The Opinion Journal yesterday included a column that explained that Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus. Or, as the article says, Democrats want to build (presumably Utopia) while Republicans want to defend civilization, whatever its flaws, from the alternatives.
This conforms to an idea I had while I was growing up, in the Reagan/Bush years, that the Republicans made good presidents, but Democrats made a good legislature. Republicans believe in law enforcement and strong militaries, which conform to what the executive branch does, whereas Democrats embrace the social freedoms in the bill of rights, or seemed to, and would provide a good body of legislators for a shambling and mostly gridlocked Congress. A balance of thought, a balance of focus, and the balance of power. What could be better?
But I am older and wiser now. I realize politics is sports for old fat men and women who cannot compete on the field and are afraid to try it in the honest business world (and I do mean honest, not the inbred business-lobbyist-executivocomplex). It’s not about making good laws, it’s about making a leaping reverse stuff law that says a lot but does whatever someone eventually interprets it to do. It’s about scoring votes and trash talking and excessive celebration after every small victory and one side winning and the other being humiliated. Since I have grown up, I have seen how they haven’t.
