Rocky Mountain News: How Politics Really Works
There is a little to much oversimplification of the Democratic position on the Estate Tax in this piece. The momentum of the movement to legalize gay marriage is also a bit overstated. However, this side by side comparison of two issues does a decent job of showing how the two parties do more to serve themselves than the electorate. Most importantly, its conclusion is amusing and not too outlandish.
Hence we'll soon be a nation in which the rich gay married couples will pay no estate taxes.
posted by Exile @ 12:34 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I would like to think critically about Campos' claim that although Republican's traditionally use what a "bait and switch" tactic to fire up cultural conservatives around election time, party elites generally could care less about these issues and later abandon them in favor of tax cuts and economic deregulation. Perhaps with a new era of the Supreme Court dawning upon us, we will see the reversal of key issues such as abortion or affirmative action that Campos claims do not follow from the actual agenda of elite Republican leaders. How these decisions come out in the Supreme Court will be an important test of the accuracy Campos' vision of our political system.
The idea of economically elite politicians controlling an ingenuous base of principle-minded party members is fascinating to me. Perhaps "political moderation" as this blog so aptly calls it--that which benefits the populace as a whole--may simply be a pipedream. If we accept the Campos model of the way things are happening, the elites of both parties have more in common with each other-- money and commercial interests--than the conflicting party bases. What we may actually be seeing in our political system is a collaboration between the elites of both parties to maintain their own economic interests while placating their ideological party bases with lip service to social and cultural issues. A real study of these elite economic interests is gravely needly, especially as it pertains to the war in Iraq and its "bipartisan" support.
I'd also like to suggest the perhaps "political moderation" may not be a good thing, as moderation can lead to the destruction of key values. If the only thing being "moderate" boils down means a willingness to put aside principle and only care about the bottom line... i.e. election support and personal income, then we could see scores of "moderate" politicans selling themselves to the highest bidder. Only then can we understand the Democrats "moderation" of not challenging the destruction of the labor movement, or, conversely, Republicans loseness in enforcing the economic principles they supposedly espouse.
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