Amazing how last night’s policy speech has become all Wilson, all the time. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.
You define yourself, in part, by your enemies - and the Republicans these days have become downright cartoonish. On the one hand, you’ve got an intelligent president, able to articulate his ideas, calmly and patiently making his case to the nation. On the other, it’s: “You lie!” It’s all resistance. No thought, no ideas; just reaction.
And so for the great non-ideological middle, the silent Americans, this becomes about Republican behavior. They may have quibbles with the president’s plan, or all the president’s plans; but the juvenile antics of the “I hope he fails” crowd does not appear to present a legitimate governing alternative. Can these people, so quick to fly off the handle, be trusted with the country?
Said it before and will say it again: The most important ideological shift of my lifetime began when I was just a child, when that great silent majority began to decide that the lefties of its era - the Abbie Hoffmans and Jerry Rubins - had gone too far, and that if they were what “the left” had to offer - silent Americans would steer right. It was the beginning of nearly four decades of conservative ascendency.
The same process, only in reverse, is happening now.
The right is Joe Wilson; it is Glenn Beck; it is the people who called to demand that your local school refrain from showing the “lying” president to the kids earlier this week. To your average suburban parent - this is crazy. They are crazy. It doesn’t take as much now to affect the same sea change that happened then - the right doens’t have to get to the point of Weathermen bombing (though they ultimately might), because of the sheer ubiquity of media now. Everything’s amplified; with the Wilson case, the more ink and cable TV time he gets, the greater the impression he makes. And while he’s a Fox News Hero, lemme tell ya, out in the suburbs - this ain’t the kind of thing you want your kids to emulate. This isn’t a great moment in American history you want to share with your child. Great men, great nations, reason together. There’s no place in Joe Wilson’s Republican Party for that now; that frightens people, turns them off and turns them away. Conservatives can’t see it. Abbie Hoffman couldn’t see it back then, either.
