What the Party simply cannot seem to understand is that its own failures and errors are a substantial obstacle to the progress of whatever good is in its own platform. Let me repeat that: It’s own failures and errors are a substantial obstacle to the progress of whatever good things are in its own platform. They expend their energies in focusing on the failures and errors of the opposition party, but when has the sum total of all that griping ever resulted in a one iota of reform of the other party?
Never. Or close to never. Yet they keep on doing it—all that complaining—as if it’s bound to pay off big just any day now. And this hope springs eternal in the Party; the members are heavily invested in the idea that they can somehow overcome the bad behavior of the other party.
And this, they think, is the nature of the battle. It’s all about getting those mean ol’ Demublicans to cut it out and get with the program. But the Republicrat Party deceives itself— that it can do no wrong, generally speaking—and that the bulk of the emergency in this country is owed to the evils of the Demublicans, who oppose the Republicrats at every turn.
We think that those Demublicans really need to learn self-correction. And we are right. But what a shame it is that we are unqualified to show them how it’s done. We do not fix our own messes. We do not run our own tyrants and scoundrels out of office. We violate the Constitution ourselves—even if we want to insist that our violations of it are not nearly as egregious as those of the Demublicans. After all, our violations of it are “for a good cause”, and surely God himself understands how exigencies practically forced us to do it!
This same thing, of course, is what the Demublicans tell themselves about their own violations.
We play the same game, we two parties in this two-party system that is nowhere authorized in the Constitution we both swear to uphold. It’s all a lie—and a big one. Demublican and Republicrat alike are corrupt in their habits of thinking about it all. And that is the truth of the matter. Neither side knows what it would really look like to be faithful to the Constitution as it stands—or even faithful in amending it properly when we are convinced it needs amending.
Our culture is deeply corrupted in this way. And yet, we turn on one another in this two-party blame-shifting game, as if we were natural enemies and not fellow citizens.
Perhaps we will come to our senses someday and cut it out. But this is not likely, because that kind of reform has never been popular with the masses. The people who would reform themselves like that are few in number. And they don’t even need the help of party to do it. No, they generally do it despite the Party, and not because of it. These are the folks who come to understand that the platform is not the truth of the party leadership’s intentions; it’s merely the marketing pitch, and the leaders have no intention whatsoever of fulfilling even the half of it. They’re just using it to try to dupe more voters than the other party can manage to dupe by way of its own platform.
And the masses choose to believe the lie. And they lie it to themselves. They will refuse to see their prospective parties for what they actually do when in office. Rather, they choose to view them merely for what they say in their rhetoric. And they are eager to do it! That’s the game. That’s how it works. It’s a bunch of self-deceived people being manipulated by masters who are using them for sinister purposes that rarely see the light of day.
That is American politics for most Americans. So glad to pick a side, right or wrong, do or die. And even if the side is wrong about this or that, we don’t really care.
And some will call me cynical in this, being able to imagine no other way to wiggle out from under their responsibility in it all, but to turn the tables on Jack for having said it. But still, it is true of them, even if I had never said it. And they will live out their lives, waving flags for the Party, and will likely never see any sustained period of substantial reform—even though both parties claim that substantial reform is the only way out of our national emergency.
Most will never listen. The lie is just too strong, and their minds are too weak. They will never set the facts straight in their minds if they have to do it alone, without some “official” authority giving them permission to think straight.
