What’s wrong with us
[Editor’s note: Due to a formatting error, the first paragraph of the October Politics & Other Mistakes, “The invulnerable Susan Collins,” was appended to the beginning of November’s column, “What’s wrong with us,” in the print edition of that issue. This is the correct version.]
“Beyond familiarity or indifference, some deep mischief is at work.”
— Thomas Pynchon, Shadow Ticket
Because most people behave just a little bit stupider than you would expect them to, Maine and the nation are deeply divided over such crucial political issues as which high school bathroom transgendered kids should retreat to in order to sulk about not being able to play on the sports team of their choice; how many dead people are an acceptable number each year before we do something meaningful about guns besides offering thoughts, prayers and bulletproof backpacks with NRA logos on them; and whether the rising cost of dealing with climate change is worth preventing the planet from becoming a Trumpian hellhole of uninhabitable orange wasteland.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never written a longer sentence than that, nor one filled with so much moral ambiguity. But I was inspired to such lengths — and depths — by the Maine People’s Alliance’s annual scorecard of state legislators. In one compact package, the MPA has distilled everything that defines our intense partisan divides. No long sentences. No moral ambiguity. No flimsy excuses for stupidity.
Sure, the MPA is wildly prejudiced. To appropriate the words of author Tom Callahan, quoting an unnamed sportswriter, the alliance is “as one-sided as a fried egg.” But at least the bias is blatant. If a legislator supports all the MPA’s positions, that person is a left-wing extremist. If a senator or representative consistently opposes the MPA, they’re a right-wing fanatic. Simple. Easy to understand. Nearly impossible to misconstrue.
And what the scorecard shows is most of the Legislature is composed of extremists and fanatics.
About three-quarters of the House fall in those categories, with slightly more extremists than fanatics. Nearly all the rest are either semi-extremists or semi-fanatics.
In the Senate, the extremists have a narrow majority over the semis of both ilks, with only one full fanatic. In both chambers, there is a single middle-of-the-roader, a faction that can be safely ignored.
What does this tell us about our elected officials. That they are easily lead? That they are easily mislead? That as children, they ate lead paint? All of the above?
I’m not sure and equally uncertain I want to find out.
When it comes to complex and difficult issues, about a third of the Legislature is unwilling to deal with them, while another third is fundamentally incapable of doing so. The remaining third favors forming a committee to study the matter and report back later. Preferably, much later. Like after the next election. Or the one after that.
Here are some of the actual issues that gave us such a starkly divided Legislature: higher taxes on millionaires (held over to the next session; the MPA wanted it passed), banning Maine law enforcement from cooperating with ICE (MPA got it passed, but it’s now awaiting gubernatorial signing or veto), banning housing discrimination against people on welfare (MPA failed to get it approved), ending the state’s paid family leave program (defeated, as MPA wished), rolling back the rights of transgendered students (MPA wanted it killed and it was), allowing farmworkers to collectively bargain for wages and other labor issues (vetoed over MPA objections) and expanding the minimum wage law to cover agricultural workers (passed, and MPA liked that).
Was there room for compromise on any of this? You might think so, but remember that stupidity thing at the beginning of this column? In reality, compromise is an antiquated concept. In times past, there might have been space for bargaining. A couple of decades ago, legislators were generally willing to trade a vote here and there on issues of less importance to them to gain support for their pet projects. But that was before social media made a point of tormenting anyone who didn’t tow the party line. Now, any sign of partisan deviation can bring down the wrath of trolls and earn a recalcitrant legislator an appointment to the Joint Standing Committee on Linoleum Replacement.
And so we must content ourselves with a Legislature as deeply divided as the rest of the state. We voted for this collection of unyielding ideologues because we are, at heart, every bit as much the rigid foot soldiers of the culture wars as the doofuses we elected. If we truly wanted more open-mindedness and willingness to work toward common goals, we’d cast our votes for candidates who embraced those principles. Instead, we make our choices based on a lust for retribution or a fear that strangers will usurp our place in society or on an equally unsubstantiated belief that our liberties will be lost or on utterly unattainable dreams of some vague vision of reform.
Compared to that, we might be better off — or at least less stressed — if we adopted a political philosophy based on the noble tradition of apathy.
Want more of this blather? I’m now contributing to the Bangor Daily News’ Maine Politics Insider newsletter every Wednesday. Or you can just e-mail me at aldiamon@herniahill.net and I’ll blather back at you.
