The Revolting Co-Dependency of Republicans and Democrats
I need you and you need me, and together we can be miserable forever.
Every little thing every president does must be dogmatically and categorically scrutinized, criticized, rejected, criticized, opposed, and (did I say criticized?) slashed to pieces by the other side. It’s getting worse, because nowadays we don’t have to wait until the evening news, nor read a book to find out what’s going on. We can see in real time from outlets more countless than the stars in the night sky exactly how many times Obama gave the comforting loose-fist-with-thumb-on-top hand gesture, or how many minutes and seconds Trump took to devour his fries, what these numbers mean for me, and how mad I should be at them. Makes one feel hopelessly inundated with pointless data clamoring and clawing for my attention. Imagine Cate Blanchett’s character in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull being overwhelmed with knowledge and it doing something horrible to her. I can’t remember rightly the resolution of that movie. I stopped paying attention after Shia LaBeouf started swinging with monkeys through the jungle, and I did a double take in a “did they really just do the Scooby-Doo eyes in the painting trick? moment” when they actually did the Scooby-Doo eyes in the painting trick.
Anywhooo…..what I really want to talk about today is the bitter rivalry that is the American two party system. They fight. All the time. They criticize. All the time. They bicker. All the time. They spin and wheedle and pontificate. Most of the time. They work some of the time. Twitter is making it worse, as they now have a platform to throw insulting barbs at each other without thinking of the face-to-face consequences these jibes might have on the collective psyche of people who are supposed to work together civilly. Twitter also decreases the chances for face-to-face civil discourse and cooperation, as reading each other’s tweets must logically lead to more personal offense and unwillingness to see eye-to-eye. In doing so, they normalize petulant behavior for millions of internet tough guys who don’t find it at all creepy to dehumanize, wish horrific violence on the children of, and pray on the downfall for people who haven’t harmed them and which they’ve never met nor ever will.
Forgive the side note, but isn’t it weird how weak we are becoming as a result of this? Having conflict in person one has to account for the humanity, built-in dignity, and (often) the ability to inflict harm of the other person. The telephone removed that by one tick and allowed you to be miles away and escape at least the chance of bodily harm, maybe even the other two if you don’t recognize those in the voice of the person on the other end of the line. Zeros and ones forming lines of text on a phone screen have removed us one more level from the humanity of the person behind it. Much more difficult is it to recognize that person as a creature created in the image of God, and all the more easier is it to allow our emotions to wish failure and catastrophe on that person.
When a president does anything more consequential than drying his hands after using the restroom, there are the attack dogs, ready to pounce and eviscerate. Republicans have their guy in the White House now so they are the ones playing victim to this process. But they did the same thing when Obama was living there. As did Democrats when W walked those hallowed halls, probably fumbling over words, as he was wont to do. It’s sickening to a guy like me.
In my upcoming book (not finished and not yet published, so ease up on your clamoring, fans of Harry Potter who haven’t had much to live for since 2007) I talk about how for me, the spiritual and holy things of God are non-negotiable. I won’t make light of, joke about, or compromise on the things God has commanded me. Slow down, militant atheists, my faith has never commanded me to harm anyone, and I never have harmed anyone in the name of my faith. But always on the negotiating table (and ripe for satire) are the structures, agendas, rules, ordinances, possessions, time, and actions of we humans.
Goodness sake, when a television show (negotiable) like The Simpsons makes fun of my faith (non-negotiable), I can appreciate the rest of the humor therein contained without approving or encouraging them to engage in more humor about my faith. What’s more, I can allow them to make fun of my faith without getting all huffy and demanding they stop through legal action. That just smacks of childish petulance that survived through to adulthood. My faith doesn’t demand that I take over government and all concomitant areas of authority so as to force everyone kowtow to my sensibilities (cough cough, Islam, cough, Catholicism, cough too many Christians who don’t fully understand that our faith is a faith, not a political ideology, cough cough).
Codependency mandates you find your reason for existing and adjust your emotions, attitudes, feelings, and general state of mind to always be in alignment with whatever entity you’re dependent on. Lord help me if any other human on this planet becomes my reason for living. They will let me down, and I them. On top of assured disappointment, it releases one from accountability and responsibility when they no longer make you happy and you stop loving and supporting them. This is where the capricious and degenerate notion of “I’ve fallen out of love with you” comes into play. Those who deeply understand the action of love know that it’s a choice and a transitive verb in its basic and purest form. If you fall out of love with someone, it’s because you decided to stop making them the direct object of your transitive verb. If you count on someone other than your own mind, spirit, and soul to make you happy, you’re bound to be unhappy most of the time. I wish my ex-wife could be reading these words right now.
But I’ve come to verstehen that Democrats and Republicans have this kind of relationship, albeit twisted to counting on one another to make each other unhappy. Rather than choosing the more difficult (but in the long-run more profound) route of standing for something, they take the convenient and easier road of choosing to stand against something else. Sure, they give lip service to values and such but is that done as consistently as constantly being in opposition to one another? Besides, values change with the times. Democrats are guiltier of changing values based on social norms (much ink has blotted paper on the flip-flops, evolved stances, and outright reversals of the Democratic party, so I won’t go into detail here) but Republicans aren’t guilt-free.
Ladies and gentleman of the jury, I bring to your remembrance one chubby-chasing philanderer who occupied the White House during the 90’s, had tough stances on illegal immigration and crime, whom Republicans remember with oh so much disdain and brought to impeachment hearings. Remember when Republicans wanted a young Cuban boy miraculously saved from shipwreck and shark attack to remain here, selectively flouting the rule of law they so clubbingly espouse nowadays? Now that they’ve got a womanizing guy of their own in there, philandering just doesn’t seem as grabby anymore.
I will admit, Republicans have changed less over the years. Democrats, a fractured, dysfunctional, and cannibalistic (metaphorically speaking) family that still knows what’s best for you and yours, have boldly marched to the extreme left while Republicans and their conservative Christian base have inched along toward the middle only in baby steps, but this isn’t a game of equivocations. If you have values, they should only change once you’ve established that they violate a transcendent morality, not because society makes it politically expedient to do so.
Be that as it may, these two parties need each other more in terms of opposing one another than in terms of working together on negotiable items. Evidence of that can be shown in the diminishing across-the-aisle legislation enacted in these ever increasingly polarized times. I’m morally conservative but politically moderate because I realize that our laws were not written by God. If they are in contradiction with God, I am free to disobey them but not free of the consequences that may be imposed on me for said disobedience. The second most successful book in human history was written from a prison cell. I deeply respect John Bunyan and his sticking to his guns even when the laws of the land assured his imprisonment. But we don’t live in a land ruled by an oppressive monarch. We live in a land where expression, association, religious practice, and across-the-aisle cooperation don’t necessarily have to bring the scrutiny and strong arm of the authorities upon one’s head. But the two parties, their pundits, and everyday voters, firmly entrenched in their foxholes, act as if what they’ve proposed was bestowed by divine inspiration and therefore not open to discussion. It’s off-putting for a guy who understands that we are not always good and not always bad. We humans are walking, talking complexities.
They can’t bring themselves to say something nice about each other until one of them dies. Whether in heaven or hell, the object of your belated kind rhetoric is far beyond caring what you have to say about them anymore. At least the people who continue to brazenly besmirch the name of the dead are consistent with what they did when the person was alive. Look at the Twitter tough guys who badmouthed Scalia, Bush Sr., and McCain for examples.
Problem is when they are all still alive, they act like the other is always wrong and we are always right. It’s a perverted symbioses, one which Orwell predicted when he portrayed a government official railing against the enemies of the state and switching mid-speech when the former enemies became allies against the new enemies. You know who else refuses to accept and admit their mistakes, even when they contradict themselves? Children and liars. Children require governance and liars require rescinding of one’s trust. You know who refuses to see the success of others as a good thing? Haters. They require removal from one’s circle of friends. I’ll leave it to my blessed reader to properly categorize and label the children, liars, and haters among our elected officials and act accordingly.
