Zombies and Gerrymanders
People who know me understand I will not eat coleslaw. I am sure it’s wonderful, to others, but the
combination of chopped cabbage mixed up with a mélange of other roots and
smothered (or doused, or soaked) in some form of mayonnaise-based goop is not
merely a bridge too far but perhaps even occupies an alternate universe of
culinary horror (with haggis, perhaps?)
My rational mind understands that coleslaw comes in little
side dishes that diners and delis leave on tables as a warning to future generations. But actually having the kitchen place the
offending matter directly on the plate with your entrée produces the most
profound difficulties; how do you dam up the runny awfulness from contaminating
the entire dish?
Yes, I have been mocked, but now, I have proof, in the form
of an article in the Science Times. Even
if one puts aside the toxic nature of mayonnaise, it is cabbage itself, drawn
from the very Earth, which creates the risk.
In every serving of coleslaw, the cabbage contains about 100 million
baculoviruses. It turns out that this virus causes caterpillars to lose their
minds (such as they are) and to become zombies, climbing to the top of trees
and feeding constantly, where eventually they dissolve from exhaustion, spraying
their baculovirus-laden selves upon the leafs below, perpetuating the cycle.
I found this story particularly compelling in light of our
current stalemate on the fiscal cliff.
It is going to be very hard for Republicans, and particularly House
Republicans, to support anything that looks like a tax increase, particularly
on higher earners.
Wait, you say, what about Speaker Boehner’s offer? It is true the Boehner has put on the table
$800 million of “revenue enhancements” but a) he doesn’t really have the
support of his caucus, b) he doesn’t really want to tell us what they are, for
fear that ordinary voters won’t like them, c) they extend the Bush tax cuts for
the highest earners, and d) they retain most of those special tax treatments
available to those who’s tax attorneys wear handmade shoes. So, the Boehner “revenue enhancements” are
really the Boehner re-imagining of the tax burden to have it fall more heavily
on those working, middle and upper middle class families. And, needless to say, the Boehner cuts to
entitlements fall most heavily on the working, middle, and upper middle class
families. Shocking, isn’t it?
And therein lies the genius of Boehner’s offer. If he can get Mr. Obama and the Democrats to
ante-up on entitlements and other domestic spending, it will be a coup of the
highest order. Boehner will have done
his job as he sees it; protect the wealthy while getting everyone else to pay
for deficit reduction. And, he will do
it while letting most of his caucus vote against it, so they can claim later on
that they opposed the Democrats on both tax increases and entitlement
reforms.
It’s brilliant.
So, if Boehner hasn’t offered anything serious (and he
hasn’t) and this is such a shrewd play, why can’t he convince his fellow
Republicans to get on board? That’s
actually a very interesting question, and brings me back to coleslaw, and
zombies.
The short answer, for most of them, is they can’t. The “job creator” genus of baculovirus that invades
their central nervous systems is far too powerful. In fairness, there is a wing of the
Republican party that simply belives that all entitlement programs should be
eliminated as quickly as possible. Some,
like the conservative columnist George Will, dress up their opposition in
intellectual finery by claiming that the original New Deal legislation was unconstitutional. Others are more simplistic in their
approach. They divide the country into
the takers vs. the makers.
There is, of course, a cognitive dissonance in this. The self-image the GOP indulges itself with,
prudent, thrifty, devout Puritans in a battle for the nation’s soul with the
slothful, beer and chips swilling lads on the dole, is a tad detached from
reality. And yet, like caterpillars relentlessly moving up the tree trunk, the
GOP holds fast to this fiction.
Why? Yes, we can be
cynical and say some are paid handsomely.
There’s always a think tank to manage, a gig on Fox, a book to write, a
speech to give, a lobbying organization to help out. But many others don’t know
any other reality, and, more importantly, don’t have to defend their
views. The GOP is solidly in control of
the House, even though they lost the aggregate popular vote in all House
elections. Their districts have been carefully drawn to maximize their chances of
re-election, with Democratic-leaning voters surgically snipped away and sutured
together. The most appalling example of
gerrymandering might be in North Carolina, where Democratic House totals led
statewide. How did that voter muscle
turn out at the ballot box? Not so
well. Democrats won only 5 of 18 Congressional seats (no, that’s not a
typo). Check out the Congressional
results in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, and in Ohio, and you would have thought
Romney won in a romp
And that leads us to a type of peculiar moral hazard that
has become more and more pervasive in our political system, particularly among
Republicans. There’s no risk to acting
irresponsibly. Unlike the zombie caterpillars, zombie politicians have no real
risk in being completely insensate to new ideas or new realities. They remain well fed, safe and comfortable,
and seemingly indestructible. The
greater danger is when they stray; then they can be primaried. So they don’t
think independently, they don’t look to craft compromise legislation, they can’t
see beyond their own interests. Instead,
they wrap themselves up in the pleasant poetry of a shared political prosperity
theology. And time drains away.
Are we going over the cliff?
I really don’t know, but in the spirit of the holidays, I offer the
devout a thought from Dickens:
“Scrooge
was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny
Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend,
as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other
good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”
It’s a start.
MM.
