Democrats Reward Losers: Really?
P. Schultz
November 19, 2014
Below is a
link to an article in the NY Times reporting that the Democrats have re-elected
their leaders in the House of Representatives, including the unanimous election
of Nancy Pelosi, as House minority leader. The article speculates that the Dems
do not hold these people responsible for their losses. However, another possible
explanation, one not incompatible with the first one, is that these “losses”
are not all that important to the Democrats, at least not to the establishment
Democrats because they help to fortify the status quo and, therewith, the power
and privileges of these “kingpins.” Preserving the status quo requires as
little change as possible, especially these days when public anger and disgust
at our politicians is quite evident and intense. To assuage this anger and
disgust without being turned out of office and without enacting significant
changes that would undermine the prevailing alignment of political forces in
the nation would seem to be the goal of those holding significant power now.
In pursuit
of such an agenda, it would be useful to create or embrace what are said to be
divisive issues or to embrace some issues in a divisive way – say, the issue of
immigration reform – so as to reinforce the idea that change, significant
change is not possible. Or perhaps the issue of the Affordable Care Act could
be kept alive, say by a forthcoming Supreme Court case, thereby keeping the
focus on an issue already dealt with rather than on issues that might be dealt
with anew.
In any
case, the result desired by the “leaders” of both parties is as little real
change as they can get away with given the public’s all-too-justified anger and
disgust. From this perspective, our political system is not “broken” at all;
rather, it is functioning in pretty much the way its controllers want it to
function.
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