1994 Election Post Mortem
Since the election this past November everywhere I've gone people have been talking about the campaign and what the results mean for the future. I've rarely heard such lively discussion...gloating, lamentation, anxiousness, apprehension. Thought I'd offer my own two cents...
We managed to dodge the bullet here in Virginia this past election, though the rest of the country didn't seem to fair quite as well. After years of being told we were going to be given more and taxed less, the arithmetic started to raise some obvious, troubling questions. The answer was an old and mean-spirited one: the reason the economy is in bad shape is all these damn immigrants , and sick people, and poor people! Why, we spend a whopping 3% of our national budget on entitlement programs. All we need to do is get rid of these freeloaders, pray in school, and build more prisons. And with this proposed tax cut amounting to 63c/day, we can all re-invest in America. We need to give that trickle-down theory just one more try. During the baseball strike...which, to date, is still on...I read a commentary (Tom Boswell, I think) that observed that, while we complain about the unrealistic numbers bantered about by owners and players alike, we get what we deserve. The system of equating one's worth with money is a premise we all seem to accept and, until we tackle the basic assumptions we make about wealth/worth and, more pointedly, finding out who really has all the money nothing is really going to change and we'll keep hearing the same old tired arguments.
Same thing holds true in politics. As long as we accept the notion of people spending over $20 million (no matter where the money comes from) to get elected to Congress we're going to continue to get people who consider the middle class as folks who earn up to $200,000/year. With over 80% of us earning under $50,000, that's a big middle class, huh? When we finally make it affordable for the average citizen to represent us in our federal government then we might get a government made up of people who will directly feel the consequences of the opportunistic, short-sighted changes we're being plied with. We didn't get into this mess in 100 days and we aren't going to get out of it in that period either. It's going to take creativity and courage...and a public demanding the same from their representatives. Telling us what we want to hear might get someone elected, but it ends up recycling one set of bums that you want to throw out for another. Until we tackle real campaign reform we're going to continue to get what we deserve...the best government money can buy.
Now that the Cold War has thawed out we need an enemy. Saddam worked for a while. We've exhausted our foreign supply so now we turn inward: we blame all those illegal immigrants working at the sub-minimum-wage jobs we're all clamoring for. Clinton seems a handy target. How 'bout welfare mothers? It all seems so convenient. It's a Newt World Order. Government via sound-byte. Meanwhile, logic is suspended: The economy is on the rebound...jobs are up, but wages are down. You can work full time at minimum wage and come in well under the poverty line. The arithmetic doesn't fit. There are facts...and then there is truth.
Someone offered an interesting analysis after the election that I've been considering lately. Seems as though, following Watergate and Vietnam, the American Dream (or whatever we might choose to call it) died. And, at that point, the classic Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (On Death and Dying) scenario kicked in. We spent the 80's in Denial. Big time. We are now in the 90's and it's time for Anger...certainly the operative emotion in November's election. From here we move on to Bargaining...Acceptance is still a long way down the road. Worth thinking about...
Republicans, Democrats, liberal, conservative...it's a season where labels and liability went hand in hand. Labels that were meant to divide and denigrate. Liability meant to affix simple blame. "Don't blame me, I voted for..." Would that our world was so clearly black and white! Victory does not necessarily carry with it vindication. When you end up the lesser of two evils what is there to crow about? Seems as though there's a lot to be proved. The lobbyists are still there. The old structure is still there. And the problems are certainly still there. Until we get leaders more interested in resolution than re-election and an electorate that is willing to listen to and share in long-range, long-term solutions we're going to have more of what we all endured through this last, hateful election season.