For two decades America has been living in what I term the Era of Bad Feelings, yesterday Colin Powell emphatically stated it’s time to put an end to it.

The Era of Bad Feelings has produced political gridlock and doubts among many Americans about the ability of their government to function with either of the two political parties in power. Even more it has turned Washington into a city of zealots, who fill the op ed columns, talk radio and even television with vitriol that has poisoned the air so every day in DC feels like one of those humid July afternoons when you feel as though you can’t breathe. When the tourists ride the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument and look over to the Capitol dome across the National Mall, they see not a symbol of democracy in action, but the rounded lid of a simmering pot that constantly seems to be boiling over.

Today it is impossible to turn on the radio, watch television or pick up a newspaper without finding an example of these partisan wars, which increasingly resemble one of those professional wrestling extravaganzas where two elaborately costumed, steroid-laden Neanderthals grope one another in a steel cage or pit full of mud. Any American could readily supply a top-ten list of examples.

In the nether reaches of the Internet, a wilderness punctuated by the tangled trails of emails and listservs where potshots come from the likes of “random,” “ch2,” and “coz,” lie electronic Tombstones and Deadwoods featuring no-holds-barred brawling and a hair-trigger impulse to shoot from the hip at the first perceived insult.

The prime instigator of the Era of Bad Feelings has been the Republican Party. Yesterday one Republican–one many think should be running instead of the current candidate–said he had enough. When Colin Powell public chastised the McCain campaign on Meet the Press, he signaled that the time has come to end the Era of Bad Feelings.

I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years. It has moved more to the right than I would like to see it, but that’s a choice the party makes.

I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower.

And I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about.

Now, I understand what politics is all about.  I know how you can go after one another, and that’s good.  But I think this goes too far.  And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow.  It’s not what the American people are looking for.  And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me.  And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift.

Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

The McCain campaign could dismiss John Lewis, who also remarked about the negative campaigning, but they could not so easily blow off Colin Powell. Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama and his pointed words for the McCain campaign came at the end of the nastiest week so far in this election.  Powell put his feelings bluntly accusing McCain of “demagoguery:”

But to suggest that because Mr. Barack Obama had some contacts of a very casual nature–they sat on a educational board–over time is somehow connected to his thinking or his actions, I think, is a, a terrible stretch.  It’s demagoguery.

Powell also has his finger on something else, for in the interview he all but acknowledges the Republican Party has served as the prime instigator of the Era of Bad Feelings. For decades their electoral strategy has followed the same script: unwilling to campaign on the issues or even the usual type of negative campaign which distorts or even lies about an opponent, the GOP has gone far beyond that.

The Era of Bad Feelings

At the center of their tactics has been what Karl Rove terms Wedge politics, only this wedge sought to divide the American people against themselves. Some would assert there is nothing new in this. The Republicans tried to divide the American people during the New Deal, demonizing Franklin Roosevelt as they kept up a steady drum beat accusing FDR and the Democrats of leading the country down the road to socialism or worse. Then there was the classic ideological smear campaign: Richard Nixon’s despicable attacks on Helen Gahagan Douglas.

While the Era of Bad Feelings has yet to approach Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunting paranoia, it differs from these past campaigns in that it has sought to divide this nation in a way that has fomented a cultural Civil War that like the conflict between North and South has pitted neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, and split families apart.

Behind all the name calling and the inevitable Willie Horton Campaign lies something very dangerous for American politics: palpable hatred. What the Counterrevolution has represented is a classic hate campaign one that not only seeks to disagree with opponents but is based on deep hatred for them and a wish to stir up that hatred in others. The classic Rove campaign is at its heart a classic hate campaign.

The Politics of Hate

The idea is to not merely make Americans question other Americans or dispute their political leanings or policy initiatives, but to make them objects of hate. Much of this became injected into the Counterrevolution by its Devil’s Bargain with the Religious Right. In a kind of explosive political alchemy, the alliance between the Republican Party and Christian fundamentalists produced the political equivalent of nitro.

The Religious Right genuinely believes those who do not agree with them are unbelievers worthy of the vilest contempt. Not only will these unbelievers get theirs when the Second Coming arrives, but also if at all possible they will get theirs now because their very existence is a blasphemy to true believers. What distinguishes the current American fundamentalists from those of the past is their attempt to wrap together patriotism and religion. Suddenly you are not only an unbeliever but you are unAmerican as well.

The Consequences of Hate

It has long been known that hate rhetoric begets hate crime, for hate rhetoric feeds the distorted minds of those who perpetrate hate crimes. Article 20 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law

In a 2004 article on “Hate on the Net,” the International Network Against Cyber Hate wrote:

Little sparks can kindle big fires, which was proved by all the hate speech and dehumanization that was dished-out by media (including the Internet) during the Balkan-war, conditioning the public to support any new conflict.

Given this connection it should be no surprise that along with the Era of Bad Feelings has come a rise in hate crimes. Human Rights First 2008 Hate Crime Survey of the United States notes:

In the latest report on hate crime in 2006, the FBI identified 7,722 incidents—a 7.8 percent rise from the documented 7,163 crimes in 2005.There was a 9.5 percent rise in hate crime victims, from 8,804 in 2005 to 9,642 in 2006.

According to the state of California’s annual hate crime report for 2007:

hate crime incidents rose 9.2 percent, from 1,306 in 2006 to 1,426 in 2007. The 1,426 incidents represented 1,931 offenses, with violent crimes increasing by 19.9 percent from 1,044 in 2006 to 1,252 in 2007.

The International Network Against Cyber Hate observed:

Although there are relatively few reported cases, local police and high school and college administrators indicate that the use of the Internet to send bias-motivated messages and threats is increasing.

Behind the Hate

Ultimately, behind everything from the Era of Bad Feelings to the tactics Powell decried lie two contrasting views of human nature dueling for this nation’s future. On the one side lies the belief forcefully propounded by religious fundamentalists that human beings are by nature sinful creatures without grace who will wallow in degradation, perversity, and depravity. This view is also not unfamiliar to closet Dixiecrats who believe in the inequality of races and corporate fundamentalists who view consumers as weak-minded addicts with fixations on everything from lipstick to plasma television sets.

This nation faces nothing less than an iron curtain of dogma that threatens to implacably divide us into the equivalent of the Cavaliers and Roundheads who spread blood across the soil of England. The stakes in this civil war have become nothing less than the fate of succeeding generations and the kind of America we want them to inherit.

The Future of America

Do we want an America in which permits only certain opinions, certain lifestyles, certain proscribed types of cultural expression? Do we want an America that resembles an Iran ruled by our own ayatollahs?

From the premise that people with opposing beliefs are not worthy of respect it is easy to conclude that one can do whatever they want with those they hold in contempt, the way a certain political movement used to deal with people who wore stars on their chests.

In contrast to this vision stands the core belief of Liberal America that people will do the right thing if only given help to overcome the occasional bad luck that befalls them, education to cope with those who would take advantage of them, information that is predicated on fairness, and the right to cast their vote and have it fairly counted.  Democracy is, by nature, a liberal institution, for it is founded on the notion that the collective wisdom of the people serves as a force for good. The level playing field depends on this view. If you believe people are by nature good then you believe they should all have an equal chance.

America has stood at this place before, so if history serves as any guide, sooner or later the frustration will turn in a positive direction. That is what Colin Powell was trying to tell us all on Sunday. We would do well to listen.

Tagged with: America • bad feelings • Barack Obama • capitol dome • Civil War • colin powell • demagoguery • democracy in action • Dixiecrats • election • equality • fairness • Franklin Roosevelt • GOP • Hate • Iran • John Lewis • Karl Rove • McCain • mccain campaign • McCarthy • Meet the Press • Muslim • Obama • political gridlock • religious right • the people • vitriol • washington monument • wedge politics • zealots