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Saturday, September 04, 2004

A Girly-Man, On Negativity and What It Means to Say It "Works"

There are serious problems in the world, and when people get together they can figure out better just what the problems are and come up with more effective ways to solve them. This is the reason Democrats participate in politics.

Right about now, we are being told that we Democrats must “go negative.” We must fight the bloodbath of Republican lies, and bile, misogyny, racism, and homophobia, blood for blood, mud for mud. The pundits cluck and reluctantly shake their heads – negative rhetoric is divisive when we need to be united, is distracting when we need to be focused, is destructive when the world is already in shambles, but… it works.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe Kerry will indeed have to fight fire with fire. I have no doubt he can flex his muscles and roll around in the mud with our bullying pampered incurious President and the rest of the Taliban Branch of the Republican party that has inspired so much fear across the political landscape. Maybe that’s the way Kerry will in fact “win” come November.

But, speaking as a girly-man I suppose, let me tell you that there is all the difference in the world between winning and “working.” Every time somebody “wins” through this kind of dishonest posturing negative crap our capacity to make recourse together as serious people of good will to a political world we share to solve serious problems we face slips more and more irrevocably out of our fingers.

The Republican bad-boys who are basking in bad-boy negativity to win this bad-boy “contest” that has them so exercised have no interest at all in governing. If you don’t believe me, listen to what they say themselves about government. They don’t speak of governing well, governing better, they speak of shrinking government, constraining government, of drowning government in the bathtub. And look what they’ve done! The disasters of their governance, foreign and domestic, have piled up so vertiginously that they’ve started to function like Big Lies do – they’ve become invisible because they’re so ubiquitous you can’t even see past them anymore.

Democrats see things differently from Republicans. We want to participate in and reform our social institutions to address real needs. Republicans seem either to want to dismantle society altogether because they read in some Ayn Rand potboiler that this would be a swell idea, however many facts suggest otherwise, or they want to re-write society in the image of some airbrushed dream of a past in which somehow it isn’t a bad thing for a handful of rich white straight American guys to order everybody on Earth around every minute of the day (I suspect the social dismantlers ultimately amount to the same thing).

Because of this, you must understand that every time a campaign goes negative as this one is now the Republicans win. They win by alienating citizens from participating in our democracy. They win by unstitching the fabric of the society they want to dismantle. And, all too often, they literally win positions of power which inevitably they abuse -- and, after all, why wouldn’t they? They don’t believe in good governance. They see no difference between gangsters and governors and behave precisely accordingly.

I am not arguing that Democrats should take the "high road" that managed to defame and defeat the good-man-and-now-Republican-punchline, Michael Dukakis. But I do insist that Democrats actually know what they are doing. Know what you are losing to win. Maybe you can think of ways of being “tough” that don’t play quite so palpably into the hands of those who disdain the very idea of non-negative governance.

One day, Democrats will have to sit down and think of some way to win again a battle they have lost for now to their incalculable cost.

We must remind Americans once again that government can be legitimate. I'm not talking about tribal monkey identification with the nation you arbitrarily were born in or the basketball team of the high school you happen to live near or whatever Big Daddy happens to reside in the Oval Office from moment to moment.

I'm talking about commitment to the institutions of democratic governance. You know: Establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide a common defense, and promote general welfare? Democrats must remind Americans that legitimate governments can create values other institutions cannot, that they can adjudicate disputes other institutions cannot, that they can address problems other institutions cannot. Americans should respond to threats to our democratic social institutions with the same unmovable visceral outrage that Republicans have taught them to respond with to the word “taxes.”

We have serious problems in this country, in the world, and in a near-future that confronts us with almost unimaginable technological disruptions, rushing upon us one after another like tidal waves. We need our problem solving institutions to be healthy and legitimate. We need serious people devoted to their work and maintenance. We need to unleash the creative intelligence of all our citizens. How on earth can this campaign, how can this moment be shaping up like this?

Go ahead and go negative if you have to, throw your weight around like playground bullies on television if you have to. But if you’re a Democrat, please don’t make the mistake of forgetting what you lose when you win this way. Please remember that going negative doesn’t work at all, it just might get you to a place where you can do the work.

I’m so damn disgusted I could cry. Girly-man, signing off for now.

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