Blood Sport

Went for my daily dose of Tom Barnett today. As usual he’s dead on, this time about the ill wind that’s blowing through the body politic these days. The blood sport, it’s-about-power-not-governance, all or nothing mindset that has been creeping in from the flanks of the respective parties for a few years is reaching a higher pitch. We don’t merely disagree with the other side anymore. Now they have to be demagogued into being evil and a threat to your very existence. It’s the politics of intolerance brought to an exquisite point.

This is a strange, dark new world we’re entering. And we’re entering it faster than anyone is comfortable with. (Friedman talks about this some in The World is Flat. The book is well worth the time, can’t recommend it enough.) When a Democratic candidate for president declares publicly that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace we all need to consult our collective compass. When the leading Republican candidate will most likely be kicked off the dais by his own party for because he doesn’t oppose same-sex marriage we have to ask exactly whom that party is representing. Of course, the mere fact that we’re doing this two years before Inauguration Day should offer clues about the health of the machine Aaron Sorkin once wrote that politicians win elections by doing two things: making you afraid and telling you whose to blame for it. That seems to be all we’re doing anymore.

One last thing while we’re in this neighborhood. I finally realized what bothers me about Hillary’s run. I think only having two names on the mailbox at 1600 Pennsylvania for the past 20 years in enough. It’s come down to the electoral equivalent of Coke versus Pepsi.

Ares