“In Pursuit Of Partisan Aims”: What’s The True Meaning Of Patriotism?
Recently I publicly debated a regressive Republican who said Arizona and every other state should use whatever means necessary to keep out illegal immigrants. He also wants English to be spoken in every classroom in the nation, and the pledge of allegiance recited every morning. “We have to preserve and protect America,” he said. “That’s the meaning of patriotism.”
To my debating partner and other regressives, patriotism is about securing the nation from outsiders eager to overrun us. That’s why they also want to restore every dollar of the $500 billion in defense cuts scheduled to start in January.
Yet many of these same regressives have no interest in preserving or protecting our system of government. To the contrary, they show every sign of wanting to be rid of it.
In fact, regressives in Congress have substituted partisanship for patriotism, placing party loyalty above loyalty to America.
The GOP’s highest-ranking member of Congress has said his “number one aim” is to unseat President Obama. For more than three years congressional Republicans have marched in lockstep, determined to do just that. They have brooked no compromise.
They couldn’t care less if they mangle our government in pursuit of their partisan aims. Senate Republicans have used the filibuster more frequently in this Congress than in any congress in history.
House Republicans have been willing to shut down the government and even risk the full faith and credit of the United States in order to get their way.
Regressives on the Supreme Court have opened the floodgates to unlimited money from billionaires and corporations overwhelming our democracy, on the bizarre theory that money is speech under the First Amendment and corporations are people.
Regressive Republicans in Congress won’t even support legislation requiring the sources of this money-gusher be disclosed.
They’ve even signed a pledge – not of allegiance to the United States, but of allegiance to Grover Norquist, who has never been elected by anyone. Norquist’s “no-tax” pledge is interpreted only by Norquist, who says closing a tax loophole is tantamount to raising taxes and therefore violates the pledge.
True patriots don’t hate the government of the United States. They’re proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.
But regressive Republicans loathe the government – and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it’s no longer capable of doing much of anything. Tea Partiers are out to gut it entirely. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be “drowned in a bathtub.”
When arguing against paying their fair share of taxes, wealthy regressives claim “it’s my money.” But it’s their nation, too. And unless they pay their share America can’t meet the basic needs of our people. True patriotism means paying for America.
So when regressives talk about “preserving and protecting” the nation, be warned: They mean securing our borders, not securing our society. Within those borders, each of us is on our own. They don’t want a government that actively works for all our citizens.
Their patriotism is not about coming together for the common good. It is about excluding outsiders who they see as our common adversaries.
By: Robert Reich, Robert Reich Blog, June 25, 2012
“A Potential Warning Sign”: Our National Political Science Experiment
Can Mitt Romney win the election without actually saying anything?
MSNBC’s First Read has an excellent take on the Romney campaign’s flexibility, or lack thereof:
If there is a constant criticism about Mitt Romney and his campaign from both the left and right, it’s that they’re not nimble – especially when it comes to dealing with issues they’d prefer to ignore. […]
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Much of a president’s job is crisis management, and the only way to succeed is being nimble. That Team Romney seems to struggle with this aspect of the job is a potential warning sign for a challenger against an incumbent president.
What compounds the problem is the fact that Romney is also evasive on those issues he wants to talk about. Despite his monomaniacal focus on economic growth, Romney has been reluctant to give details on what he would actually do to improve the short-term economic situation. In fact, when pressed for details, he gives a surprisingly candid answer on why he refuses to offer any meat to the public:
“The media kept saying to Chris, ‘Come on, give us the details, give us the details,’’’ Romney has said about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2009 gubernatorial race. ‘’We want to hang you with them.’”
Put another way, Romney won’t give you details because he doesn’t want to deal with the political fallout, as if there’s something illegitimate about critiquing a politician for their policy proposals.
How you think this plays out depends, in large part, on what you think determines elections. If you see the economy as the most crucial variable, then Romney will not suffer from his refusal to offer details. By virtue of being not-Obama, he’ll win disaffected voters and succeed Obama as president of the United States. But, if you give weight to campaigns, then–as First Read points out–Romney’s behavior is a real liability. There might be a critical mass of voters who want a different direction, but aren’t willing to make a blind leap for Romney. To win those voters, he’ll need to offer specifics.
This is a long way of saying that we’re basically in the midst of a large-scale political science experiment. Romney’s campaign will answer a crucial question—with a bad economy in the background, does a challenger have to offer anything to win election?
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, June 27, 2012
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