Crossing the Rubicon
I had a horrible moment this morning.
I briskly walked a dozen blocks to the subway. Fluidly
clambered down a set of stairs, only to see the car doors to the local close as
I swiped my card. Dashed across a subway
platform the length of a city block. Swiftly
but agilely navigated a rather long second set of steps. Turned on my heel and quickly perambulated
the same city block length, suit, umbrella, and briefcase in tow, and all with
the grace of Fred Astaire, as the express arrived. The car doors opened, I walked in, and the
Rubicon arrived along with the unwelcomed blast of heat from a faulty
air-conditioner.
A very attractive woman, perhaps in her early thirties,
offered me her seat. There is a first
time for everything, and some premiers are more notable than others, but I had
crossed the Rubicon. As the stock
analysts say, October is the cruelest month.
“Crossing the Rubicon” is one of those wonderful antique
phrases, appropriate to someone of my (apparently too apparent) vintage. In 49 BC, the mighty Julius Caesar, once
Consul of Rome, then Governor of Gaul, was getting a little restless. Caesar had done a remarkable job in Gaul,
dividing it into three parts, routing the opposition, growing wealthy, etc.
etc. But, let’s face it, Rome was Rome
and Gaul, was, well, Gaul.
Caesar’s vast popularity did not go unnoticed back home,
where the Roman Senate, when not speechifying and indulging themselves, also
kept a keen eye on the polls. As incumbents, they grew concerned about possible
primary challenges, and so they directed Caesar to resign his command and
disband his army. Caesar had his friends in the capital, and also sent tribunes
to discuss things and negotiate, but they were spurned, and the Senate charged
their leader, Pompey, to enforce the edit, with arms, if necessary.
Ah, opportunities lost.
Caesar didn’t get to where he was in life by taking no easily. But beyond the logistical issues he had a
symbolic one as well. By ironclad law in
the Roman Republic, no General may enter into Italy proper at the head of his
army. All that sun and fun in Gaul put
Caesar on the “French” side of the line. Crossing the line, or, more
accurately, crossing the shallow Rubicon River, which flowed east from the
Apennine Mountains to the Adriatic, would
be an inexorable act.
The rest, as they say, is history. Caesar and his boys crossed, he defeated
Pompey and chased him to Egypt, where Pompey was killed, and Caesar had a
little R&R (and a child) with
Cleopatra. He returned to Rome to the
shrieking delight of the masses (the aristocrats weren’t so sure) and, in a
final blow to the Republic, was made Emperor for Life. Which, if you are a reader of Shakespeare,
you know wasn’t all that much longer.
About a year later, his once-rivals Cassius and Brutus invited him to a
chinwag at the Pompey Theatre (omen, anyone?) and his Emperor-ness came to a
crashing end. As the Bard himself might
have said, March is the cruelest month.
All right, you have enjoyed my subway humiliation and
tolerated the pre- Ben-Hur diversion.
What has this got to do with contemporary politics? Here is where I make another one of those
awkward transitions to make a point.
Democrats, beware, November is going to be the cruelest
month.
Every non-partisan prognosticator of note seems to agree
that the winds, which were already pushing the country into the fevered hands
of the GOP, are beginning to approach gale-force intensity. Boehner will almost certainly have an
increased majority (that’s if he’s permitted to lead, as a rump caucus of
“true” conservatives want to challenge him.)
The Democrats chances of holding on in the Senate are increasingly
remote, as state after state moves rightward. The over-under is no longer about
if Mitch rules the roost, it’s how many roosters he gets to rule. Given recent polls, it is not out of the
question that there will be a lot of redheaded cock-a-doodling.
There are a lot of reasons why this could, and likely, will
happen. First, there is the obvious
general dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama and the sense that he is not up to the
challenges. Second, while the
Republicans in the House have advanced not a single constructive substantive
proposal in years, the President’s proposals have gone absolutely nowhere. Third,
some of the most endangered seats are ones who rode in with Mr. Obama in his
decisive 2008 election. Fourth, the
Republicans have largely avoided the pervasively dumb this year—they haven’t
kicked away real opportunities by nominating people who are perpetual gaffe
machines.
There are also reasons five through ten, and perhaps even
eleven through fifteen, but I try to keep to a word-count at Syncopated
Politics. Suffice to say it will be a
thorough thrashing. And suffice to say
that the American electorate has every right to weigh in and decide which of
two awful alternatives it’s going to punish. People like to point out that Truman won
reelection by running against the “do nothing, good for nothing 80th
Congress” but’s that actually a historical aberration. A Presidential candidate can run against
Congress. But a President in his 6th
year, and the party he heads? Well, not
so much. That’s one of the peculiarities
of our system. We have an abiding, often
pervasive distaste of all incumbents, but when things go bad we tend to focus
blame on the High Priest. It’s his job
to look at entrails, throw some dirt and twigs into the air, and make it all go
away. A lot of evil tidings have jumped
out of the box in Mr. Obama’s time in office, and perhaps a fair reading would
grade him C+, but fair’s fair, and when you get the orb and scepter, a great
deal is expected.
Back in July, I asked whether the GOP was ready to govern,
but I defined it the wrong way. I was
asking if they had real solutions to the myriad issues that faced the country
that they were willing to actually own.
Clearly, I was asking the wrong question. It is irrelevant whether the GOP is ready to
govern. They will govern Congress. And, they will try, through budgetary controls and blocking appointments, to govern the Executive branch as well.
That will set up a titanic struggle, even a Constitutional
one. The GOP will make sure that Mr.
Obama will get nothing that a Republican President wouldn’t ask for, and
probably very little of even that. Will
Mr. Obama fight back—will there be compromises on legislation and give and
take, or will Ted Cruz and his ilk be running the White House by proxy?
The balance between the Executive and Legislative branches
of government has always involved some back and forth, but there is no
historical precedent for Congressional dominance as policy-maker. And once it
occurs, there is no turning back.
How will we know that the Rubicon has been crossed? The Roman historian Suetonius wrote that, as
Caesar led his army across the river, he reportedly said, “The die is cast”.
That Caesar certainly knew how to turn a phrase. The die is
almost certainly cast on November. Is it cast beyond that? Keep your eyes on Obama. He’s been looking a lot grayer and older
recently, and we know he’s no Bill Clinton. For six years, the Republicans have called
him an empty suit. In the next several
months, we are going to find out how accurate that really is.
By the way, “Rubicon” is derived from the Latin adjective
rubeus, meaning "red."
About reading those entrails…
October 2, 2014
Michael Liss (Moderate Moderator)
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