LUDIC LOG

Any number of sea changes have taken place of late in American politics; the conservatization of the Democractic Party, and the libertarianization of the Republican Party; 09/11 and its discontents; the embrace of globalization by both parties; and plenty of other ideological facelifts both minor and major. But one that's attracted my interest of late is the new popularity of meanness.

Of course, meanness has always had its place in American politics, but until relatively recently, it wasn't the norm. Unlike today, when politicos of all stripes trample each other to prove who can be more vicious towards the disenfranchised scapegoat of the moment, there was a time when people had to at least pretend they liked poor people, that criminal reform was a good thing, and that they wanted to stock the government larders with honey insteand of vinegar. In fact, it used to be a truism -- and a frequent (and accurate) criticism of the Democratic party style -- that the best way to win an election in America was to promise people that you'd give them a bunch of priveleges for nothing. Nowadays, the opposite seems to hold true: a sure path to popularity seems to be promising people that you'll take away the priveleges of a bunch of other people.

While blaming a random demographic for all the woes of the world is nothing new, increased need for media content, a general rightward swing by both parties, and a sizable and comfortable (for the moment) middle class, forever looking to pin phantom anxieties upon something or someone, has us temporarily stuck in a massive staredown between rival parties and pundits over who can be the meanest about the most issues. Democrats call George Bush a borderline retard and strive to convince the public that they hate welfare just as much or more than the GOP does; the Republicans, carrying the amazingly popular kill-the-poor rhetoric of the Reagan '80s to ridiculous extremes, question the need for anti-discrimination laws and hand virtual beatdowns to a diseased puppet. Neither side is even moderately interested in progressivism, regarding the mere existence of the other party as an excuse to trot out Nazi analogies. Clinton is Satan and Bush is Hitler.

So much has the notion of classic liberalism been discredited and so successful are the current politics of punishment that the notion of "compassionate conservativism" has appeared on the cultural radar, this being a way of doing mean things with a nice name. We've become so enamored of this "house style" that the language of politicos has begun to ape the language of opinion columnists (a reversal of the trends of the '50s and '60s, when editorialists used the pseudo-statesmanlike language of politicians). It's one of the most rancorous and flinty times in American politics since the cuthroat Sixties; the only difference is, back then there was a massive social sea change as well. Right now, the rancor isn't fueled by any threat to the national order as massive as the hippies, the women's libbers or the black power crowd: it's more like two old men fighting over who can leave the smallest tip.