I just listened to a story on the radio about a Republican caucus in Iowa where all of the big names were giving speeches – Michele Bachmann talking about a preferred position for Right to Life-ers, Newt Gingrich talking about de-funding Planned Parenthood and using the money for adoptive services (like the rest of Gingrich, at least half of that is good!), Ron Paul blasting federal judges for their lifetime appointments, and Rick Santorum complaining about something. I thought that this had proved my point from an earlier post – that the pendulum has swung to the Left, and we are now witnessing an equal and opposite political reaction.
That being said, I really do not have much more to say. The pendulum swung to the Left after the Bush administration and ushered in the Obama era, but after the Bush-initiated bank bailouts, the stimulus bill of early 2009, and health care reform a year later, the Right side has been voicing their opinions. This we see in the Tea Party, the 2010 elections, the gridlock in Congress, and zany religious-righters in the likes of Michele Bachmann.
What struck me during the radio broadcast was just how hard the Right is swinging! These candidates were complaining about typical Conservative talking points – Right to Life, etc – but the talking points have turned into complaints, and the complaints have been framed in an Us vs. Them / antagonist vs. protagonist / good vs. evil type of scenario. The Right has effectively positioned the Left as the ruling party making the laws, and everything wrong with country (real or perceived) can be blamed on those that made it that way – in this case, the Left.
What it looks like from here is that no longer do we have political platforms with equally feasible political goals or reconcilable political philosophies. We live in a domestic political world where “compromise” is career-ending strategy and “calling for a truce” is ridiculed as if one party could get its way without it. Whereas the pendulum may have swung Left or Right in the past, it is being pushed much further – and much faster – in the present.
