Last night, the Democratic candidates for President held their final town hall before the Iowa caucus. Bernie Sanders said he'd raise taxes. Hillary Clinton schooled a young voter on 30 years of Republican attacks. We're not quite sure what Martin O'Malley did. But when all was said and done, it was a thoughtful, issue-packed, substantive event.
What a difference from the adolescent hatefest that's going on on the other side.
Democrats were up there discussing how best to govern — in poetry? in prose? with pragmatism? — which is a key question as the country turns to face the challenges of the next four years. (Oh, and Secretary Clinton got in a nice takedown of the GOP clown car's blinkered xenophobia. "One of the most distressing aspects of this campaign has been the language of the Republican candidates, particularly their frontrunner, who denigrates different people," she said. "We cannot tolerate this and we must stand up and say every person in this country must be treated with respect.")
Republicans? They've gone dark and negative, downright apocalyptic. In the words of President Obama, "The Republican vision has moved not just to the right, but...to a place that is unrecognizable." We cats, pleased with the accomplishments that Obama's had so far, find the GOP portents of doom overheated and silly, unless of course we don't do anything about climate change. Otherwise, we have to assume that a message of hope and possibility — and an emphasis on our collective ability to tackle tough problems — will be far more successful than one of anger and gloom.
Our yardstick for coping with the sturm und drang of national elections is always our answer to this question: "Would we rather be us than them?" Today, we cats, reassured by the substance and civility of our primary race, would still so much rather be us. (Despite all the lumps and bumps.) We Democrats have seen a lot of bloodletting and garment-rending in our own party history, but we've never seen anything like GOP 2016. And so we PURR.
No comments:
Post a Comment