American Politics and Policies NEED Flexibility Again

I listened today to Rush Limbaugh saying that Democrats had tricked Republicans into believing that they need to accept and embrace more Democrat-like policies and ideas or else face extreme irrelevance for the foreseeable future. Thus, the divisions within the party.  Part of me agrees.  Another part, though, knows for a FACT that people who can't get elected also can't very well affect policy or stem the tide of unwanted change.  He also cited an allegedly liberal reporter that claims Democrats have what used to be the Republican edge because they now possess and exude OPTIMISM in the future which, for them, means optimism that more and more in American society are coming around to their way of seeing things and will accept their policies and ideas.  That's probably true, but this is America, so the question is... for how long?  I think Rush is right in that it IS a purely political tactic that has hurt Republicans by making a few of them second-guess their own conservatism.  That said, the effectiveness of that tactic suggests that there may be some truth there, as well - that, for better or worse, something's gotta give.  The fact that NOTHING appears on the verge of giving at the moment, on either side, is a large part of why I think the political atmosphere in America is, to so many, so poisoned at the moment.  

It doesn't look particularly new, but BOTH parties act more sincerely than ever, I believe, as if they know the CORRECT path for America, and that, I believe, is what is poisoning the pot, so to speak.  Why?  Because what both parties seem to refuse to see or acknowledge is that the experiment that is and always has been the United States is and has always been predicated upon the idea that there has never and will never be ONLY ONE, CORRECT PATH! It's the very essence of the "democracy" in our republic.  Unfortunately, both parties have abandoned a level of flexibility that I think has kept the American "experiment" afloat for most of its almost 250 years of formalized existence.  Sure, the goal in politics here as much as anywhere else has, on the surface, been solely to WIN and to advance one agenda over another, influencing policy for the long haul.  However, until recently, we've had enough Presidents and actual leaders in Washington with enough knowledge and experience to know the difference between campaign rhetoric and actual policy - the difference between what it takes to win an election versus what it takes to actually serve the best interests of Americans based on the needs of the moment as opposed to the needs of the party and/or its ideals.

Right now, I'm infuriated by the fact that I cannot see myself confidently voting for ANYONE between now and 2016.  Period.  Since Obama was elected (on a platform of unification, ironically), what had been a relatively slow swing further left and right for each of the parties suddenly went into overdrive. The ongoing rhetoric for which his voters seem to love him is increasingly and inherently skewed, contradictory and downright WRONG.  For example, he told a group of West Point cadets that he believed in American exceptionalism, but also that America should "affirm... international norms." (https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/28-2)  Dictionary.com defines exceptionalism as: "exceptionalism. a theory that a nation, region, or political system is exceptional and does not conform to the norm." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exceptionalism) The Democrats used their short-lived majority in Congress to pass a convoluted form of healthcare reform that was not only designed initially by a conservative think tank, but was only ever used effectively as a political tool in one state. Many if not most Democrats only continue to support it (despite their assertions that it has actually STRENGTHENED insurance companies) because they hope that it is still a stepping stone towards socialized medicine.  Bin Laden is dead, and that's great, but in terms of foreign policy, the Iraq war ended ONLY because our military was denied immunity in cases of civilian deaths and collateral damage and, since then, AlQuaida's destabilization has almost completely undone any "progress" made there since Hussein's capture and execution.  Incidences of gun violence have skyrocketed and some of the first truly successful attacks by Islam-inspired terrorists, such as the Boston Marathon Bombings and the Benghazi incident, have occurred under the watch of a President that thinks the best way of protecting America is to flaunt its faults and weaknesses to ally and enemy, alike, and whose big mouth and incompetent new Secretary of State has indirectly led to the PROTECTION of a Syrian dictator by an emboldened Russian President that used one of our own newspapers to mock us (and Obama) and has since engaged in pro-Communist rhetoric and the military invasion of its neighbors such as the Ukraine.  Yes, under Obama, Russia seems to once again be our enemy FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A QUARTER CENTURY!  But here's what's almost as bad, if not worse.

The Republican Party has split in half and almost totally de-evolved into a horde of ideologues that can't keep their mouths shut long enough to accomplish anything good. Obama is a lame duck president, but as of, oh... three years ago... the Republicans' best bet, assuming they're right about the alleged disaster of where Obama is leading us, has been and would be to take a step back, LET OBAMA DO HIS JOB and then, if it really is the disaster they think it will be, they could actually have the FACTS at their disposal with which to prove it to voters. Instead, the Tea Party, which originally claimed to ONLY be about responsible fiscal policy, has roped in social conservatives, as well, and grown just big enough to where they can unseat more "mainstream" Republicans like Eric Cantor, yet - because of the division it has caused - does not have enough support to either regain a majority in the Senate, put a Republican in the White House or really strengthen the party's abysmally low-rated majority in Congress. The Tea Party has scared what few truly educated, experienced and level-headed Republicans we still have away from even wanting to run for office in this toxic political environment and replaced them with well-dressed Gomer Pyle-types (male AND female) that seem to think that having consistently worked a job, raised a family and maybe held the position of city councilman or town dog catcher somehow qualifies them to hold public office at the federal level.  It would be funny if it were not so pathetic, and don't get me started on the useless and potentially expensive government shutdown, presumably to affect a repeal of "Obamacare" which is NOT going to happen any time soon, if ever.

I remain a Republican for only a few reasons, and yes, their optimism is one of them.  No country is totally innocent and, so, of course, America has made mistakes; but as an experiment that seeks to give people a CHOICE of government by allowing and balancing an array of political, fiscal and social ideas and policies, it has (through various means, some of which have admittedly been morally ambiguous) attracted as many or more immigrants as just about any other nation on Earth, given them an environment in which to prosper and, since World War 2 at least, taken a place and exerted a level of influence on the world stage that has been virtually unrivaled since the time of the Roman Empire.  Only NOW is that threatened, I believe, by a focus on needy, confused, obstructionist and short-sighted politics... on BOTH SIDES.  Like sociopaths, the Democrats have seized on the air of confusion and helplessness that has griped Middle-America since the worst days of the Great Recession and USED it to gain power and advance a slightly more extreme version of their agenda, offering "social justice" as well as both social and economic "equality" through policies that simultaneously and systematically limit certain choices in people's personal lives, sap power from the private sector and INSULT their own minority and "poor" voters through things such as fighting the requirement of photo ID's at voting booths (because minorities and the poor simply CANNOT be expected to be able to acquire and/or remember such an easily attainable item).  The Republicans, meanwhile, have become almost wholly tone deaf when it comes to the kind of politics needed to win elections nowadays and have gone on the extreme defensive, claiming loyalty and what amounts to abstract OWNERSHIP of personal liberty, economic freedoms and ideals which, in fact, have been threatened more or less since the days of George Washington.  

But, as I tried to imply earlier, that's the beauty of America.  It has its ideals and its core values and, yet, treating them like playing cards, it knows when to hold 'em and knows when to fold 'em.  At least, it used to. The Roosevelts - Republican AND Democrat - exemplified this. Teddy, a Republican, outlawed monopolies, implemented restrictions and regulations on the banks and dragged the U.S. kicking and screaming into world affairs.  Franklin Roosevelt used Pearl Harbor to justify a 360 degree turn away from the isolationist rhetoric he knew all along to be wrong in order to go to the aid of Europe in the second World War.  Eisenhower, a general and Republican President, spent money to build America's interstate highway system and warned AGAINST the very military industrial complex of which he was arguably a part.  Nixon opened trade with China and went against his party's grain in allowing the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Fiscally conservative Reagan out-bluffed and outspent the Soviet Union with "Star Wars" to help end the Cold War and Bush, Sr., went against his campaign slogan to raise taxes when necessary. Flexibility used to be an acknowledged, embraced and tolerated element of American politics as well as policy.  Now, though, it's been replaced by two sets of almost equally dangerous extremes.