Oct 24, 2018 6 min read

I hate politics. I’m guessing I’m not alone, especially at this time of year. Saying “politics are involved” usually means that a decision is being made based on the power (and depth of feeling) of the people involved, rather than on the merits.

I like policy. I like seeing a problem, and figuring out how to fix it. The problem is, that if you want policies to address problems, in a democratic system, you have to engage in politics. If you don’t, then people who engage in politics more effectively get to dictate what policies are implemented. So while many, if not most, people would like to just live their lives without having to think about politics, unless we engage in the politics, even if it is only voting when elections come around, politics will dictate how we live, and we may not like the result.

Our political system is historically significant because it relies on the consent of the governed, and that has been the source of its longevity. But for the system to work, we have to fulfill our civic duty, understand what is at stake in the election, and vote.

The Republicans political skill is impressive. Polls show that Democratic policies (pro-choice, Medicare, Social Security, environmental protection, civil rights protections) tend to be more popular than most Republican policies (pro-life, pro-gun, tax cuts for the wealthy, small government), yet Republicans control the Supreme Court, both houses of Congress, the presidency, most governorships, as well as most state houses. One cause of this is that rural areas are over-represented in our system of government, and most rural residents are Republicans (so the Electoral College and Senate favor Republicans).

More importantly, Republican campaigns have been more willing to play hardball than the Democrats. Lee Atwater exemplified this in 1988 when he used Willie Horton, a black prisoner serving a life sentence, in an ad to make white voters fear that if Michael Dukakis (a Democrat) was elected president, dangerous black men would be let loose on society (Atwater apologized for the tactic on his deathbed). Dukakis, who had a huge lead in the summer, lost.

Newt Gingrich, who came to Congress in 1980 as part of Reagan’s victory, refused to believe that although the Republicans had only held a majority in the House for four years since 1932, the Republicans were in a permanent minority. He felt that compromising with the Democrats allowed them to retain power; he pushed Republicans to refuse to compromise, and even attacked fellow Republicans who were not ideologically committed to the cause (Republicans in Name Only, or RINOs). In 1994, he got many Republican house members to sign on to his “contract with America”, which enforced party discipline and helped the Republicans regain control of the House.

Grover Norquist, a Republican strategist who had co-authored the Contract with America, created a simple pledge not to raise taxes that he got almost every Republican in Congress to sign, and this pledge has been enforced by threats of primary challenges (by the Tea Party, e.g.) for years. Norquist considered closing loopholes and capping deductions as raising taxes, which made compromise with the Democrats on fiscal issues almost impossible.

During the 1990s, Gingrich, as speaker of the House, controlled the legislative docket, and he adhered to what later became known as “the Hastert rule”, which was that no legislation would be considered that did not have a majority of the majority party in favor of it. In other words, legislation that was favored by a majority of Democrats, with enough Republican support to pass, would never see the light of day. So any “bipartisan” legislation had to be on Republican terms.

The controversial 2000 presidential election demonstrated the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in their approach to politics. In spite of Gore winning the popular vote, the outcome of the election depended on whoever won the state of Florida, which was only close because the Republican secretary of state (Katherine Harris) had purged the voter rolls of more than 12,000 people it inaccurately labeled as felons (this was 22x the 537 vote margin of victory), most of whom were black or Latino (and likely Democratic voters).

Republican operatives (led by Roger Stone, who is currently waiting to be indicted by Robert Mueller) staged the “Brooks Brothers riot” to stop the counting process in Miami-Dade County (which was expected to add to Gore’s vote totals). Eventually, the recount was stopped by the Republican majority on the Supreme Court, which violated its own philosophy of deferring to the states in order to overturn a decision by the Florida State SC that was allowing a recount. The naked political agenda was made clear by the fact that in its ruling, the SC asserted that the decision applied to this case only, and should not be used to set precedent.

Another impressive display of Republican political skill was in the 2004 election, when John Kerry ran against George W. Bush. John Kerry had volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and had been rewarded for his courage in combat. After his tour, he became a critic of the war. Bush, on the other hand, though he supported the war, joined the Texas National Guard , an assignment that ensured he would never deploy to Vietnam, and records show that it was unlikely that he even completed that. Given how much respect Americans, and especially Republicans, give to military service, one would think that this would be one area that the Republican operatives would avoid. But one would be wrong. The Republicans (the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) manufactured a controversy over Kerry’s medals, and turned their contrasting Vietnam experiences into a political benefit for Bush. That’s impressive.

The most naked political play is voter suppression. Republicans use claims of rampant in person voter fraud (which, while supposedly rampant, they can never find), to suppress the votes of people who won’t vote for them. In North Dakota, they require IDs with street addresses, knowing most Native Americans living on tribal lands don’t have them. In Georgia, they close polling stations in historically black counties (citing ADA non-compliance). In Dodge City, Kansas, they take the only polling station in a city of 27,000 people (with a Hispanic majority) and move it outside the city and a mile from any bus line. If you really think your ideas are the best, shouldn’t you want that validated by more people voting? But Republicans know that preventing people who will vote for your opponent from getting to the polls is as valuable as winning votes yourself.

Democrats naively believe in the power of good ideas. They believe that if they come up with the right policies, and run candidates who are intelligent and morally sound, voters will elect them and they can implement policies that will solve problems. But for that to actually work, Democrats have to win an overwhelming majority, to overcome the Republicans superior political skill. This year, the Democrats have been working hard to inspire voters, so naively, I have hope.