Won't Get Fooled Again

While discussion of American politics continues to be presented in the media - and by extension public discourse - as either democrat or republican, left wing or right wing, blue states or red states, liberal or conservative, little actual change can be seen by the United States government in either domestic or foreign policy regardless of which party controls the legislative or executive branch. If the media alone were to be believed, the situation has reached the relevance level of sport fans arguing over favorite teams; one a group of religious zealots hell bent on destruction of the planet as we know it through corporate greed and the other a band of tree hugging bleeding hearts who simply hate America first. But even when we remove the media lens and take the words directly from the mouths of our own politicians in their speeches (whether campaigning or incumbent) the argument inevitably reverts to democrat or republican and sometimes even degenerates into name calling (“girlie men” as Arnold put it).

In Obama's latest health care speech, he admits he's not the first president to address this issue. But in fact, ever since Theodore Roosevelt [1901 – 1909] called for health care reform nearly every president and congress has made an attempt. And after a brief background and few anecdotes the framework for discussion was set with “There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single payer system, like Canada,” before his speech had reached the 10 minute mark. “On the right,” he continues, “there are those who would argue we should end employer based systems and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.”

This approach however assumes that our two party system falls on the proverbial spectrum in a left/right manner; while the reality is a center-left/right leaving our mainstream (and Main Streets) embedded in the right.

So while the conservative right is generally represented by the republicans, and the left is supposedly represented by the democrats, the reality is that there is a right wing and a center-left wing with a disenfranchised left.

But more significantly is the idea that any two factions, groups, parties (whatever you want to call the grouping) could represent an immigrant nation of 300,000 million. Such a shallow approach assumes that we are two-dimensional beings on issues as diverse and far ranging as school prayer to health care or more recently gay marriage; not to mention foreign policy issues such as use of the military or sales of weapons. When it comes to the individual voter, you cannot, for example, support environmentally friendly candidates while also electing candidates who do not believe in big government spending.

Nonetheless it remains a popular framework, with major think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute or the Council on Foreign Relations using it to produce their many publications and working papers intended to guide public policy whether domestic or foreign.

Ya been took.  Ya been hoodwinked.  Bamboozled.  Led astray.