Cindy Sheehan’s valorous work at Crawford has not only set off the beginning of a new antiwar movement, but has revealed a deep chasm in American society. Not a single important Democratic leader traveled to Crawford to support Cindy Sheehan (unless you count Al Sharpton). Failing to fulfill their role as the opposition, the Democrats have come dangerously close to alienating their antiwar constituency. They continue to play into the clutches of the same special interest groups as the Republicans at the expense of the party rank-and-file who are much more opposed to the war than the party leaders.
On the other hand, one look at the current state of affairs in the Republican Party shows a slowly opening rift between their historical base and the results of the Bush crusade. Social conservatives have gotten an administration that has boiled the culture war down to a battle over whether gays can file income taxes jointly and give autopsy consent, among the other glories of matrimony. Fiscal conservatives are faced with a Congress that has outspent Clinton on social programs, with money from our children’s pockets.
As the approval ratings of President Bush and Congress reach new lows, one is left wondering who, or what, they are representing.
Despite the name calling of right-wing pundits everywhere, Democrats in Washington have supported almost every major war initiative. Their only criticisms usually involve lambasting the president for not sending enough troops. How they hope to provide those troops is left up in the air.
At the moment the only Democratic senator calling for eventual withdrawal is Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Then again, Feingold has always been a maverick. Not only was he the lone senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act, he is also the only senator endorsed by the libertarian-leaning Democratic Freedom Caucus. Nonetheless, he has only a vague plan to get the troops out of Iraq almost a year and a half from now.
Although other Senators like Hillary Clinton represent staunchly antiwar constituencies, they fail to take their minds off 2008. Without a strong antiwar movement, they feel no pressure except from the oil, construction, and arms lobbies that have funded their campaigns just as readily as they have funded the Republicans.
Still, most antiwar liberals feel compelled to support the Democrats as long as they cling the progressive veneer and yell for a couple days before capitulating to Republican court appointments. Only time will tell how long they can keep up this charade before serious consequences can occur in the midterm elections. All signs point to a dismal descent of events between then and now. Abroad, it has been predicted that at this time next year it will be impossible for the military to maintain the current number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The economic fallout from Katrina could presently spurn an even worse economic downturn. With oil prices on the rise and real estate bubble close to bursting, the possibility of stagflation seems right around the corner.
Fiscal conservatives still in the Republican camp will no longer be able to ignore the reckless spending of the Bush administration. The Cato Institute reports that the 101 programs planned for elimination in the Contract with America have had real increases of 27% under the Bush administration. The No Child Left Behind Act and Bush’s prescription drug plan account for new hundreds of billions to be spent on social service boondoggles. Bush has even given the National Endowment for the Arts a humongous expansion of its budget.
The saving grace for many is that Bush slightly reduced taxes on the very rich his first year in office. However, the Alternative Minimum Tax is hitting more and more middle-class taxpayers at an exponential rate. Sooner or later fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party will have to come to grips with the rising taxes, out-of-control spending, and the tremendous budget deficits wrought by this administration. If there is an economic downturn, they will face the truth much sooner than later.
Social conservatives, on the other hand, form an essential part of the Republican’s nationalistic base for the war on terror. Failure to put into law any tougher legislation on social issues could be disastrous. Aside from the embarrassment of the Terri Schiavo incident, the religious right rallied around the issue of gay marriage. It remains at festering on the state level. A constitutional amendment never breached discussion beyond last November. The Republicans may face a problem in 2008 when religious conservatives realize that, after eight years of power, their global crusade for democracy is of little importance to millions of pro-life conservatives. Although the religious right has played an important role in beating the drums for war, one wonders how they will put up with an administration that constantly ignores them.
It should be evident that there is a bipartisan consensus to ignore how far the two parties have gotten from their respective bases. And to what end? War. For the past four years the Bush administration has played to the fears of Americans. They rely on the paranoid belief that only by slaughtering tens of thousands of people abroad can we prevent terrorist attacks at home. Oddly enough, the civilian populations of the two cities struck on 9/11 are overwhelmingly antiwar. Bush found little support in either. So in order to continue the culture of fear, the pundits must smear every dissenter "treasonous," a label with which Bill O’Reilly slandered Cindy Sheehan. But Sheehan has broken the ice. With luck she is just the beginning of a movement that will expose the bipartisan agreement in Washington for the covenant of the death that it is.
