Charles Barkley and the farce of political parties

[Atman]

So Charles Barkley is considering a run for Governor of the Great State of Alabama -- as a Democrat.

"I used to be a Republican, before they lost their minds," Barkley was quoted as saying by the New York Post.

And therein lies the rub. Barkley is emblematic of why the traditional political parties no longer have any relevance in America. So the Republican party turns out to be exactly who we said they were all along, and Barkley is among the latest to be shocked! Shocked, I tell you! to learn the ugly truth. So he runs as a Democrat.

The trouble is (for us, for America, but probably not for Barkley), few if any of the shocked pols and polebrities actually have changed a thing about what they're about personally. Rarely do they seem to look in a mirror and say "Holy crap! That's the stuff I said I believed in...and it's all bogus bullshit!" Instead, they rationalize yet again why yet another Republican administration has gone down in flames. They'll switch parties not out of a change of heart over the realization that their views were misguided, no, they'll switch parties because it has been exposed that their views are largely out of step with any freedom-loving society. So they'll change the nameplate to facilitate election, and to mitigate the embarrassment attached to the GOP label these days, and they'll take their seats in town halls and Governor's mansions, and yes, in Congress, and they'll be faced with issues affecting millions of Americans every day.

But will they decide these contentious societal issues along the general lines of the party whose affiliation they coat-tailed, or will their real inner Republican rear its ugly head? Will the political party opportunists suddenly decide Welfare queens don't drive Cadillacs and live on steak and champagne, paid for by taxes taken out of their hard earned paychecks? Will they suddenly believe every woman's ultimate right to self determination trumps the moral misgivings of certain religious organizations and fund raisers? Of course not. They'll vote they way they feel, and they won't care about party affiliations any more than they did the day they decided that being GOP was an inconvenient truth they could not bear.

The meaning of Democrat or Republican becomes further muddied, watered down, mixed, mashed. Just as it did back in the days of Lincoln and with the Dixiecrats. As one side becomes unpopular, people shift to the popular side. Too many bring along the baggage from their previous affiliations, and that baggage gets unpacked little by little, until the sides have essentially shifted again.

What we are being left with is a thick bouillabaisse of extremists on both sides of the room, and the jumpers and popularity-seekers and opportunists glad-handing and back-scratching each other in the middle. These "true" democrats on the fringe are probably closer to the ideals of the party, strong on social issues and humanities. And the same can be said of the position of the remaining fringe Republicans. They are probably more "true" to their party's ideals than the glad-handers and opportunists. But, like their Democratic counterparts, they're being pushed to the fringes, marginalized, until the two mainstream parties of safe-wayers and sheeples and opportunists are choking the oxygen out of the room as they all breathe in unison and exchange the fresh air with hot carbon dioxide. We all get sick and light-headed as a result.

I don't know what the answer is. This centralized unified party of two will continue to grow, yet it cannot really survive because it soul isn't true. There is no "there" there. Embracing anything means believing nothing, and the corruption and the abuse and the distrust all become too much and one day, everyone has moved on once again.

And once again, America is just a little bit sicker.

[ixion]

1. politics: the ultimate Cult of Personality

We, the People, have traded away our civil liberties and inalienable rights to a group of uber idiots whose only goal is to implement a corporate theocracy for the enrichment of themselves and a few cronies. :grr: :argh:

[zbdent]

2. Barkley must have gotten tired of being asked to bus the tables

at all the GOP gatherings he was invited to ... being mistaken for "the hired help" ...

[Atman]

3. Self kick

Late afternoon kick, now that things have quieted down a bit here! ;)

[MoseyWalker]

4. Maybe

they switch because they've become more aware of the extent of the damage of the policies expoused by those they may have in the past supported.

I don't pick my friends because of what they might have been in the past. I consider them friends because of what they do NOW, and what they are working for in the future.

Barkley wants to help people in real, down to earth ways, and I applaud that.

Better to be honest and admit past mistakes than to say you never made any.

[EstimatedProphet]

5. Very well put!

This is exactly the same thing I've been saying. We are headed for another dister in the elections, because the Republicans will be able to claim that all the messes were Bush's fault, and not a direct result of the corrupt Republican policies-and people will buy into that. Why? Because deep down, they WANT to believe what the Republicans have to say. They want to believe that they're not out of work because they didn't bother to get an education, but instead because of a vast conspiracy by militant lesbians and black separationists. They want to believe that as Americans, we have the right to go anywhere in the world and do anything we want to anyone, and have them thank us for it. they want to believe that bullying is an appropriate foreign policy. So they'll fall for the explanation that Bush was responsible for all the mistakes, instead of them obviously due to stupidity at home and abroad, and 10 years from now the country will be completely ruined, and they won't understand why, since the Democrats have been out of power for so long.