Well, the midterm elecitons are over, although it remians to be seen what the exact results will be. It looks as if the Democrats have taken control of the House and the Senate will be something very close to an even split (probably a very slight Republican majority). Keep in mind that these counts include plenty of very conservative Democrats, in particular democrats who are conservative on the so-called "moral" issues. What exactly will this mean for American politics in the next two years? I'd like to leave that to the true pundits, although not without a few words first.
It's probably just that I'm a pessimist, but I don't really think that a narrow majority in the house can mean much good for Democrats and especially for real liberals. At this point, the Dems will, at best, likely have enough influence in Washington to stop some of the worst of the administration's proposals. The problem is, it is already too late to do much about some of the truly damaging ones (the war, the patriot act, the war, enviornomental measures, the war oh and did I mention...the war). Even the ability to block depends on strong party discipline, something the Democrats have not been known for recently and that I'm not really sure is such a good thing anyway. Given the fact that many of the Democrats that have been reelected and replaced Repulbicans in battleground districts are really quite conservative, it seems unlikely that they will being doing very much standing fast on very many issues.
Furthermore, the Dems already have a (justified) reputation for not having very much in the way of their own ideas. Many Democrats tend to simply defend old and decaying social support programs and oppose the worst of the conservative agenda. Liberals really need their own progressive agenda if anyone is going to take them seriously in the long run (even though, for individual elections in the current negative campaigning vein, blandness seems to be the supreme virtue). I know that I am looking for real progressives with ideas for positive change and am continually dissapointed by the options the Democrats give me. How long before people like me start looking elsewhere again.
Some pundits may call the election a referendum on Bush, but the fact is, this is not a president who has shown himself to care much about public opinion as long as it does not effect his ability to push his agenda through. Granted, he will have less free reign now than with a Republican majority, particularly as the GOP attempts to disentangle itself from his bloody coat-tails. But generally I expect the country and the world to be disappointed at the lack of change in the wake of the election.
Finally, I tend to be highly skeptical of any reading of history that overstresses individual actors. Sure, we would not have made such bad choices as a country without Bush, but he nevertheless represeted and continues to represent a coalition of big business (espeically big oil and big guns) interests with ultra-conservatives and the conservative Christian interests. Even if there was another individual at the head of this movement, I don't think it would differ that terribly much. What this does point to is some continuing structural problems with American democracy that allow certain types of displined and wealthy minority (albiet significant minority) interests to exert their control over the majority. Our particular variety of federalist system creates a two-party system. In this type of system, minority interests are able to dominate the discourse if they are able to dominate one of the two parties. Then, just add in a segment of the economy built around government contracts and profiteering and you've got a structure that's gonna continue to dictate most of the actualities even if they don't technically control the government.
It's bad enough that majority rule often leaves 49% of the population without a voice, but when one wing of a party is able to dominate, it gets even worse. Consider if a special interest is able to control 10% or 20% of a party. A large portion of the rest of the party consists of faithful who will vote for the party pretty much regardless and another significant block who consider the party a lesser evil. Then all that group needs to do is connect a soapbox issue that is central to another 20% voting block of swing voters to bring the party into power. Then, once the party is in power, gerymandering, strategic politics and the like can help them continue their dominance. In this way, you can have something more like 10% of a party which constitutes 50% of the actual voters who constitute 40% of the actual population dictating policy. That comes out to 4% of the country making policy. Doesn't sound much like democracy to me, but all it takes is a two-party system, a disciplined voting block and a soapbox issue.
Soapbox issues are what I call issues that inflame public opinion in excess of their social importance. I think I've mentioned these before. They tend to be issues that people dont' like to hear called trivial, and they are not really trivial issues, but they are issues that are not as important for themselves as for the role they play in voting (and/or public opnion). Abortion and gay marriage are big ones in this country. Both are issues that I (like most people) have pretty strong opinions on. However, they are not issues that have huge impacts on the everyday lives of most people, unlike, for instance, foreign policy, social services and taxation which people tend to ignore or misunderstand except when there is a major crisis. I was massively depressed to hear important voting blocs inerviewed on the radio say essentially "who cares about the war as long as taxes stay low and gays can't marry." In what world are gay marriage and an ongoing and terrible conflict even close to the same importance?!?!
One idea I've been batting around is to try to disentangle these issues from eachother. To a certain extent, all issues are inter-related because they all have some financial component to them. However, it seems to me if we were able to fairly well disentangle, say, "moral" issues from foreign policy ones and fiscal policy from environmental problems and create partially seperate voting bodies to decide on these issues, it might help matters a bit. The way things are now, we elect representatives to vote for us on all issues, but what if were were to elect a seperate representative for "moral" issues, social services, domestic issues, foreign policy and fiscal policy. There would need to be some way of connecting the decision-making, particularly the ever-important ability to tax, but this seems like a good start to making politics a little more about the real issues and less about soapbox ones. As much as I am for gay marriage and pro-choice, I would willingly let these rights fall by the wayside if it meant I could get my more central concerns with broader-reaching concequences heard (especially since I think most people would tend to agree with me on some of these issues...) I dunno.
Here's a cool new way to make bread. I'm looking forward to trying it out.
Another cooking thing I've been into recently: using cinnamon and nutmeg as savory spices.
Cumin, cinnamon, hot peppers and tomato is apparently a Persian thing. It makes really really good omlettes.
Today, I tried roasting cauliflower with black pepper, garlic, olive oil, nutmeg and cinnamon. Really delicious.
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