United We Stand

Wait... What? That doesn't even... What?

When I was a senior in high school, the teacher of my college writing class attempted to foster intelligent debate among students about hot button political issues of the day. This was a noble goal, but she had apparently forgotten that this was Sprague High School – where, during the 2004 election, I heard a girl say that George W. Bush should win because, “He’s so much better looking than that John Kerry guy.”

For the first few weeks of the semester we would debate about issues like gay marriage and the War in Iraq – a sort of cage match between the conservative, hyperreligious, generally poorly informed students who made up 85% of the class and the liberal, hyperangry, generally poorly informed students who made up the other 15%. The conservatives would state their case and trot out Bible verses for support, while the liberals would fervently and angrily retort, using evidence gathered from a number of liberal blogs. This back and forth would continue until, inevitably, a girl would start crying and everybody would start to feel bad. Eventually, one of the members of the conservative camp had her parents talk to the principal, who made our teacher put an end to the debates, and we spent the rest of the term learning how to write college application essays.

Shortly before our debates came to a close, someone representing the conservative cause trotted out the phrase, “United we stand, divided we fall.”

And all I could think was, Does she know she’s basically quoting Pink Floyd right now?

The general spirit that I remember from 2006 was one of Republican frustration with the Democrats’ unwillingness to cooperate with their highly reasonable, well thought out plans regarding foreign policy, the environment, and taxes. I remember that at one point, Democratic stonewalling got so bad that someone tried to introduce a resolution to weaken or dismantle the filibuster, prompting a liberal-sponsored ad that ran multiple times during The Daily Show, showing a tiny animated megaphone named Phil-A-Buster exhorting viewers to support the sacred right of Congressmen to stall and block democracy for as long as was necessary to get their way. I also have some vague memories of Phil-A-Buster doing battle with a gigantic evil robot, so I might be confusing political activism with Transformers (it would not be the first time).

I remember that my parents and I, as well as our liberal friends, took pleasure in the efforts of the Democrats to block Republican legislation. It felt like a David and Goliath situation at the time, which was cool for us, because Goliath is always the bad guy. I never went to Sunday School, but I doubt that when children were told this story there was ever anyone who was disappointed when the giant didn’t totally squish the little guy. Nobody went to see Rocky and rooted for Apollo Creed. When we watch Star Wars, you never hear anyone cheer when the Empire blows up a planet full of totally innocent people. “Oh yeah! Take that! Fuck you, Alderaan! That’s what you get for being peaceful people who have no weapons!”

Now that the Democrats are Goliath, we’re starting to see that politics is perhaps the only situation in which you want to see the little guy get his ass handed to him. The Democrats, who only a few years ago were vehemently stonewalling, are now struggling to get anything done in a Congress deadlocked by a minority who are really, really good at vehemently stonewalling.

And I can’t help but think, Man, if Democrats were that good at stonewalling, maybe we wouldn’t be in Iraq right now.

Congress is so divided at this point that it can’t really get anything done. Part of this is due to the fact that while the Republican Party is about as cohesive right now as a bunch of trashed international studies majors trying to walk to Burrito Boy at 2:00 AM, the one thing they can organize is vehement opposition. Part of this is also thanks to the fact that the Democratic Party is comprised largely of robots whose sole mission in life is to fuck literally everything up (for reference, see John Kerry in 2004 and the election of Scott Brown).

I’d like to go find the girl from my college writing class who said ‘divided we fall’ and see if she still agrees – that is, if she has time between tea parties. The fact is, unity always sounds like a novel concept to whomever’s in power, because logic dictates that when the time comes for compromise, it’ll probably be on their terms.

That being said, I don’t think this division is going to make us fall. America has always been at odds with itself – that’s kind of how we roll – and this is definitely not the worst it’s ever been. “Divided we suck” is, I think, a far more accurate description of the current state of affairs. Congress being unable to enact any new policies isn’t going to bring about America’s downfall; if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that killing terrorists is good, and that’ll never stop happening. However, so long as Congress stays divided, issues like healthcare, big business, and the economy won’t get solved by either party. They’ll just stay where they are.

They’ll keep sucking.

Truman Capps doesn’t like it when he writes political stuff either – blame my Communication and Democracy book and its message of “THE REPUBLICANS ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL THE WORLD’S EVIL, FOREVER.”