Explanation Of Our Political Nation

Obey the frog and read:

Mike Lofgren's diatribe about the Republican Party ought to be required reading in all our high schools. It's not only a fine example of a political polemic written in excellent English, it's something everyone needs to internalize. Because Lofgren just retired after a 16-year career as a GOP staffer on the House and Senate budget committees, his criticism carries more weight than it would coming from a Democrat. It's a long piece that will take some time to complete, but it will be well worth the time.

And Lofgren's piece is notable, given the relative amounts of crap spewing out the works normally.  But as Steve M. points out, one Republican realizing the truth does not a revolution make.

Denunciations of the GOP, as I've said in the past, go into the political world's equivalent of a spam filter -- they're not allowed into the mainstream's in-boxes. Oh, sure, Lofgren will probably make the rounds of Rachel and Ed and Larry and Reverend Al on MSNBC, and maybe he'll be invited to address Netroots Nation next year. But other than that, what he says will be quarantined.

What might work someday is a mass defection from the GOP -- fifty or a hundred retired and current politicians, pundits, and staffers announcing in a press conference and a full-page ad that they've had it with the economic brinkmanship, the creationism, the tossing of sand in the gears of government whenever they don't get their way, and the willingness to watch people suffer and the nation crumble until we genuflect before them (all things that Lofgen's essay touches on). Maybe if, say, Colin Powell and Tom Kean and a few other media darlings led a mass, simultaneous resignation from the party, it would be enough of a surprise to cut through the "both sides are to blame" nonsense.

But that will never happen, will it? And so we go on as usual.

I was reminded today that both political parties are the responsibility of the American voter, not just the salvation of the Democrats.  The Republican Party needs to be rehabilitated as well, and on that point Steve is correct.  Nothing much will change until we demand it as an imperative.

There is a spine-crushing amount of work ahead of us to fix America.  But Lofgren's article is at least a start...and I'd be much more empathetic to his concerns if he had spoken them before retiring, for example.