I see an unalterable divide. I really suggest everyone here go to Democratic Underground (where we are not allowed to post, per their rules) and read what they are saying. Expect a lot of anger, profanity, anti-religous bigotry and hatred. See a lot of mischaracterization of who we are and what we believe.
I see this divide as somewhat permanant. On a personal level people can and do change. In my experience getting people to either become involved in the shooting sports or going to church and over time their politics are going to change. I run a discussion group that is mixed liberals and conservatives and there has been movement to our side, in a few cases dramatic movement.
But this is change at the margins. In general I feel the lines are hardening, not softening. It may even be that there are some pretty big internal population shifts going on. In my own case I left California a decade ago to escape the new, liberal driven anti-gun agenda. More recently I moved from Oregon to southern Washington to remove myself from the absurd tax jurisdiction. This may be happening more and more, "red" people moving to "red" states. (Jeff, I don't think you can reclaim Blue, sorry).
The elected national Republicans are at least subliminally aware of this. Spectors recent comments are reality, he's the only one blunt enough to serve it up. They don't want to be put in the position of fighting tough battles in the culture war. Most of them have no interest in rolling back Socialism in America.
We don't know how much Bush wants to push for this, either. We won, but only by 3%. Pushing back against some leftist programs that are well established could easily result in a 3% shift. Bush has been smart to put together this majority. A great job. But like our majority in the Senate, it is wobbly in the middle.
On the other hand there are many activists out here, and I'd put myself in this category, who are somewhat exhausted of working to deliver power to Republicans and not seeing much of substance come out of it. In fact the Prescription Drug program, another huge entitlement and a big block in the ongoing Socialist conversion of America (and medicine) was delivered by OUR GUYS. That really hurts.
So the Dems have some hard medicine to swallow today, but we may have more to swallow in the next 2 to 4 years as we see Bush struggle to maintain a majority coalition and address the concerns of the base.
The facts are, a lot of these issues are not grey-grey. They are somewhat black and white. And in most cases despite all these Republican gains the Liberal status quo is in force, in law.
Abortion is legal, by dint of judicial activism.
Taxes are high, very high for high income earners, and even small cuts are met with demagogury from the left and left-media. Abominations like "earned income tax credit", a direct transfer payment to selected favored working poor is the law of the land. Bush's tax cuts were only passed with a time out provision.
Spending is out of control. Lots of liberal causes are directly funded. We pay to shoot ourselves in the foot. Again demagogury is the order of the day if anything is even proposed to be cut.
The large entitlements are structurally unsound. The Dem plan to fix them is "tax the rich" .. accelerating the transition to a Euro-socialist model. So far the Republican alternatives, again designed to split the difference and not offend, are subject to lies and distortions.
Affirmative action, absurd eco regulations, endangered species laws, activist judges, obviously illegal campaign finance laws, removal of God from the national heritage, the entire New Deal, public universities as Marxist training facilities, the list goes on and on.
All accomplished fact. What many of us want is a 'velvet revolution' that rolls this back. I have little hope in seeing it happen, even after the work and the great victory we have just won.
We are a nation with two radically different visions. Alignment with them is along a continuim, some all the way Red, some hard Blue and most between the two poles. My sense is many are moving away from the center.
Certainly many of my friends are moving towards the Red Pole. Less acceptance of the status quo. Less willingness to put up with NY Times lies. But all this is not, to date, resulting in real changes for the better in my life. Every time I go to the desert there is more closed land, land that is already so empty it is probably less visited today then it was 100 years ago. Taxes keep going up, spending keeps going up.
How this is resolved I do not know. Paul Wyrich suggested conservatives "have lost" and we withdraw from the political process. (He speaks for Christian conservatives in particular) ... that we build alternative institutions. Thats not realistic. Blue Staters will tax us, regulate us and eventually convict us with impunity.
The Free State Project, which has made many mistakes along the way at least poses a great challenge in their motto:
"Liberty in our Lifetime". It's a goal I can sign onto with gusto. I'm skeptical I shall live to see even a small part of it achieved.
Thanks for posting the topic, and all your inspiration, Jeff!
I'm a historian, so I don't get so panicked at these "divides." Americans are ALWAYS divided. No, you didn't see a lot of partisanship in WW II by the GOP . . . but they did hold lots of hearings on "merchants of death." In 1940, Wilkie was buried electorally, but got quite a bit of the pop. vote. In the 1880s, we had almost THIRTY YEARS' worth of close elections, usually decided by a handful of midwestern states, and tensions were very high, esp. in the old Confederacy.
I have gone over about twice a month to DU to lurk. There is great anger and bitterness, but that is how the Democratic Party machine set up this election and has been setting up elections for about a decade now. The politics of personal destruction was a hall mark of the Clinton years.
The democrats have used anger and rage to mobilize there voter for quite a while. The truth never mattered in this. We all remember Bill Clinton telling us about the Black Churchs that were burned in his home state when he was a boy (there were none!). We remember the add about the black man dragged to death in Texas and how this was somehow the fault of George Bush (NOT!). What kind of brain washing does it take to make a man want to drive over Katherine Harris and tell a judge that it was just Political Expression?
I see the best option as destroying the Democratic party machine insiders careers. By Republicans controlling the House, Senate, and Executive Branches and becoming much more strong in the judicial branch, there will be many less well paying executive and mid-level management federal jobs for Democrats. That will force these people to get "real jobs" and that will mean they won't be able to devote as much time to elections and/or change their attitudes towards taxes and excessive government regulation.
Once people with political smarts understand that being a democrat ends their career at the local or state level, then the democratic party will really change and change quickly.
In a way, you have simply stated the obvious here. The proclivity toward searching for political solutions to what is clearly a spiritual problem is what is causing most of the frustration.
The issues are not really liberal vs. conservative. The issue is that we live in a country that was founded on Biblical law, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and for that reason, and no other, became the greatest nation ever to inhabit the Earth.
The attack on our Christian underpinnings began in earnest about 1830, and over the following ten years, the seeds of our destruction were sown. The most pernicious of these seeds was the creation of government school systems.
We are now witnessing an attack on all that is true, and nurturing of all that is false. 'Religion' in schools is ok except if it is Christian. Religious displays in public places are ok, unless they are Christian. The chant in the election was "anybody but Bush!" but what was really meant was anybody but Christ.
The only thing that stands a chance is if we, as a nation, turn back to Christ; nothing else will avail. He has given us a second chance; perhaps our last chance. We have to follow through on our prayers of recent months.
Excellent Jack!
" Blue Staters will tax us, regulate us and eventually convict us with impunity"
Holy Perdition, Jack Black, sounds like the talk before the Civil War! I wish I could disagree with you.
I don't know anything about the group you mention. I'll check it out.
You should make your post a thread. At least it's a vanity worth reading.
As for the Senate, they are a corrupt bunch of self indulgent elitists.
All of 'em. Maybe not Zell. I thought Jim Inhofe was the best thing since sliced bread until he praised Wesley Clark with a speech at Clark's retirement. They should all be voted out for that pretense of an impeachment trial. The judge wasn't much better.
Sigh.....
In the end...it will be by a dramatic, miraculous spirit of revival in morality, patriotism and consitituional thought...or it will be through the most dreadful of circumstances that literally drives us to our knees and purges society of the malcontents by its natural selection.
...and, IMHO, God in Heaven will be the dispenser.
We must educate, communicate, defend, reason and have great faith in either case. On the first hand to bring about the former if it can be brought about...on the other hand to have a faithful remnant to get through the latter and come out the other side with a nation, a constitution and a people intact.
Hard work and perhaps decades before it breaks one way or the other. But with moral issues at the forefront like abortion, open-unabashed homsexuality, and with the dangerous worldwide geo-political situation...its going to come unless we see that revival spirit first.
II Chron 7:14
Thank you for sharing your insight and concerns!
FGS