Reboot!

The American people appear to want a rest. We’re not going to get it of course, times are too tumultuous. But we want a rest from something.

There are a lot of reasons this election appears to be so heavily tilted to the Democrats. There’s the huge get out the vote drives, there’s the anger with the current Administration, there’s the wonder at actually electing a minority candidate, there’s the charisma of Barack Obama himself, there’s the distinct policy differences between the two candidates. But I think there’s another reason it’s tilting so heavily Dem across the legislative branches as well. Americans are tired.

During the Clinton years, when we weren’t fighting losing wars and the economy was growing, there was something of an agitation to increase the partisan divide. During relatively untroubled times, Americans enjoy creating friction in our governments. We don’t like undivided Houses. We want our elected officials to have to duke it out. That’s very healthy and we can afford that luxury when times are good. When times are bad, the last thing we want is bickering. That’s why Bush and the Republicans were able to hold on until two years ago. Then the anger at the administration over its all too obvious failings created the slim Democratic majority. And the bickering started again. Things stonewalled. That’s not healthy in our current clime. We’ve got global roasting in our current cultural climate.

We have no control right now over our destinies; at least that’s what it feels like. The wars, the economy, the stock market, are all out of our individual control and yet it now has profound effect on our individual, day-to-day lives. I think there’s a mood that since we can’t seem to affect our own lives, let’s turn it over to one side and let them at least try. Because we don’t know what’s next. This is a really strange world. The very food we eat seems out to get us as much as the terrorists, China, Russia, and our own financial leaders. No one knows for sure what policy will work, but we know that bickering (Nancy Pelosi hurt my feelings!) won’t. We don’t whether spending or saving is the way out of this (there are strong economic arguments for both models), we don’t want three (likely) harrowing Supreme Court nomination proceedings. Instead, we’ll have one group to support or blame. Gasp, actual issues might get discussed.

I worked at Microsoft and Expedia, both ran on a Windows platform. My computer is a PC. We know that regardless of what is the root cause, sometimes a simple reboot fixes it. Or at least makes it go away until we have the time to figure it out. That’s a strange analogy I know for a nation and a set of problems as complex as we have and god knows I’m no Windows defender. But I’m trying to describe a mood, not get at root cause analysis, because we can’t. We don’t have the time to figure it out right now. I think, if the polls prove true, that the nation just wants a reboot in the short term to get on with their days. Get the country up and running for now and gain the breathing room to investigate later.

And even if the Dems get a filibuster-proof Senate, there will still be balance. There are always Senators who will cross the aisle. There will be newly elected Democratic Senators from heavily conservative states that still need to obey their constituencies (no one gets into this for just one term). There will still be internecine wars that will keep the most egregious policies from being enacted.

But Americans will have a period of relative peace from political sniping. Democrats will have the opportunity to really prove their case (or fail trying). Republicans will have a chance to decide what they want their party to be. And hopefully the cable news channels’ ratings will plummet.