Dear Democrats in the House and Senate,
Well done! I mean well done in the election campaign, of course. There are millions of us feeling the same mixture of elation, relief and anxiety that I’m sure you are now. I’m sure you’ll be getting a million bits of advice, too, so enough small talk—
First, when you look at the election, there are two main groups of Republican legislators that lost their seats: moderates and crooks. Rather, the first group are moderates with constituents who got fed up with their support of a corrupt leadership, and the second are people associated with corruption, bribery and lawbreaking. Please take the obvious lesson: don’t be corrupt, and don’t support a corrupt leadership. By corrupt, here, I’m not saying don’t raise money, or don’t talk to lobbyists, or never compromise. I’m saying don’t break the law, and don’t use your office for personal gain. Don’t use the office to get cheap real estate, and don’t use the office to get hot teenagers. And if your colleagues are doing it, fuck ’em. Turn them in. It would be bad for the Party, but not as bad as not turning them in. Lesson, right? Right.
Second, obviously you will have to deal with Iraq somehow, and there of course you are screwed. You do have the brief luxury of knowing that whatever you do or say, whatever laws you pass, whatever funding you withhold, Our Only President and his cabal of incompetents and thieves will do whatever they want. It’s a brief moment, though, so be aware that you have to lay the groundwork, not for winning the White House in 2008, but for governing from it. Better, in fact, if you can make it so that whoever is in that office from January 2009 will have to pay at least some attention to reality on the ground. I have no idea how to do that; I hope to Gd that some of you do. My point, though, is that your priority should not be in trying to appear bipartisan, or trying to negotiate some stopgap measure, but in building a lasting framework for a national decision of some kind for the long haul. Not because it’s the right thing, you understand, but because that will be the best way to keep winning elections in the long haul.
Third, remember, please, that the reason Our Only President and his Republican Congress were so unpopular was because of all their failures. Don’t fail. Don’t forgive them for failing. Don’t pretend that there weren’t any failures. The country knows—more than half of us, anyway—that you’ve got to clean up the mess, and we want you to do it. Tell us what the mess is, with all the subpoena power you’ve got, but within the frame of figuring out how to fix it. That’s what will keep you in the Majority. Remember, also, that there is some recent historical precedent for a liberal majority governing as liberals, passing liberal legislation and maintaining popularity and the majority while doing it. Not so much, the conservative way. It’s OK to say that, too.
Finally, and most tentatively, you and your leadership are faced with an interesting choice of how to deal with what moderates are left on the other side of the aisle. The old Democratic way was to include those moderates as much as possible, particularly in writing legislation, giving nice majorities on important bits of legislation, and strengthening their position back home. That meant that moderates of the other party got re-elected, rather than being replaced by conservatives, but also rather than being replaced by Democrats, because why should the home district throw out such a nice Republican who wasn’t like the others. Mr. Hastert’s party, and Mr. Gingrich’s, chose the other way, isolating any moderates of the other party, and attempting to unseat them in elections (because, after all, moderates probably come from moderate districts that could well go the other way). It’s a tough choice. The inclusive way, which is nice in a lot of ways, doesn’t increase your majority, and that majority, as we all are once again aware, is very very important. On the other hand, an isolated and disciplined majority is vulnerable to the sudden collapse we saw recently.
I don’t know which way you should go. Part of me wants you to show how different you are from the last gang, by being inclusive. Part of me wants you to kick all the so-called moderates who voted for that corrupt and vicious leadership right to the curb where they belong. So do what you think will work, and good luck to you. Remember, though, that it is the Republican legislators who made a mess, the Republican legislators who screwed up the process, the Republican legislators who negotiated in bad faith, and when it comes time for you to negotiate with them, it is them who will have to show you, and all of us, that they have changed.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
Amen, brother.