A House Divided

The day began well, sunny and warm, but then this afternoon the skies have turned cloudy. The Wheel of Life still turns at Navy Pier, but the boats have gone from the bay, save for one lone boater who either hasn't yet figured out that the rain is coming, or who really doesn't care. Perhaps he or she has battened down the hatches, and gotten out the rain gear, preparing for being tossed about on the wild seas like, well like a really tiny boat on a really big body of water. The Streeterville Weather Service tells me that it is 69 degrees and rain is imminent. The view from the 14th floor tells me that the sky above and the water below are a rainy looking gray, but none of the cars on Lake Shore Drive have turned on their windshield wipers as yet. So it ain't raining yet Bucko.

I've been thinking about the Republican Party and its ongoing attempts to self-destruct, one politician at a time. This brings me to wonder how the current state of affairs came to pass at all. Once, the Republican Party was the Party of Lincoln. It promoted an end to slavery and homesteading and pull yourself up by your bootstraps self-sufficiency. Then by the turn of the 20th century the Republican Party had somehow become the party of the wealthy, the party of less government and more power to the moneyed interests.

By the time I became a person, the Republican Party had claimed a position as fiscal conservatives with a liberal social outlook. It was the party of big militaries and stopping the spread of Communism. It was the party of wealthy, well-educated, well-connected sorts who looked down their noses equally at Communists, Socialists, and narrow-minded racists who promoted segregation. It was the party of Eisenhower.

Then came the Nixon disgrace, and the subsequent Democratic grab of power in Washington. And then came Ronald Reagan, and his Reagan Revolution. He cut taxes, enlarged the military and forged an alliance of the fiscal conservatives who held Wall Street up as its god, and working class conservatives who believed the Communists would be walking down the streets of America if we didn't stand up and stop them, and the social conservatives who believed that all Democrats are a bunch of atheists who are plotting to take away their Bibles.

The Republican Party became a party at war with itself. In order to win elections it had to attract both fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. They became the party of little, if any government, and the party of "Let's put an end to abortions. Let's put prayer back in the classroom. And while we're at it, why don't we just turn the clock back to, say 1950." This was, and is, a mixture that cannot last.

This country has become immersed in a culture war, between those who wish to press forward into a realistic culture for the 21st century and those who wish to return to a way of life for the 20th century. On the one hand America has transformed itself into a country where the majority of the people live in urban/suburban metropolitan areas with diverse populations. On the other hand there is a smaller population that lives in rural and small town America with very homogenous populations. The cities are the most diverse and typically vote Democratic. They have staked out the diversity angle and the government can be used to help all Americans live a good life angle. The suburbs tend to be inhabited by a slightly less diverse, more educated, wealthier population. The suburbs tend to be those fiscal conservative Republicans. Lower taxes, less government, but liberal on many social issues. The small towns and rural areas tend to be the havens for the social conservatives.

As a result, gay populations, liberals of all ilk, artistic sorts, immigrants, and the super poor and the super rich gather in the cities. They cannot imagine leaving for the suburbs or the rural areas, partly because of the clash of values, and partly because of their perceived quality of life issues. The suburbanites often recognize the value of the things a city has to offer, but they wouldn't want to live there. They often hold the rural life up to idealization, but they really wouldn't want to live there either. The small town and ruralites can't imagine living anywhere else. The cities are perceived as crime-ridden, crowded, and dirty. The suburbs are just an extension of the city and there's not enough space there either.

What this presents us with is an America divided by three. There are Republican fiscal conservatives (Elites and well to do suburbanites). There are Republican social conservatives (Less educated and more rural). Then there are Democrats (Residents of New York, L.A., Chicago, and other large cities). The cities are pro-choice, pro-universal healthcare, pro-government oversight, pro-separation of church and state, and anti-big military buildup, can you please get us out of the current war de jour. The small towns are get the church back in government and schools, pro-life(anti-abortion), pro-lower taxes, pro-less government regulation, and pro-military buildup and kick anybody's ass that disagrees with us (These guys still love George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.). The suburbs are a mish-mash. They hate government and taxes. They think the Jesus belongs in the schools people are nuts. They're pro-military buildup and kickass as long as it doesn't send their kid to Iraq or Afghanistan. They are the swing vote. Currently enough of these people spoke up loudly enough to send Obama to the White House and to put a majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress.

We are a society at war with ourselves. The Democratic and Republican parties are at war with one another, and the Republican Party is at war with itself. We only have two viable political parties in this country, yet there are three distinct factions within the nation. The one party that is trying to be a big tent for two factions, both a little misguided at this juncture, cannot long sustain this struggle. As the greatest Republican of all time (I mean Abraham Lincoln, not Ronald Reagan.) once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Frankly, the Democrats among us are rejoicing. The Republicans simply do not get it and they have apparently forgotten everything valuable about their earliest roots.