With all the complaints that can be made about modern-day politics, among the most pointless are the objections often expressed publicly about candidates “going negative” by attacking their political opponents as if that were a bad thing.
If you haven’t noticed how many candidates for public office these days deserve to be severely denounced for taking reprehensible, irresponsible and bigoted stands to attract support from nasty, irrational extremists, you haven’t been paying attention.
When actual Republican candidates for president of the United States publicly advocate shooting down Russian airplanes to start World War III, carpet-bombing Muslim nations, barring non-Christians from entering our country and destroying the national economy by deporting more than 12 million immigrants living and working in our communities, we need to have decent candidates “going negative” against such reckless, inflammatory political rhetoric.
But why don’t the candidates just tell us all the good things they’re going to do instead of tearing down their opponents?
The simple answer is because we wouldn’t believe them. In fact, politicians do tell us lots of great things they want to do during campaigns and we never believe them.
And often for good reason. Partisan politics have become so divided and polarized in our country it’s become extremely difficult for either Democrats or Republicans to accomplish much of anything they want right now.
Whether that’s good or bad depends on how you look at it. Wisconsin is a perfect example of how bad it can be in one of the most polarized states in the nation for one party to gain total political control.
Polls show Wisconsin almost perfectly divided with half the state strongly supportive of the extreme right-wing policies of Gov. Scott Walker and legislative Republicans and the other half strongly opposed.
But because Republicans control the governor’s office and both legislative chambers, half of the state’s population has no voice at all in their own government. Oh, sure, voters elect Democratic legislators, but Walker and Republicans just wait for them to stop talking and then do whatever they want.
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Proving absolute power corrupts absolutely, Republicans have dishonestly gerrymandered districts to retain majority control of the Legislature even when more Democrats than Republicans cast legislative votes. They rewrite laws to abolish independent government watchdogs, end prosecution of political corruption and reduce the right to vote for Democrats.
Ron Johnson’s Cynical Extremism
But the national gridlock produced by divided government also clearly damaged our nation’s recovery from the Great Recession, the country’s second worst economic crisis in the past 100 years. Congressional Republicans viciously fought President Obama’s entire program to create jobs for out-of-work Americans, unnecessarily prolonging economic misery for millions of people for ugly, partisan reasons.
That’s exactly the sort of anti-American action by someone like, oh, let’s say, Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson that merits a good, strong dose of negative campaigning from Democrats now that Johnson is up for re-election.
Johnson made a cold-hearted political decision to oppose both jobs and unemployment benefits for Wisconsin workers thrown out of work by the Bush recession. Republicans cynically calculated continuing the nation’s unemployment crisis would help them defeat Obama for re-election.
The problem really isn’t whether campaigns are negative or not. There are plenty of legitimate issues that deserve strong, honest criticism in politics today. Honesty is what matters.
The real problem with so much of the mudslinging in modern politics is that it is totally dishonest.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with negatively attacking a Republican candidate such as Johnson for opposing any raise in a minimum wage that is so many decades behind the cost of living that millions of Americans are working full-time without ever rising out of poverty.
Johnson is a right-wing extremist who is ideologically opposed to the government setting any minimum wage at all. His philosophy harks back to that of 18th-century capitalists who believed they should be free to do whatever they wanted without government burdening them with onerous regulations like minimal wages, child labor laws and safe working conditions.
That’s a pretty strong, negative attack, all right, but it’s honest criticism based on Johnson’s extreme right-wing political philosophy.
Compare that to the dishonest attacks upon President Obama alleging him to be a foreign-born, Muslim, socialist dictator behind a totalitarian takeover of health care to create death panels to decide how long we’re allowed to live and now plotting to send jackbooted government thugs door to door to confiscate the guns of every American.
There are plenty of honest disagreements between competing political parties about the role of government in providing needed public services and assuring equal rights and opportunities for all Americans without making up a dishonest pack of lies about the other side.
But, by all means, let’s have plenty of honest, negative campaigns calling out any politicians who dare to insult the intelligence of the American people by advocating crude, anti-American policies pandering to ignorance and political extremism.
