The codependent relationship is one of the human condition’s oldest and saddest stories: on one side is an abuser, a reckless bull in a china shop acting in a willfully irresponsible fashion to maximize his/her own self-interest, even as they badmouth their significant other to all their friends and acquaintances, blaming the other party for all their problems. On the other is the codependent victim, the martyr trying to keep it all together, to make the relationship work, to pick up the pieces, take care of the kids and grandparents and pay the bills in spite of the predations of the abuser.
I say codependent “victim”, however, only out of a sense of empathy. Because in reality, a codependent martyr chooses that path. It takes two to tango, and the abuser in the relationship knows it. Most often, the codependent “victim” in this relationship justifies his/her behavior by believing in the nobility of their own martyrdom: they are the responsible ones, the ones preventing disaster, the ones who are “doing the right thing”, even if they get no praise for doing so.
The problem is that such codependent martyrs are wrong. There is no nobility in codependency with a maniac. There is only stupidity, the enabling of the abuser, and the abetting of the abuser’s destructive behavior.
The relationship between the two parties in Sacramento is just such a relationship. The sociopathic Yacht Party has absolutely no interest in making things work. The kids can go hungry, the aged can lack care, the mortgage can go unpaid, the bills can be overdue, the debt can be crushing, and they don’t care. They would rather pass no budget than a sensible one, performing the political equivalent of paying for champagne while leaving no money for diapers. Especially because they know that Democrats will cave and make things work out, lest the house literally fall down about the family’s head. So long as their wealthy contributors get to party on and keep getting richer, the world will continue to turn in their little universe.
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, takes its lumps and trails behind this reckless abuser, trying to patch holes wherever possible, and take the best deal this reckless psychopath has to offer. It supports horrible compromises in the hopes of living to fight another day, hoping that something will change. That the other party in this relationship will change someday, that things will just work out, that tomorrow will be a sunnier day. There is no long-term plan, because politically the motto of the California Democratic Party is “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. And make no mistake: because of the predations of the GOP, the day is almost always chock full of evil. Worse yet, endemic to this perpetual martyrdom is a sense of perverse nobility: a notion that we are the good guys, because we ride to the rescue to fix what they screw up. We are the noble mother willing to give up the baby than see it cut in half.
But where there is no vision, the people perish. It is time that Democrats acquired a long-term vision. It is long past time to do away with the soft martyrdom of momentary expediency, and initiate divorce proceedings from the abuser. It is time to let voters know the truth. It is time to fight back politically, rather than focus continually on the policy of the moment, because at this point there is little left to lose.
Tomorrow a large number of Republicans will vote against a horrible budget that they themselves demanded, and which gives them nearly everything their reckless minority demanded. A budget resulting from Democrats’ desire to see any sort of budget passed in the face of Republican insouciance unrivaled since the days of Marie Antoinette.
And Democrats will likely vote for a budget destructive to everything we hold dear, because we’re the party that does the right thing, the ones keeping it all together, the martyrs and codependents without whom the world could not function. In so doing, Republicans will be able to wreck the place, steal all the money, shortchange the young and the poor, and lay all the blame on Democrats to boot.
The time has come to say enough. The time has come to put aside the needs of the moment, and focus on a long-term plan. Stopping the IOUs sooner rather than later isn’t worth years of political pain, and a jeering GOP blaming Democrats for every budgetary cut while coming off scot free. There is no nobility in a martyrdom that abets revolting political perversity.
If Democrats have any vision and sense, they will vote against this atrocious budget. If it still passes, then more Democrats will be able to say that they took a stand. If it fails, then we have the opportunity to force more GOP legislators to vote for the budget of their making.
And no matter the ultimate result of this budget fiasco, it is time to focus all of our resources on eliminating the 2/3 rule, and on massive reforms to the State Constitution. Because there is a third choice in Solomon’s judgment: to take back the baby that is rightfully ours by majority rule, and get a restraining order on the false mother. The longer we wait, taking pride in the martyrdom of our own codependency while waiting for the next shoe to drop, the more the citizens of our State will suffer needlessly at the hands of the abuser we continue to enable.
They are clearly executing a game plan to destroy voters’ faith in the power of government to do good. The ultimate objective is the decimation of the public service unions that are a bedrock of Democratic support.
It is all about gaining and consolidating power. I don’t think Schwarzenegger really gives a shit one way or the other about policy, for him it is all about winning.
The Democrats? I shake my head in disbelief that people as stupid as this could get elected to dog catcher, let alone to the legislature of the richest state in the country.
You note that Republicans “would rather pass no budget than a sensible one”, but then you add, “If [this budget] fails, then we have the opportunity to force more GOP legislators to vote for the budget of their making.” These statements don’t match. If this one fails, it will still be Dems who have to pass a budget. Republicans really have no incentive to attach their names to ANY budget, even if it means the whole state shuts down. The only solution is a long-term one – removing 2/3 rules, overturning binding propositions (on revenue and spending sides), etc.
While you’re absolutely right about the Democrats’ codependent role vis a vis the abusive Republican minority in the Legislature (and in statewide offices), the answer is going to require something more that a restoration of vision.
California’s Progressives were once able to guide the state in remarkably forward-looking directions, creating the water projects, the highway systems, the public education system from kindergarten through university, creating the parks systems, reorganizing government at the state and local level, and largely eliminating corruption from routine government behavior (with some exceptions, of course!)
Until Pat Brown, most of California’s Progressives were Republicans. Of course it was Brown who took the Progressive program to its ultimate stage, and he ended his tenure as governor with a widespread student revolt on his hands and he was followed in office by the quintessential Anti-Progressive, Ronald Reagan.
Anti-Progressivism has largely supplanted the vision of the Progressives of yore, so much so that many Californians have no idea what the Pre-Reagan California was like or what it was about. The whole idea of “vision” is lost on them, in part because it requires the acceptance of collective interests, and Anti-Progressives don’t believe in public or collective interests, only competing individual interests.
Rule by a reactionary, “psychopathic,” minority is almost inevitable under the current circumstances, even if it weren’t constitutionally enabled. It happens because the psycho reactionaries shout and bully and command. They’re weak — as we saw, for example, when the nurses were able to deflate Schwarzenegger handily — but their political opposition (ie: Democrats) are collectively far weaker. At any time they could rise up on their hind legs and put an end to this nonsense — through shame and derision of the psychos if nothing else — but they don’t do it, and they won’t.
They won’t in part because they are pretty comfortable in their own codependence and they are surrounded by clouds of political consultants who absolutely do not want a liberated, visionary Democratic leadership in this state. The California Consultant Class is, for the most part, as reactionary (if not quite as psychotic) as the Republican minority.
They like things just the way they are, and they will brook few or no changes.
Steinberg and Bass have plenty of ideas. Some of the Democrats in office are individually brilliant. But they do not form a Progressive collective, not even close. They have been atomised. All the attacks we level on them effectively keep them atomised. They fail to work toward a future for California because they don’t see one. They are only looking out for their own political survival.
Republicans operate from an ideology of sorts that unifies them on the one hand, allows the sacrifice of one or more of their number (martyrdom is best, of course), and enables a rotating and essentially faceless set of loudmouths and bullies to get their way on practically every matter of importance.
Dems have no ideology, they have no unity, and they eagerly sacrifice their own, without any consciousness of a need to get each other’s backs, to support one another when in distress, and to fight the real foe, those reactionaries (not “my friends”) on the other side of the aisle. It doesn’t occur to them not to pose grinning ear to ear with Governor Jacuzzi.
It’s going to take a lot more than vision to get beyond this status quo.
This state is in financial crisis as a direct result of Republican, supply-side ideology. I know I’m preaching to the choir but I just need to set this up a little. The policy of the Republicans with the short-sighted help of DLC, corporatist Dems for the past 30 years has decimated the national economy which, with the help of the 2/3 rules, has led to the revenue troubles of our State. That’s where we are.
The entire blame can be placed at the feet of the Republicans and their demonstrably failed ideologies. Why are the State Democrats failing to make this plain to the people of this state? There should be a concerted effort to place the blame for this situation where it belongs. The Governor is a lame duck and he is running interference for the 15 Republican State Senators that should be the target. Being a giant, steroid-addled nazi makes him a very good decoy.
There should be a coordinated effort by Progressives in the state Democratic party to highlight the effects of the 2/3 rules and the inordinate power that these rules give to the 15 recalcitrant, obstructionist Republicans in the State Senate. Wherever possible, these efforts should go so far as to include recall proceedings. This would force the media to cover the real root of the problem. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the recalls would be successful, that wouldn’t be their real purpose. The purpose would be to take control of the debate with an eye toward repealing the 2/3 rules using any means available up to and maybe even including a Constitutional Convention(though I’m not totally convinced a CC would be a good thing-but I’m open).
We need a coordinated, long-term strategy that aims to eliminate the 2/3 rules, pure and simple. If that means a CC, fine, but we better control how delegates are selected or we would be in even worse trouble than we are now.
So sad. So true. 12-step program for legislators?