Ross Douthat's Insightful Column Today: How Both the GOP and Democrats are failing

This is why it is so important to respect the other side of a political discussion.  Shared values exist on both sides of the political spectrum and our system is based upon a predominantly market based capitalism with a roll for government where unbridled capitalism fails and everyone benefits from the laws of large numbers.

But our politicians are lost in the maze of partisanship and catering to bases and no one is being educated about the issues and trade-offs in solutions.  Congressional hearings where this has traditionally happened are focused on gotcha politic, partisan angles and bolstering already hardened positions rather an open mind listening to problems and possible solutions.

Douthat's insight today really brings home where we are.

"In the Obama era, though, neither coalition has done a very good job selling such a vision, because neither knows how to deliver on it. (The left doesn’t know how to get wages rising again; the right doesn’t know how to shore up the two-parent family, etc.) Which has left both parties increasingly dependent on identity-politics appeals, with the left mobilizing along lines of race, ethnicity and gender and the right mobilizing around white-Christian-heartland cultural anxieties."


Link to Douthat's whole column

That is why I am so discouraged by the Democrat's post election populism.  I am sympathetic with Senator Schumer's belief that the Democrat's need to focus on the middle class, not just the poor, if they are to win elections in red states, but the Democrats also need to defend the propriety of policies that balance both GOP reliance on the market and the need to defend the environment (which didn't used to be a partisan issue and doesn't have to be.)  People like clean air and water, but they also like jobs.   Globalization is tough for people who become uneconomic because of it.  They need help, but they also need to be self-sufficient by cutting expenses and living within their means.  And our representative's need to be sympathetic to both points of view.

The Tea Party is wrong when they think government doesn't need to pass laws.  The world changes, the economy changes, there is change in the culture and laws need to change to reflect how society wishes to govern itself.  The military needs to be funded because the world is a dangerous place and our veterans deserve to be taken care of, and the cost of doing so needs supervision because there are shysters out there who want to take advantage of government programs through fraudulent activities.  The GOP designed ObamaCare the way they did because preventive health care is always less expensive for society than the treatment of illnesses and you need everyone in the system at all times because people can get sick at any time and they need to pay into the system to spread the cost fairly across everybody.  I don't know why the GOP cannot acknowledge that nor why the Democrats cannot blast it into the debate during elections.  

I guess Identity Politics don't allow for difficult messages.