AaronBaecker.com

Much has already been written and posted regarding yesterday’s shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and a host of other people in front of a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and write something way more political than I would normally post in public, because I believe there is something to be said in the aftermath of this event.

The Suspect and The Tea Party, Sarah Palin, etc.

A great deal has been made about the radical views of the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner and trying to connect those views with those of the Tea Party and its most high-profile spokesperson, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  I don’t believe the case for that linkage has been made.   That’s not to say that Mr. Loughner didn’t follow Ms. Palin or the Tea Party, but I haven’t seen any sort of proof offered that the actions of the Tea Party or Ms. Palin led to this incident, yet the news is nearly reported as such.  In listening to and reading news reports, it appears to me that the suspect’s views were far to the right of even where Ms. Palin stands, so it is quite possible that the suspect would have nothing to do with the Tea Party.

That’s not to say that I’m about to give either the Tea Party or Governor Palin a pass here.  News reporting after the event has been very quick to point out that the Governor’s Political Action Committee posted an image depicting gun sights over some of the Democratic lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s health care bill this past year.  The graphic was intended to depict lawmakers’ seats that should be “targeted” in the next election because of their support for the bill.

I have long thought that Sarah Palin was absolutely the wrong person to serve as a spokesperson for either the Republican Party or the Tea Party.  It is ads like this – along with a whole host of other reasons – that lead me to the conclusion that she is too irresponsible and too polarizing to be an effective national political figure.

The Tea Party, MoveOn.org, and both the Democratic and Republican parties themselves need to learn some lessons from yesterday’s shooting and its aftermath.  Politics in this country has passed the point where reasonable people can participate in the process.  The kind of “Let’s take a stand” or “Let’s take back America” rhetoric coming out of political groups, pundits, and politicians these days is wrong, because it seeks to turn the direction of our country into a very black-and-white decision (“You’re either with us or against us!”) when things aren’t nearly that easy.

Completely missed in the thinking that any one party can “Take Back America” is that once that process has been completed, you still have to live with the other party – they don’t just disappear!  I have yet to hear anyone explain how being so overtly partisan and dramatic leads to the creation of a country that works for more than 54% or 55% of its citizens, as neither party seems to have the support of more than that percentage of people in any one election.  Perhaps that’s why the only thing so many people in America can agree on is that they dislike the direction of Congress today.

I think the legislative process in this country was meant to be a collaborative process between all parties to turn out legislation that’s good for the majority of the American people.  You take ideas from everyone and weave them into a cohesive piece of legislation.  It may not be (and likely won’t be) perfect, but it gets the job done and doesn’t leave anyone feeling completely dissatisfied.  What it has turned into instead, is a process whereby one party (the party in power) gets almost exactly what they want to the complete exclusion of the other party.  This was true under the Bush administration, as well, so I don’t mean to point fingers at any one party here.

Even more troublesome to me is that the politics of “taking a stand” and “taking back America” has de-humanized the people serving us in Congress.  Our legislators are defined solely by the issues they support, instead of who they are as people.  The thought that “I can disagree with this person, but still respect and like them as a person” has been completely removed from all discussion – particularly if you’re watching partisan pundits on any of the major news channels (MSNBC, Fox, CNN, etc.).  I believe the loss of this distinction is what leads to events such as yesterday’s shooting.  Unless you’re completely insane, it’s a whole lot harder to shoot someone you know as a person, rather than someone who you only know by a set of talking points.  The blame for this problem lies not only on the aforementioned media, but also on the legislators themselves – many of whom will not stray from their talking points in any sort of public forum, which means the audience never sees them as real people.

Yesterday’s shooting was a tragic event that is, sadly, played out across our country many times each year, often without anywhere near the same amount of media coverage.  I do believe, however, that we can use these events to open a broader discussion of the direction of politics in America because, as Americans, we have more in common with one another – regardless of our views – than today’s partisans and politicians would want us to believe.