POLI-TICKS: If the Christian Coalition and the NRA really are fading in influence, as some pundits currently claim, don’t fret for the Republicans. They can always fall back on their core claim-to-populism, the notion that if we only made things easier for rich people and corporations, everybody will eventually somehow benefit from all the “prosperity.”
Instead, fret for the Demos and liberals (note to the talk-show pundits: Not all Democrats are anything close to “liberals”).
When the Soviet empire crumbled, the conservatives and the military-industrial combine were left without a big raison d’etre.
If the Religious Right similarly dissipates (and that’s a big “if”–other pro-censorship, anti-diversity outfits like Focus on the Family are still all too solvent), it’s the near-left that’ll be without its established whipping-boy enemy, its justification for raising funds and organizing.
Imagine a GOP led by a relatively-sane figure, such as George W. Bush or the even-saner Elizabeth Dole. A GOP that felt little or no need to appease Pat Robertson’s minions on “culture war” agenda items such as abortion, guns, media/Internet censorship, or private sexual behavior. A GOP that tolerated gay rights almost as much as, say, the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce does.
In short, a GOP that would be much more like the Clinton-Gore (and Locke-Schell) Pro-Business Democrats.
If the Republicans become more like the Ford-era-Republican impersonators running today’s Demo leadership, what will the Demos do to differentiate themselves?
I could suggest something–maybe the Demos could start working on behalf of the non-upscale, the folks left behind by the concentration-of-wealth thang, the working women and men who don’t have MS stock options and aren’t likely to sign three-picture deals with Warner Bros. any time soon.
Of course, in politics what should happen ain’t always what does.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR!: More live events for The Big Book of MISC. are comin’ at ya. The next is Thursday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m., at Borders Books, 4th near Pike in downtown Seattle. If you can’t make it then or want a double dose, there’s another one the following Thursday, Aug. 26, 7:30 p.m., at the venerable Elliott Bay Book Co. Be there or be a parallellogram.
TOMORROW: A ‘breast man’ faces a loved one with breast cancer.
ELSEWHERE: Like many Net users, I get a lot of “anti-spam” spam (unsolicited business emails). The weirdest one I ever got contained only the statement “You may be a witness in a lawsuit,” and this URL. The “lawsuit” page is classic conspiracy-theory strangeness (for one thing, it mentions “The Phone Company,” capitalized and mentioned as a single entity, reminiscent of the conspiracy plot in the classic thriller-spoof The President’s Analyst). But the rest of the “NewAmerica University” site’s an even bigger hoot. My personal fave: The painting of a utopian “city of the future,” in which 250,000 people would live in a single 100-story skyscraper and eat in mass cafeterias (nobody’d have a private kitchen)… Meanwhile, a Y2K survivalist camp’s got a concept for divorce in the promised post-industrial era: You can leave your mate only if you’re willing to be auctioned off on a sex-for-goods-or-services barter basis. (This was found by Kikaze.)
