2005

Year-in-review pieces are a bore and predictions would only serve to embarass me one year from today, but I feel like I should do something to commemorate the new year, so instead I'm going to offer three pieces of my semi-expert advice for each party to follow in the coming year.

To the Republicans:

Beware the Ides of March: The majority is never as big as it feels and we all know there’s no such thing as a mandate, so be careful not to go too far in enacting a partisan program. I’m not just a girlie-man Democrat begging for mercy here, this is in your interest, too. Politically an overreach can prompt a backlash, not to mention a lack of balance on either side isn’t good for the country. You’ve won and no one can deny you that, so you’re free to push an agenda, but listen to what the Dems in Congress have to say; 49% of the country can’t be totally wrong. To sum it up briefly: the election’s over, it’s time to govern, and your guy is a uniter not a divider, right?

Round out the Axis of Evil: Iraq isn’t much of a poster boy anymore, especially if the elections go sour, so it might be a good idea to open up a new front in the War on Terror. Since there isn’t much hope that you’ll adapt your state-based approach to terror, you may as well shift focus onto states that actually do support terror. I know that you haven’t done much on Iran and North Korea so far since they’re far more complicated cases than Iraq and you guys don’t care much for complexities, but you’ll have to get over that because the atomic clock is ticking. In North Korea’s case, it’s been at midnight for some time now, and Iran isn’t far off. I don’t have the specific answers and you have access to more astute foreign policy brains than mine, but I’ll just say a few things: 1.) Don’t treat Clinton-esque aid bartering as anathema just because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Buying our security is nothing new for America, and there is nothing about keeping us safe that doesn’t bring “honor and dignity.” 2.) I like Westerns, too, but the stakes are too high to play cowboy. Find a balance between assertiveness and inclusive diplomacy: the world’s getting smaller and terrorism doesn’t care about borders, so going it alone will not pay off in the long run. And in the short run, the UN and IAEA can be valuable resources and means to legitimacy. A little respect can go a long way.

Finalize the Yucca Mountain facility: Making the decision for the central nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain was exceptionally far-thinking and politically courageous, especially considering the current administration, and I have to say, Kerry’s Nevada pandering was nothing short of embarrassing. Yucca Mountain has the perfect combination of geographic isolation and geological composition to serve as the solution to the problem of unsecured nuclear waste, which will have dire environmental and/or national security repercussions if left as is. You couldn’t talk about it during the campaign with Nevada at stake, I understand that, but now’s the time to follow through and do the right thing. Besides, with proper spinning the nationwide political gain can offset the political cost within one small state, and once the facility is fully in place and operational, Nevadans will see firsthand just how remote and secure it is and they can stop panicking. After all, they used to actually test nuclear weapons at that location, and Nevada still stands.

To the Democrats:

Fight for the terms of the debate: What kills us more than anything is the way the basic premises of the Republicans’ arguments go unquestioned, leaving the debate framed in their favor. It was never whether we should drastically cut taxes, it was where and when we should do it. It was never whether we needed to deal with Iraq militarily, it was who should be included in the coalition. It was never whether increased testing was the way to improve education, it was how much it should be funded. Just because Republicans are a majority, it does not in any way mean that the central arguments should be taken for granted. If anything, the strength of the Republican majority is an incentive to use this time to articulate an opposition agenda, since they’ll do what they like anyway. That way, when the time comes to campaign, you have something stronger to run on than the force with which you squabbled over the details. Of course you can’t fully set the terms of the debate when you’re in the minority, but simply accepting what’s offered by the majority is the perfect way to stay in the minority.

Make a stand for Social Security: This is a perfect place to turn things around. Social Security is a decades-old program that is extremely popular, successful by any objective criterion, and immediately identifiable with the Democratic party, which is why Republicans have been gunning for it since the day it was implemented. First, rebut the Republican claim that the program is in dire need of radical, permanent reshaping. This can be done easily with those silly little things called facts, which show that we have a lot of time to work on this. This tells people that the first suggestion doesn’t have to be the one to go with. Next, characterize Social Security not as a broken program, but a successful program with a strong purpose that simply needs to be brought up to date. Get out in front and propose modest changes in salary cap and retirement age, which will extend Social Security’s fiscal solvency for decades. Set it up like this: we want to implement some minor, minimally painful changes to keep Social Security intact for the baby boomers, while Republicans want to replace the safety net with the uncertainties of the market, and in the meantime, they’re taking money out of the system that the boomers need.

The phantom “issues gap”: I think we’ve all figured out by now that gay marriage and abortion didn’t cost us the election. And more so than that, these issues are actually winners if you can play them right. A majority of the country is ready to accept civil unions: Bush himself came out in favor of them on the eve of the election. Make the Democratic Party the party to provide them while the Republican Party the party who wants to deny queer Americans their rights. The best way to do this is bring it down to an individual level. Ever notice that whenever Republicans talk about the issue, it’s about the “institution of marriage” or the “social fabric”? These are broad, impersonal terms meant to make people disassociate the issue from their queer family members, friends and co-workers. The trajectory of American attitudes is clearly towards queer rights over the past two decades, so go with the flow, it’ll pay off in the near future. In the meantime, if the Defense of Marriage Act pops up again, just ask the Republicans: whatever happened to federalism? And as for abortion, it’s not as much of a question mark as it’s being made out to be. A majority of the country is pro-choice, so be unabashed in support of the basic right (I could never figure why Kerry danced around it so much). The Republicans are politically savvy enough to not go after abortion as a whole, it’s far too popular. This year will be more of the status quo, with Roe unchallenged but Republicans nibbling at the edges.

...oops, couldn't help but to make a prediction there...