Bipartisan-s**t

The Washington Post on Sunday ran an article about Virginia's new Senator Tim Kaine and his efforts to reach across the aisle and gain a rapport with opposing members. I like and voted for Tim Kaine, and hope he will make for an effective senator, but this is a very bad start. I'm not sure what world he lives in that leads him to believe that modern Republicans are reasonable people who share anything in common with progressives. The few examples of bipartisan successes his office sited were very  minor bills, most of which were on easy subjects such as supporting the troops and directing money towards pets projects that multiple members had in common. 

The reality is, as long as today's Republicans have any political power, they simply will not allow government to work for a prosocial purpose. It is not in their partisan interest for the government to do anything other than serve the wealthy and powerful. Calling for bipartisanship in today's political environment is not just naive, but insane. There can be no alternative to eliminating Republicans and captured Democrats from positions of power. Sorry folks, but until this happens, there will be no national improvements; political, economic, or otherwise. The Republican Party has, and always will be, the party of  wealthy and corporate power. The only way then, that our country has a chance of surviving, is if the Democratic Party isn't. As the brilliant Frank Rich wrote recently:

"many of the Democratic practitioners barely pay lip service to the ideal of siding with working- and middle-class Americans against the plutocrats of finance and industry. They are too busy rushing to partner with Republicans in servicing the very same corporate accounts."

Its clear now that a great number of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are sociopaths. They care only about winning re-election and maintaining their status as American elites. For most of them, its never about making good policy for the country. They ignore and in some cases despise the weak and vulnerable in our country who are most in the need of society's assistance. Some of these politicians are Democrats, but the vast majority are Republicans. I fundamentally reject the idea that "most people in Washington are trying to do good." Not only are they clueless on policy, they have no desire to learn anything and use their knowledge to make the country better. Their decisions are driven only by venal political calculus. 

Today's divisions between progressives and Republicans are not like those between Cowboys and Giants fans. We are facing a clash between those with a positive vision for the future of the United States, and those who can only angrily look backwards and inwards. I sincerely hope that Senator Kaine does not waste any more of his time in the fruitless cause of cooperation with sociopaths. He will succeed only at tarnishing his good name and assisting the decline of our nation.