Republican Baiting

I disagree with John McCain on many issues, but I don't think that he'd be a fundamentally terrible president. John McCain is a politician, and like any other politician, he's doing what he thinks he needs to do to get elected. Sure, he's compromised his values in an effort to appeal to the lunatic right-wing base, but a small part of me still wonders if he were elected, might he drop this charade of deference to the lowest common denominators of the republican party?

We'll probably never know for sure, and this is a good thing because there are far better reasons to not vote for John McCain than the few minor policy quibbles that he holds with Obama—namely, Sarah Palin. Most people attack her on the grounds that she is unqualified for the position. This is probably true, though not my biggest concern with her. The real problem with Palin is that she personifies everything that has gone wrong with the republican party.

In recent years, the republicans have very effectively appealed to their base by painting democrats as out-of-touch elitists, in contrast to the average “joe six-packs” that supposedly inhabit the ranks of the republican party. They have somehow rendered higher education a liability; they've managed to equate intellectualism of any sort with elitism; mediocrity has come to trump excellence. The party has convinced the small town America—that no longer even really exists—that they are in the midst of a cultural war with this nation's urban centers.

Palin is the poster child for this effort. She makes ignorance looks cute. She lends credence to the notion that “folksy know-how” beats out logic and education. She appeals to the worst tendencies in this country—and boy, have the worst tendencies been rising to the surface lately. John McCain's campaign rallies have grown increasingly bizarre with supporters shouting incitements to violence when Obama's name is mentioned (“traitor! Kill him!”) or making confused claims like "I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab." McCain supporters throughout the country have attempted to portray Obama as a Muslim, often pictorially (as if Islam is an instant political disqualifier.)

I'm fantasizing that these are the last gasping breaths of a dying philosophy; they certainly smack of desperation. And were Palin and McCain not stirring up a dangerous mob mentality that might ultimately erupt in acts of violence, I'd probably be enjoying this. Nothing would delight me more than seeing these people discredited. And eight years with an educated, articulate man leading this country might start to chip away at some of the more irrational thinking in this country. When the world fails to end because we elected a black liberal, some people might start to question their convictions.

Truthfully, I think that the country needs to swing sharply to the left for the next decade or so. Not because I agree with a lot of leftist philosophy, but because I'm fantasizing that the republican party will revert to a more libertarian position, perhaps one day offering an interesting alternative to the democratic party. In the meantime, social conservatives need to be shocked back into reality. To paraphrase something my room mate said in anger about the situation,“I want abortions for everyone! I want to see gay pride parades every day at noon! I want to see huge, polygamous marriages where fifty men marry fifty women at a time, followed by a mass orgy.” I completely understand the sentiment.

But if McCain/Palin is elected, the backwardness that has come to characterize the prevailing social thought in this country will be legitimized, potentially setting back progress by years.