I knew there was a big difference, but not this big:
It’s even more striking when you consider that historically the FBI and other federal law enforcement bodies were strongly Republican. And in my lifetime, the GOP has made much more noise about ‘law and order’ too.
And of course we can reasonably expect the Trump number to balloon…
I question this post and your tag line for it, “The Party of Sleaze”
This display of partisan team sport is as much what is wrong with politics in America as anything else I have seen lately. What do you hope to gain by this? Do you believe that this will convince people who are pro-life to vote for pro-choice candidates? Or that it will convince people in favor of deregulation to vote for the Elizabeth Warrens of the world? Perhaps you think that calling Republicans “sleaze” will make them more forgiving of convicted felons when they seek reestablishment of their voting rights, or will make them more willing to treat poor undocumented immigrants with kindness and charity?
More likely, however, this sort of post will have two effects: it will make democrats feel superior, and it will make republicans hostile. It will be another straw on the ever growing pile of straws on the proverbial camel’s back of American political civility. And it will do nothing to advance Discourse of the ideas that matter to the lives of Americans.
I look forward to future posts discussing ideas and issues.
I find part of this reaction odd. If the facts show that one party appoints more crooks to office on a consistent basis (or, I suppose you could argue, less competent crooks), that’s a fact worth pondering. There is no way to discuss that fact without seeming “partisan”.
Now, by contrast, I do get the claim of incivility/partisanship in labeling discussions of Republican criminality and other underhanded behavior (like misleading campaign commercials for example) “sleaze”, as in the “party of sleaze”. I plead guilty for calling it what I think it in fact is.
Even if true, is that framing tactically unwise? Should Democratic supporters (which is not isomorphic with candidates) seek to move the Overton Window about how we talk about certain behaviors? I suppose reasonable people could differ about that, but I think that on balance, calling out the evildoers is a good tactic as well as factually sound.
Myself, I don’t think that anything other than electoral defeat will make Republican officeholders treat immigrants with kindness and charity. The goal is not to change the hearts and minds of the leadership. Rather it is to employ the other approach to their hearts and minds, which I’ve seen attributed to TR (and, I think, inaccurately, to LBJ although it sounds like him).
It is not intended to be an “angry” comment, even if that is the way it may have come off. I just think that it is a bad idea.
Republican voters will react to this sort of post by rolling their eyes. Even the ones who might be swayed by it will ultimately return to republican candidates who speak to their issues. And when they do, they will be more cynical for the experience of realizing that their convictions on the issues are forcing them to vote for unsavory characters, and that this must simply be how things are done. (Sound familiar? Maybe like christian conservatives voting for a three times divorced, “grab’em by the p***y” crook who promised to appoint pro-life judges to the court).
Those same republican voters will then, finding their own character imputed, fight back with barbs, real and imagined, about “Crooked Hillary” and whatever else soothes their bruised egos and makes them feel like politics is dirty all around.
A far better tactic is to: 1) fight the issues, not the people; and 2) avoid at all costs “us versus them” politics. While you may feel that you are on the right side of that equation, that sort of thing tends to make people dig their heels in, and that’s not what you’re looking for if you want to turn reds into purples who might one day become purples who turn blue.