Which Team Are You On?

Our Political Rhetoric Now Mirrors Sports Fandom Instead of Practical Governing

American politics has always had a competitive spirit to it. It is after all about contrasting ideas and competing tribes trying to put forward their vision of what the country should look like, and the direction we want to see it go. Before television, most of the rhetoric was localized in nature; people didn’t necessarily know or cared what people thought two towns over much less how the laws were made in D.C. or the Governor’s mansion. All they cared about was what was largely in front of them, around them, what pork was brought home. Political rhetoric was geared more toward that local opinion. Sure, there were contentious issues, there were demagogues, there were local party machines. But there was also a respect for the rule of law, patience that if you didn’t get your way this time another election would come in a couple years and courtesy (real of performed) between candidates and politicians that maintained a standard that serving was a privilege, that democracy was paramount, and that to get anything done that you needed for your districts, it pays to play nice with everyone.

Once television came about, races and parties became much more nationalized, and issues became much more bundled and branded. You no longer looked at local issues or took an opinion on school funding, you were now team Democrat or team Republican, on all issues. People cared more about the marketing of their teams than they did the output, and it was now nationally coordinated and controlled. Kennedy was the first to tap into it with Camelot, but Reagan and the 1980’s Republicans really kind of perfected it. The GOP brand of the 1980s was strong, optimistic, wealthy, while the brand of the Democrats was weak, ineffectual, effette. However, throughout the 1980s, it was still about governance. The goal was still about how we would manage issues. When it came to the Cold War and Foreign Affairs, we were still all on the same side. The threats to our democracy were external ones; nobody ever considered another American “the enemy.”

That all changed in the 1990s. The success of 12 years in the White House had hardened the GOP bulwark, and losing to Clinton flipped a switch. Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and FOX News changed how we talked about governing. The rhetoric turned into a bloodsport. It had more in line with a football head coach pumping up his team before a big game than it did a sensible discussion on the nuances and positions related to housing policy. It was no longer about governing a country and seeking to find common ground, building coalitions and working out policy details; it became rolling over your opponents at all costs. National media ensured that it would seep all the way down to the grassroots. Democrats still were playing the old way, but losing the 2000 election, the War on Terror and especially the Iraq War changed their perspectives too; the Democratic rhetoric of the 2000s, led by MSNBC, Air America and a growing anti-war sentiment caught on as well.

Until we get to where we are now. Our threats are now focused on as internal ones, with American Democracy itself at risk. Biden is using the old style of rhetoric, what we genuinely want in a leader, and losing badly despite how well everything is going. Frankly, it’s refreshing to me to have a President focused again on talking about issues, positions, and governing generally. Dare I say, it actually looks…Presidential?

It’s just not what Democratic voters what to hear. Biden’s numbers are in the 30s, despite a growing economy, passing numerous large pieces of legislation, and command of the world stage. Democratic voters want to hear how the Republicans are fascist, hatemongering Nazis, and how American needs to destroy them all for the good of humanity. They go to their media silos on social media and cable news, and anything conflicting with that idea is DOA, and to be completely ignored. In fact, in their mind, any conflicting information should be flat out deplatformed. It’s the reason the left made such a stink about Chuck Todd as host on Meet the Press when it was HIS JOB to interview people on both sides of the aisle. It’s the reason Real Time with Bill Maher, a political show that has the audicity to include panelists across the political spectrum (something I discussed here) can be discarded by those on the left because it dared to talk to Attorney General Bill Barr, Senator Ted Cruz and longtime guest Ann Coulter, even though many of the other panelists along with Maher’s own slant tends to skew left. It’s too bad, the interview with Cruz was actually a good discussion.

Republicans want raw red meat. The rawer the better. They’re so disillusioned by their own hatred for Democrats, fed by decades of over the top rhetoric and a self contained media ecosystem, that they genuinely buy into the over-the-top Head Coach rhetoric, screaming how they’ll destroy the other team, stomp on them, kill them all. It’s gone from Head Coach to Drill Instructor. They could care less about the issues or governing, so long as they win. As Jesse Ventura once opined during a WWE wrestling match, “It’s not how you play the game, it’s if you win or lose.” So much so, that they ditched Kevin McCarthy and oppose anyone even remotely considering governing with Joe Biden. They discard the GOP Presidential candidates, because they dare to talk about issues and governing. Instead, they want someone who can talk a good game about how they need to win, pose it in the most apocalyptic of terms, talk about how their side is ultimately righteous in every way and can do no wrong, and how anyone who opposes them must be annihilated. In short, they want this:

The irony about all of this is that most Americans do not prefer Democrats or Republicans. They abhor this rhetoric on both sides and the more amped up it gets, the more these voters tend to say “a plague on both your houses.”¹ They look at what is happening on college campuses where leftist protests and de-platforming prevent free speech and they look at what has happened to the right and see a delusional mass hallucination outside of reality and are repulsed by both sides.

It’s too bad. So long as the rhetoric is fixed on winning at all costs, and takes on the tone of Mike Ditka, Bobby Knight or Billy Martin instead of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan, we’re destined to continue down this path. We have serious problems in this world and they require serious people to solve them. We should look up to the more serious candidates who seek to discuss, collaborate and work on those areas of common interest, rather than those who seek to bulldoze over any opposition that exists. Unfortunately, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.²

Joe Biden and Donald Trump both didn’t get as many votes as those that chose not to vote in 2020. Nonetheless, our news, media, social media and general cultural zeitgeist are all oriented towards drawing lines and picking sides, instead of collaboration, coordination, governing and talking out issues. The bulk of America is Purple; and with each side trying to pull it in their insane directions, purple will only get bigger.

Join the Purple Team Today. If you have not already subscribed, consider it, contribute and share.

PurpleAmerica’s Recommended Stories

Not a story, but a rebuttal.

If you had the unfortunate luxury of watching Donald Trump’s recent speech villifying opposition as “vermin” to be rooted out, I’m sure you were as disgusted by it as I was. The best rebuttal of it though came from CNN Anchor Jake Tapper.

https://www.threads.net/@jaketapper/post/CzowjBNRXDh

PurpleAmerica’s Cultural Corner

The picture at the top of the page comes from the Patton Oswalt film, “Big Fan.” Its a great movie and Oswalt has never been better. He stars as a huge football fan; the kind that goes whole hog into the rhetoric on sports radio, who supports the home team through thick and thin and who idolizes those on the team. Until one day he meets one of his idols and he gets the snot beaten out of him. Remarkably, his first instincts are not to think of his own well-being, but about the team, how they are doing and how the police and media fallout of getting beaten by a player is going to impact the team’s capacity to win. Highly recommended, not just in the football context, but in the context of everything I wrote above.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

This one is a doozy. According to an Ipsos poll earlier this year, a plurality of Republican voters think Trump is guilty of at least one of the many cases against him, but PLAN ON VOTING FOR HIM ANYWAY AGAINST JOE BIDEN.

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

John Wooden was one of the best head coaches ever. Not only was he a great basketball coach, but he was a great mentor to everyone who ever played for him. A man like Wooden commanded respect and appreciation not just from his supporters, but from his teams’ opponents as well.

He’s also eminently quotable. I highly recommend going online and finding many of his sayings about life, leadership and challenging oneself. Today’s last word goes to him.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

2. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. One of my favorites of his plays.