constant kid glove treatment of the President isn’t hurting the economy or dividing the nation. It is.
What to do as a nation?
For me I’ve decided to no longer publish YBH! articles on my personal Facebook feed (this one excepted). A small but important step for me to work toward a more bonded country. I haven’t changed in my view that I want to see Mr. Obama go down in electoral flames next year, no way, but what has changed is my newfound belief that politics these days have gone too far and is creating a wedge between good-willed Americans on both sides from coast to coast. Leaving my articles off Facebook is my contribution to begin the healing process. What is yours?
All YBH! articles are always available on the official Yes, But, However! Facebook page at www.facebook.com/yesbuthowever
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John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
