Fixing the Republican Party Without Turning to Partisan Drivel as a Solution

I truly believe the Republican Party needs an influx of new blood running to replace its current crowd of leadership. Sometimes, I feel half-tempted to run for office as a Republican, just because I feel that the Republican Party needs to get back to the ideas of what made Republicans rally around similar ideas that weren't so dividing. But there are way too many skeletons in my closet that I'd never have a chance, so I end up discouraged because we keep ending up with the wrong people with the wrong ideas.

The Republican Party lost a lot of its direction when its leadership started to realize that it could have a more direct impact on national affairs by running for national office. In the era prior to the 1960s, there was always a belief within the party that Republican ideals were best spent on focusing on state issues as a challenge to national control. Gary Jacobson's first edition of The Politics of Congressional Elections actually predicted that Republicans would start taking more national offices because of the attractiveness of Congressional office that were developed by Democrats in power that wanted to make their positions more comfortable; before this, Republicans saw no reason to leave their state positions which also meant leaving their direct access to businesses they were running in their respective states. With PACs giving more money to Republican challengers (and pratically none to Democratic challengers but only Democratic incumbents), it made sense that Republicans would eventually become more prominent in national offices. Unfortunately, once they got there they started to become part of the power structure that they so much heralded as the problem when they stuck mainly to state affairs.

That's the problem now. The Republicans who took national offices (and I mean mainly Congress) have now become part of the power structure they used to criticize, so it is really hard for them to make any type of logical argument that government in bloated when they're now a major part of that problem. Unfortunately, instead of targeting "government", as they had normally done, they're targeting the government in power as a more partisan base type of argumentation so that most of what they say falls on deaf ears, even the ears of those who happen to be Republicans. Right now, it sounds a lot like after-election whining because they haven't figured out how to go back to their Republican roots and find what they actually would historically challenge. And the reason for that is that they are part of the very problem that they need to realize is the antithesis of being a Republican.

The GOP's time for a comeback is when the GOP's population realizes that they're following false gods (always love it when I can throw in a Stargate reference). Their leadership is trying to rally them around a flag of Republicanism that doesn't stand for Republicanism anymore. If anyone speaks out (like I am right now) and challenges that leadership, then they're cast out as traitors or Democrats in Republican clothing. We ran into that during the George W. Bush Administration. If you ever challenged the Republican leadership, the Republican leadership had a cadre of people ready to go on the attack by calling you out as a traitor and insignificant. You're a traitor because you spoke out against the Republicans, and you're insignificant because you still identify yourself as Republican, the Democrats don't want or need you, and the leadership of the Republican Party now sees you as the enemy.

My problem these days is that no one seems to be representing the state-rights interests anymore because the Republicans have stopped talking about these issues unless they are part of a list of specific issues they tend to covet as talking points. The Republicans should be up in arms about federal desires to challenge state acceptance of marijuana policies, just as they normally get up in arms about, well, arms, like issues concerning the 2nd Amendment. By choosing to accept one issue and ignore the other, they show that they're not about state rights, but they're about talking point issues, and the Reagan-era and pre-Reagan era Republicans don't find any comfort in these types of arguments, so the issues become partisan and ludicrous because if people fall into hypocritical arguments, they often lose the fight before it begins.

Anyway, I felt this needed to be said because no one else will say it. Instead, we'll get lots of partisan drivel about...well, do I really need to say more? We know how these arguments go, and we know why they end up in name-calling with people making arguments where they call out someone by name before the person even makes an argument.

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Why California's Proposition 8 (ban on gay marriage) Passed

Some time ago, I made a blog post about what the anti-Prop 8 people needed to do in order to stop Proposition 8 from passing. At the time, I was explaining that the rhetoric being used by the grass roots organizations that were coming out against the amendment was so vitriolic that it was going to cause people to create a major backlash against them, and the measure would pass. Well, the measure did pass.

But there was a secondary demographic impetus that caused the measure to pass, and it's going to be very interesting to see how people deal with this piece of the puzzle, because I can't really see a politically correct way to handle the issue without causing an eruption in the usual suspects that make up this grass roots membership. Here, I'll post some interesting information from the election, and tell me if you see a concern.

Maybe it's just me, but I see an anomaly in the data that is a glaring problem. It seems that if the proponents of a change to this constitutional amendment want to attack the issue again, that grass roots momentum is going to have to address a specific demographic that they have always kind of thought was in their pocket all along.

You see, there's an interesting dilemma here because these wannabe social activists sort of assume that African-Americans will automatically support social issues because they have been treated as marginalized, disenfranchised people for so long. But when this issue of gay marriage, or gay rights, came up, the African-American community has come out as a direct barrier to the social agenda.

Why this group is the most active supporter of anti-gay rights, or anti-gay marriage, is really for others to discuss. What is important is that the people who keep trying to force tolerance down the throats of those who don't see eye to eye with them on such issues are going to have to realize that they have a much different fight on their hands that can't be won by shaming the other side or hoping that things will just work out for their cadre, because things won't.

You see, a whole new approach is needed, or the issue will never turn in their favor. Think about this, which is what educated activists should have been thinking in the first place: The general demographic of a social activist in this country, and especially in California, tends to be a young, white college-educated female. The last characteristic is less prominent in the statistics, meaning we can level it out to approximating a young, white college-educated person. The issue is being argued as "civil rights" or "human rights". The usual rhetoric has been to condemn anyone that is against gay rights as someone who is out of touch and intolerant. Now, notice who makes up the greatest constituency of the demographic they are targeting. In other words, let me explain it: YOUNG, WHITE COLLEGE-EDUCATED PEOPLE ARE TELLING AFRICAN-AMERICAN CITIZENS THAT THEY NEED TO BE MORE TOLERANT TOWARDS OTHER PEOPLE. Now, honestly, try to sell that one. Privileged young folk are making the argument that a long-time, disenfranchised, marginalized group of people who have fought over the span of generations to achieve their civil rights THAT they need to be more tolerant of other people. Good luck with that project.

So, having said that, for reasons I don't understand because the people who should be listening never do (they always know better than anyone else because THEY "understand things better than the rest of us"). If they want to win this next time, they need to approach the African-American community with a respectful attitude and explain why gay marriage should be allowed. Attempt to shame them, you lose. Attempt to reason with them using third graders' analysis, you lose. There can be such a commonality between both sides, but as long as they keep "assuming" it's just going to fall in place, then they'll continue to lose and never understand why they lost.

I've been reading some analysis on why Prop 8 passed, and again, it seems to be a choir singing to another choir without even knowing the song.

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The Election of Obama, the Healing of America, and the Future of Cooperation and Friendship with the Rest of the World

The election was a very long one, and a lot of people are exhausted, finally getting through this process that has managed to prove how divided a nation the United States really is. We knew we were divided some time ago, when each subsequent election showed that half of America wanted one party while the other half wanted the other. In a winner take all system like we have here, that meant a lot of people being completely misrepresented by a party not their choosing. This allowed the Republicans to run the White House, and so many others to continue to control the halls of government of this once great, shining country.

But when it came to the election, people became so divided that they stopped seeing clearly. Instead of seeing people who disagreed with them as the other side of the family that loves you but holds you in check, people saw anyone who disagreed with them as enemies, as people who not only had to be defeated, but had to be disgraced, dishonored and, if possible, destroyed. This has been politics in this country for some time now, and right now, things can get better, or we'll be turning over a cesspool of political disfunctionality to those who come behind us. It's our choice, even though we sometimes make it without thinking about exactly what we are doing when we finally do it.

The United States has suffered greatly because of the misguided intentions of a few who believed they had the best intentions at heart. And they probably did. But their thinking was archaic and outdated. Their thinking was confrontation leads to solution, but that's 19th century thinking that led to 20th century destruction. The future needs to be something different, and unfortunately, people have been swimming in the same muck for so long now that they are no longer capable of thinking about alternatives other than what someone may have tried before. Unfortunately, hitting the same nail into a board only goes so far before you're just breaking wood. The future needs something different than what we are capable of achieving with our think tanks of old ways and diplomats of ancient ideas. The world has been crying out for a future direction, and all we keep hearing is old ways that rarely worked in the past as if they will somehow work some day in the future.

What the world needs is directed cooperation, not mandated imperialism or negotiated compromise. In interpersonal communication literature, one of the final achievements of success in successful communication with another person is not the predicted compromise, but an understanding with the other person that together both of you can achieve a combined learning process that leads you both to a successful outcome that is not a compromise for either but achievement for both. People still don't think that way. Even counselors rarely think this way, telling people that one person must compromise so that two people can reach a commonality (although it is usually directed at both partners, so that both compromise).

The future can be one of successful cooperation, but only if the most powerful nation on the planet realizes such a future can be achieved. Right now, we live in an era where our diplomats play catch up games with international affairs. If someone treats us unfairly, we treat them unfairly in return. If someone does something nice for us, we produce easier trade routes into our borders. That may seem, on the surface, to be the answer to achieving successful economic stimulation, but it is really only temporary, and in most cases does not produce friendships that are long-lasting but develops trade relationships that last only as long as it is economically viable for both sides. In a game theoretic framework, this means that we continue to prosper as long as our "friends" prosper, but once one of us drops out of the game, the only path usually ends up being one that utilizes either the proverbial carrot or the stick. Our paradigm does not know any other functionality.

I suggest the future needs to look at this game theoretic and introduce the idea of cooperation and generational footprinting. What this means is that our targeted friends should not just be those who do right by us, but that when we do right by those who are in our economic and political spheres of influence, we must also do right by those who are overlapping our partners' economic and political spheres of influence as well. This isn't the old "my friends of my friends are my friends" but more a directed desire to work towards friendly relationships with those who border us, and recognize changes in our relationships to where we share certain, fundamental characteristics, such as the desire to wear plaid pants (dumb example, I know). The more functions we share with this neighbor where we wear plaid pants, the more likely we are to also begin sharing other characteristics, like wearing the same kind of hat. This expands out into the cultural realm as well, so that over time we become more like our neighbors, and our neighbors become more like us.

Then we focus on their neighbors, and we look for when those neighbors (who may have very few dealings with us as well), and if we see them wearing plaid pants, we reward them by opening up functionality spheres with them so that we share more venues where we can both show off our plaid pants, so that we, too, might begin to share other attributes and then become more and more like our friends.

This is a simplistic example of the model I'm proposing, but at the same time it also leads to the ability to create long-lasting friendships with potential friends and enemies. This isn't a new process by any stretch of the imagination, but a recognition of certain mathematical principles that do exist in raw social interactions. I use a matrix application to run the interation mathematics that drives the process, but what is important is that nations that are actively involved in attempting to build stronger friendships must be as willing to recognize the change in others as well as accept changes within themselves because self-reflective entity nations have a tendency to attempt to self-correct themselves when they see change as an error rather than a natural progression of cooperative behavior.

This is kind of an offshoot of the FOT (Friendship Over Time) Theory that I created with K. Bruce, and it is going to be presented at the NCA National Conference. We sent a shortened version of the process to the Obama campaign during the last month of the election, as I felt it was important to at least make an attempt at trying to find a better alternative to the rotten ways the US attempts to conduct international relations. My guess is that our letter was either ignored, passed on to some flunky who ignored it, or treated as fan mail. Unfortunately, there are really few avenues for an academic theorist to try to make one's ideas known, especially ideas of such magnitude that would require enlightened leaders to take notice. So I just thought I would say that I at least gave it a try before realizing that in most cases, no leader ever really vies for changing the way things are, even if one's campaign is run on the idea of change.

There is a better way. Making it known is a deeper struggle than finding the solution.

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Political scientists just don't seem to get it

It's amazing how many political scientists with Ph.d.s cannot figure out something so simple about politics: Why don't people have the desire to vote?

Jacob Soboroff, executive director of the election reform group Why Tuesday? asks: "If the United States is supposedly the world's most famous democracy, why is our voter participation near the bottom of all countries?"

Let's forgo the obvious "we're not even a democracy" argument and just deal with this on the surface level alone. Maybe being the "world's most famous democracy" doesn't equal "world's most democratic" country. Think about it. Every election people go into the voting booth to vote for people they generally didn't choose in the first place. For president this year, we have Obama and McCain as the two possible choices (yes, third parties are completely irrelevant in this country). I find it quite important to point out that I never trusted McCain, as he's more of a wild card kind of politician who I equate with the Hillary Clintons: People who will say and do whatever is necessary to get to the next rung of power. Obama, well, I could go on for days, but I'll just leave it at the fact that I don't trust the fact that we really don't know anything about how this guy operates. He's really a relative unknown who is pushing forth his "reputation" of change without actually revealing what that change is going to be. Yet, when questioned on specific manners, he answers with solutions that appear to really be pretty much all the same as before. Change is in word alone, not in any particular actions.

Now interject the common voter into this situation, completely leaving out my criticisms of either candidate, and you have people who really didn't have much of a say in who was going to be running for office. They were given a choice of either McCain, Obama or Clinton. That's it. Democracy left the playing field down to three people and then said that in order to be a truly democratic citizen of this US institution, you had to choose from one of the three. You don't have the democratic option of saying: "I don't like any of them." Because if you do choose that option, all of these political scientists then claim that you are either apathetic, confused, not smart enough to make a decision, or too lazy to find out enough information to make an informed decision. Yes, that's what they say. If you don't choose from the names that have been preselected for you, it's really YOUR fault that you don't participate in "democracy".

Now, that's just the presidency. How about all of those other options you can vote for? Senator. Congress representative. Sheriff. Judge. Tax commissioner. Building inspector. I mean, there are tons of different positions for which people are trying to become elected, and for the most part, EVERYONE knows very little about any of these people, and sometimes what the job itself entails. Yet, they'll be on the ballots, and people are "obligated" to vote for one of them. So, they're pretty much left to either try to remember someone's 30 second ad on television or radio, or to recognize a name they might have seen on someone's sign in a yard they drive by to go to work every day. Yes, lots of people who do vote end up making their decision based on name recognition of names they see when driving by a placard indicating someone's candidacy.

Political scientists keep making the error of asking how to get these nonvoters to actually vote. Rarely do they ever ask the question of what might actually cause people to take an interest in politics that's not business as usual. In other words, is not the status quo. Well, if people could somehow believe they are part of the electoral process from the get go, and I don't mean being respondents to the political players who have decided to be the "rulers of the USA" but to actually be able to do some type of grass roots movement that can put non-political entities in power, then maybe they might be interested. But that's never going to happen. Those who are already in power like the fact that they are already in power. They have set up an institutional framework for their power ascension model, and if you do not buy into their model, then you don't get to play. And even if you do, you still might not get to play.

Some political scientists get all upset when they discover American voting is higher in percentage rates for American Idol than it is for a US election. Well, the numbers can be interpreted a number of ways, but even if that were true, what's wrong with that? All of the people voting actually care about the results. They like a certain performer and vote for that particular performer. It's not like someone decided beforehand that of the 20 performers (I'm guessing a random number cause I don't actually watch the show), you can only vote for one of two that they chose beforehand. Instead, you actually get to vote all the way through the whole process. You don't have to wait until Arizona votes for their idol only to discover that before California's vote showed up, half of the idols were already gone. You got to vote the whole time through. For you, this is actually democracy where you get to participate. Granted, you can't really become one of the performers, which would make it true Athenian democracy, but at least you get to participate for the brunt of the process.

You don't get to do that in American politics. Instead, you have to buy into whomever the "show" decides you get to vote for. If this was equated to American Idol, imagine that when it comes time for the final election, you are told that you can only vote for a musician or a singer, and that you're already registered as a musician liker, so you are expected to vote for the musician, even if you like the singer better. That's our democracy. Try to sell people on participating in that.

In the end, people who don't participate realize that it doesn't really matter whether or not they vote. Sure, people can scream and holler that four more years of Bush happened because people who should have come out for Democrats didn't. Well, from what I've heard from the rest of the people running and people in power from both parties, not much would really have changed in the last four years REGARDLESS of which party was elected. The only difference is who would have profiteered from the contracts doled out for those handling the logistics of the war itself. Right now, in fear of sounding less manly when it comes to defense, both sides are pretty much promising a lot of business as usual when it comes to Iraq, yet the Democrats keep saying that voting for McCain is going to give four more years of Bush-like presidential decisions. Honestly, how much different will Democrats be? Different people, same system.

So without taking one side or the other, let's look at the original argument of this post. Why should Joe Schmoe participate in the electoral process? What has happened that makes this person believe that his or her decision will actually result in something that makes this person happy? Or does the end result result in business as usual, except everyone is wearing different hats? In order to change the status quo on voting, it is necessary to convince Joe that a vote will make a difference. And yelling out: "Your vote will make a difference" doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell if Joe doesn't buy the argument.

That's something political scientists need to wrap their heads around, instead of whining about the fact that 40 percent of Americans don't vote. Give them a reason to do so, and they will. Whine about it and continue to whine about it until the republic becomes nothing but a shadow of an authoritarian regime in democratic wrappings.

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Derailing your own candidate

There's a documentary called Can John Smith Get to Washington Anymore? where a young man appropriately named John Smith is running against a man from a strong political family for congress. In the end, John Smith loses the race, but his career as a politician actually gets jumpstarted during the next election because of his previous run. Anyway, during the movie, Smith is calling people about voting for him and one person states: "If I get another call from a politician, I'm voting for the other guy." To this, Smith quips something about calling this guy back AS the other guy.

That's what I want to talk about today. I have a friend of mine who is OVER enamored with Obama, so he's made it his personal mission to get the guy elected. Rather than just work on his campaign, he's made it so much of an issue that you can't even speak to him without Obama becoming the majority of the conversation.

Now, I sleep with my cell phone on for two reasons. One, I use the alarm function to wake up on time, and two, some people do need to get in contact with me quickly sometimes, and I have no problem with that. But 6:30am begins the text messages of "Vote Obama for change!" from this "friend". Yes, a text message wakes me up just like a phone call. That's one thing about my prior service in the Army. I wake up to a pin dropping.

So, do people even realize they're jeopardizing their candidates by pissing off everyone around them? I'm half tempted to vote for Hillary, even though I have vowed never to vote for her. I won't, but at least you get the point. If I was on the fence, I certainly would have fallen over to the wrong side of what was desired by the person trying to garner my vote.

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