Once, early in his tenure in Congress, Jim Clyburn confided to our editorial board that his district really didn’t have to be gerrymandered all that much. He suggested he could give up some black precincts and be re-elected just fine.
Now I see that his seat is even safer than I thought. Or at least he seems to think so. Check out this entry from a WashPost blog. An excerpt:
Clyburn Does Heavy Political Lifting for Dems
Beyond just counting votes, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has set out to become a political force inside the House Democratic caucus as the majority whip.
Clyburn is the top donor to the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee so far this year, turning over $600,000 from his own
re-election campaign to the DCCC. That’s $200,000 more than House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has given and double what House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has transferred from his campaign account to the DCCC, according to internal numbers from the committee.
I’ve noticed before that the congressman’s spending priorities aren’t exactly in synch with my own, but this takes it to another level. I can’t imagine giving a dime to keep either party in power. Of course, my job doesn’t depend on it, either.
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Brad, as the current political fun house is set up, the only way to get what you want is to make sure that the ‘power group’ that most nearly agrees with you gets what it wants. What Clyburn is buying is power. And until we get a more diversified political landscape, the democrats and republicans are the only two parties who have enough money to get themselves heard. The problem with this set-up is that the person(s) who end up winning the leadership roles are persons who have had to decide how much they are willing to sacrifice of what they believe is right to match the group. This selection, of course, favors the less honest and often the less intelligent; those who are willing to say/do anything frequently succeed in rising to the top. All too often I think Ibsen was correct when he wrote, “The majority is never right!”
“Enemy of the People!” My favorite Ibsen play.
And for a long time after I read it, that was a favorite quotation of mine.
As I grew older, and mellowed a bit, I had to admit to myself that the majority wasn’t ALWAYS wrong. It’s frequently, and perhaps even more than half the time (although how does one quantify such a thing), right. There’s basically no justification for democracy, otherwise.
But the majority is wrong often enough, particularly in the short term, to underline our Framers’ wisdom in choosing to establish a republic rather than a pure democracy.
And sometimes — say, when the General Assembly is in session — it’s tempting to embrace the Ibsen dictum once again. But we should resist that temptation.
Are you sure the majority is usually right? The majority wants gas prices to drop, so they can drive more even tho’ it’ll hasten our self destruction via climate change, if not fund a rogue nation’s efforts to attack us. The majority originally supported the war in Iraq and the concept of pre-emptive attack (Hitler liked pre-emptive attacks, too, and look where it got him). Now that Iraq is in chaos, and leaving is almost sure to precipitate a civil war that may well embroil other countries around there, and will, I think almost certainly result in a very fundamentalist, very radical state, the majority want to leave. I’m with Colin Powell’s ‘you break it, you fix it’ philosophy; but I am not sure that we can fix it now. What I am sure of is that if we don’t,or can’t, we will regret it. But the majority will win. And we’ll all reap the harvest from breaking the country in the first place.
No, I’m not at all sure the "majority is usually right." And the most generous thing I said about the majority is that MAYBE it is right more than half the time — and of course, 51 percent would qualify for that statement. But I’m being intentionally overgenerous, even admitting that possibility. There is a great deal of randomness in it.
And yes, the excessive measure of pure democracy in our republic prevents us from being realistic about energy. People talk about the influence of the oil industry, but I think that influence is a smaller force than the fact that, as you say, people want cheap gasoline. Popular sentiments are very often the most destructive elements in our society’s decision-making.
Your thinking about the majority being "wrong" both when it wanted this war, and now that it wants to quit, is logically sound. I disagree with you about pre-emptive action being inherently wrong, however. I respect it (I’ve always respected the opinion that we should NOT have invaded Iraq; I just have a lot of trouble respecting those who have wanted us to quit ever since — once battle was joined, quitting has never been a sensible option), but I disagree. I disagree even with the Hitler comparison. Aggression worked for Hitler, until he overreached. He made two strategic mistakes — breaking the nonaggression pact with Stalin, and keeping his treaty obligation to Japan by declaring war on the United States. If he had stopped in 1940, after conquering France, the Nazis might still be running western Europe today. The United States today is up against guerrillas backed by the resources of Iran, and to a lesser extent other sources, in Syria and elsewhere. We are not up against an enemy with virtually limitless logistical ability to wage war, such as the U.S. and the USSR.
My thinking on this is more or less like that of Tony Blair, who believes we’ve entered an era in history in which we should not let national boundaries be an excuse not to use our resources to advance liberal values (the subject of the David Brooks column I refer to here).
But I doubt most Americans were thinking along those lines in 2003, which is why so many feel betrayed by the absence of WMD. They were thinking more along the lines of traditional national defense. Therefore, as things turned out, they were wrong — but they had no way of knowing that at the time. In light of the widespread belief that Iraq was a clear and present danger, they were right in traditional terms to back the invasion. (I, too, believed the WMD were there, and that we were justified in traditional terms. But that was not as important to me as the need to topple a tyrant whom we had intentionally left in power in 1991, to our shame under the Blair sort of terms that I mention.)
Now, however, there is no question in my mind that the majority is wrong, to the extent that it wants to pull out. The luxury of not being involved in Iraq is a thing of the past; that has not been a legitimate option since March 2003.
I don’t blame the majority for feeling the way it does now. But I do blame elected representatives, whose obligation is to study and understand the situation better than their constituents (that is what they are delegated to do in a republic), when they play to that, and compete to convince voters which of them would be quickest to effect a withdrawal.
To play to popular sentiment under such life-and-death circumstances, with so much at stake, is reprehensible.
Yes, I’m sure that some of these politicos have honestly reached a conclusion that is different from mine. But others (both Democrats and Republicans) are merely rushing to say what is popular — as many of them did in 2002, when they voted for the war resolution. And that is inexcusable. Those who would presume to lead should lead, and as often as not (given the very capriciousness of majority attitudes that we are discussing here), that means giving voice to the unpopular view, based in unpopular facts.
As you say, Colin Powell was right. Both in the Pottery Barn analogy, and in the older Powell Doctrine, which demanded that military action be taken with overwhelming force, as in Kuwait in 1991.
For me, I think war (any war) is the result of having failed to find a better way. In the case of Iraq, not only was it unjustified, but it did a fine job of turning the court of world opinion against us. It also mobilized a huge number of mostly impoverished, mostly uneducated, Islamic fundamentalists against us. These folks aren’t an identifiable country or nation, they’re all over the world. No, Saddam was not a nice guy. But he wasn’t getting ready to attack us. He also had no interest in Islamic fundamentalism. Now that is on the rise in Iraq, and they’ve got Iran right there to help them. Had we limited ourselves to Afganistan, and worked to set up a good, functional, legitimate government there, which would have required overwhelming force, followed by rebuilding the country, we might have been able to establish an independent Afganistan at peace, and either on our side or at least neutral. I think we are the ones who have overreached this time.
Note that you are focusing on things that we can’t do anything about now — woulda, coulda, shoulda.
A lot of people focus on that, and it leads them to an unsound conclusion. They think nations get do-overs. Doesn’t work that way. As I explained in March 2003, once we went in, that was it. We wouldn’t be able to pull out for a long, long time. The time for discussing whether we SHOULD go in was over and done with. I don’t see why so many people still have trouble understanding that four years later.
Impatient people say "We can’t wait until there’s a new president to get out." Folks, that’s hardly any time at all compared to the length of time we will need to remain heavily involved in Iraq.
You and I disagree about what we SHOULD have done. But I think it’s a waste of energy to argue about it. That’s the sort of debate to have when we don’t have our hands full with real, immediate challenges — say, 50 years hence in a history classroom. The only legitimate question is: What do we do NOW? The quicker the whole nation, from across the political spectrum, focuses realistically on that, the sooner we get our act together and start making things better.
Brad, I can guarantee you that the American public is not willing to do what needs to be done. In order to win and effectively change Iraq, we need to commit massive troops (which I keep reading that we don’t have) and massive amounts of money to this war, and we need to do it over several years. You may want it, but its not going to happen in the real world. Meanwhile, we can win in Afghanistan, if we simply commit to that (maybe), and meanwhile, since we’re not going to do what’s necessary to win in Iraq (unless you define winning as bombing the place till it’s completely lifeless and glows in the dark–and I don’t think you do, the best we can do is to stop killing lots of Iraqis and pull out. Like it? No. But what do you suggest given the reality of the situation? By the way, please remember that continuing to muddle around over there wastes lives, ours and theirs, and contributes mightily to global warming.