Should Pelosi Step Down?

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When an army loses a battle, the leaders should look for the cause of the failure in themselves first. The same applies to a political party. As such, the Democratic leadership should be considering the role they played in the failures of their party.

While Obama is (in theory) the main leader of the party, Nancy Pelosi is also is also a major leader. While Obama’s popularity has dipped, Pelosi’s approval rating is rather dismal. This, no doubt, has played a role in calls for Nancy to step aside and let another Democrat take the leadership role in the House.

One rather practical reason for her to step aside is that she seems to provide the Republicans with a clear focus for attack. While this is to be expected, she also seems to be a very viable target: going after her seems to generate positive results for the Republicans. Given her unpopularity, this is hardly a surprise.

Another practical reason is that concerns have been expressed about her competency and effectiveness as a leader. As noted above, the Democrats lost the House. While this cannot be blamed entirely on Pelosi, it seems reasonable to lay at least a major slice of the blame at her door.

Her failure, it might be argued, can be seen as one of substance or appearance (or both). The election results showed that many Americans are not happy with the Democratic’s polices. This might be due to the actual policies, which Pelosi had a hand in shaping. Of course, it seems likely that most people (including Pelosi) are not aware of the actual content of many of the policies (who among us has actually read the health care documents?). It definitely has to do with the perception of the policies. Pelosi and the other Democrats seem to have failed in regards to persuading the American people that these policies were a good idea. To be fair, Pelosi did have to contend with the Republicans and the Tea Party-two forces that should not be idly dismissed. In any case, she seems to have failed dramatically.

Of course, it is fair to consider that failure was a honorable one. That is, Pelosi and the Democrats fought the good fight but lost despite those efforts. As such, one might argue, she does deserve a chance to lead the troops once again. After all, many great leaders (including General Washington) faced dire defeats and came back to achieve victory.

However, Pelosi has had a long time to show off her skills and some would say that is time for new leadership for the Democrats. Of course, no matter who take the role, it will be a politician. And a Democrat.

The Crocodile’s Mouth

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“About a Secret Crocodile”, by R.A. Lafferty, is a clever conspiracy theory story. In this tale, Lafferty writes of a secret society called the Crocodile that controls “the attitudes and dispositions of the world.” He goes on to note that the Crocodile has various parts and that “…Powerful among these is a society of 399 persons that manufactures all the catchwords and slogans of the world. This subsociety is not completely secret since several members are mouthy: The code name of this apparatus is the Crocodile’s Mouth.”

In one of those wonderful coincidences, I happened to re-read this classic science fiction story shortly before watching various political pundits tossing out their talking points (“nuclear option”, “ramming it down America‘s throat”, “delay is our enemy”). Seeing them, I had to say “damn, look at those little crocodiles!”

While I am not a conspiracy theorist, it is certainly interesting to survey the various opinion makers, pundits, talking point parrots and others and see the incredible uniformity of ideas and phrases. In the case of politics, there is no need to seek out secret societies shaping attitudes and dispositions. It is largely done right out in the open, our Donkey and our Elephant (with his little buddy, Fox).

Naturally, it can be argued that this is just what political parties do: they use all the means at their disposal to shape the attitudes and dispositions of folks so as to acquire and keep power. “Nothing wrong with this, business as usual”, one might say.

Of course, it does seem reasonable to be concerned about such machinery that exists to shape the attitudes and dispositions of people. After all, while they cannot (as of yet) practice true mind control, they can shape public opinion in ways quite contrary to what is best for the public. This can be said of both the Democrats and the Republicans. While folks do like to think that the fact that there two parties gives us a choice, this is not really much of a choice. True, the Donkey and the Elephant do battle it out, but they do so in a very limited way. At the end of the day,one might say, the same basic sort of politician is always elected.  There is, unfortunately, no real opposition to the overall Crocodile, the beast that defines how politics as a whole is conducted. In fact, there can be no real opposition: a new group would just be another organ of the Crocodile. Right?

Thoughts on the Tea Party

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While the Tea Party movement has often been dismissed as a crank movement manufactured by the folks at Fox News, it does seem to have the potential of being both a significant and a positive movement.

On the negative side, the Tea Party movement does have some unpleasant elements that play to base fears and various prejudices (racism, anti-intellectualism, and so on). There is also the concern that the movement is a political tool that has been manufactured as a weapon against the Democrats and to serve the good of certain Republicans rather than the country as a whole.

On the positive side, folks in the Tea Party movement has presented some legitimate criticisms of the folks in power and its shows that there seems to be a growing independent movement. Since I have long been critical of our two party system that enables the scoundrels in the two parties to merely swap power back and forth, the idea of some serious competition is very appealing.

Of course, the Tea Party is not yet a political party in a meaningful sense. In fact, some Tea Party folks are explicitly against political parties (of course, some are not). There is also considerable conflict and infighting among those claiming membership in the movement. This conflict is further exacerbated by the fact that the Republicans seem rather inclined to try to get control of the allegedly independent movement. If the movement becomes a mere attack dog for the Republican political machine, then that will be a rather sad end to what could have been a revitalizing political movement.

While the Tea Party is generating a great deal of media attention it might turn out to be a mere flash in the media pan. After all, the movement was inspired (in part) by Fox and seems to be partially sustained by the media attention. But, like all media darlings, it might simply fade away into obscurity. Or not-as always, time will tell.

Currently, the Tea Party seems to be advantageous to the Republicans. After all, the Republicans seem to be running some parts of the movement and Republican politicians like Sarah Palin are very popular with the Tea Party folks. Of course, the Republicans do not have mastery over the party and there has been some criticism of Republicans from some Tea Party folks.

For now, the Tea Party seems to be an aid to the Republicans. However, the Tea Party folks seem to be often driven by a genuine dislike of business as usual in politics. So, when the Democrats hand power back to the Republicans, they might find that the tea is no longer quite to their liking.