Shortly after I arrived at Public Citizen as Director of Targeted Marketing in the summer of 1993 (making up a title I thought might sound better than Director of Direct Mail), I launched my first direct mail campaign for the group founded by Ralph Nader.
Newt Gingrich was throwing bombs at authority from his perch as House Minority Whip and I found an illustration in a back issue of Mother Jones that showed Ralph Nader facing off against Gingrich in a boxing ring. “High dollar premium!” I exclaimed, envisioning a mailing that used the image and offered a poster version for a gift of $50 or more.
Then I found an old cartoon of two men fighting over an American flag to put on the envelope and came up with a caption: “Tear It Down? Or Make It Work?” I wrote a stirring, passionate letter about whether the reader wanted to go with Newt Gingrich’s politics of personal destruction, or preserve democracy along with the heroic Ralph Nader (remember, this was 1993—long before anyone had heard of “hanging chads”).
If I find a sample of this package in my basement I’ll scan it—watch this space. But I remember quoting Ralph Nader about doing “the daily work of democracy” and expressing horror at those who just want to use elected office to score points and tear down enemies. They were a dangerous rabble then—but today, they’re firmly in charge.
A few weeks ago, this story appeared in the New York Times:
The Wrecking-Ball Caucus: How the Far Right Brought Washington to Its Knees
“Right-wing Republicans who represent a minority in their party and in Congress have succeeded in sowing mass dysfunction, spoiling for a shutdown, an impeachment and a House coup.”
Washington is in the grip of an ultraconservative minority that sees the federal government as a threat to the republic, a dangerous monolith to be broken apart with little regard for the consequences. They have styled themselves as a wrecking crew aimed at the nation’s institutions on a variety of fronts
Another view comes from the invaluable website Political Wire, where Taegan Goddard writes,
The inability of House Republicans to elect a Speaker explains quite a lot about their party.
They have no common purpose.
That’s why Republicans had no platform in the 2020 presidential election. That’s why they can’t pass a budget. And that’s why they can’t choose a speaker.
Republicans can’t put aside their disagreements and grievances in the service of a larger agenda because they don’t have one.
Today’s dysfunction over who gets to be speaker, temporary speaker, speaker-in-waiting or speaker for a day is a triumph of the “wrecking ball caucus,” who don’t have a purpose and don’t have a clue.
What’s even worse is how many Americans don’t have a problem with that.
It’s been said that these days, politics is more like World Wrestling Federation entertainment than Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and that breaks my heart. I grew up holding on to political heroes the way other kids followed sports. But there isn’t a lot of room for heroism on the floor of today’s Congress.
Is there any hope for change? I think so. I still believe that there’s no way that Donald Trump is going to pick up more votes in the states he lost last time like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. We’ve already seen the kind of legislation a strong Democratic majority in the House can pass—what if it was even stronger after the next election?
Since it looks like the Republicans are embarking on a new campaign of self-destruction with no end in sight, the prospects of a Democratic takeover of the House are looking better by the day. With a few more seats in the Senate, and a New Deal liberal in the White House, who’s to say we can’t have things like sensible gun laws, universal health care, gender equality, racial justice and environmental protections?
Off course, none of those things matter to the Republicans running things in the House, but now, they’re not even interested in fighting Democrats on issues like this. They’d much rather fight among themselves, and look like fools.
Tear it down? Or Make it Work? It’s up to us—and our votes.