Sex and Politics in the Two Americas

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I was an Edwards fan in early 2008. I applauded his Two Americas message, approved his aggressive stance against insane money and ruthless corporations. I hoped his record on litigation suggested a presidency willing to take on the previous administration, along with the contractors and cronies who had robbed the nation’s coffers. I imagined the Department of Justice fully engaged during an Edwards presidency, putting Halliburton on alert and combing through Pentagon records. By the time the Democratic pool had narrowed itself down to three establishment candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards — the ex-Senator from North Carolina was the darling of progressives looking for a crusader and a brawl. I confess I wanted both then, and on some level I still do. Edwards was an attractive, well-spoken, high-profile populist warrior in a growing class war. He was my guy.

Just one day before Edwards pulled his name from nomination, my friend Fishin’ Jim and I went to see him speak at a local Springfield, Missouri union hall. He seemed frazzled and his stump speech rote, but the audience was enthusiastic. The essential humanity of his message spoke directly to their populist yearnings, and even the press in this culturally-conservative city seemed charmed. On the way home, Jim and I discussed his chances against Hillary, who was odds-on favorite. Pre-TARP, Jim thought Edwards might not survive the corporate backlash to his candidacy. Me, I was worried about what seemed a puzzling lethargy where the fire in Edwards’ belly had once been. My guy seemed out of gas, but I chalked it up to fatigue.

The next day’s announcement that he was pulling out confirmed my instincts. Months later, news of a clandestine tryst sparked more speculation. The death of Elizabeth Edwards renewed our interest in the situation late last year, and yesterday, the whole dismal affair came full circle with a federal indictment over possible campaign finance abuse. Edwards will defend himself against a charge that private contributions funneled to his secret paramour and mother of his love-child were intended to help him achieve the presidency; if he is convicted, real jail time looms.

This post isn’t about another philandering politician. Edwards treated his wife shabbily, his mistress cavalierly and his career dishonestly. I won’t complain that he deceived the public: I mentioned that he was a politician, right? That sums it up. Still, if he’d been a Republican, he could have just hitched up his pants and kept on campaigning; witness the tacky personal history of Pub presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich. Funny how that works. I don’t much care about politicians’ sex lives so long as they don’t show video clips at the State of the Union, but Americans’ taste for the salacious consumes the lives of public figures as completely as Sherman’s march to the sea devastated the South.

Sexual scandal takes on a life of its own in the public forum, as illustrated by the black hole of speculation that has sucked up one of our better legislators, Anthony Weiner, in the firestorm over a tweeted crotch shot. Although liberals are much more tolerant of personal stumbles and sexual indiscretions, Dems are illogically held to a higher standard. By the time long-suffering Elizabeth Edwards finally threw in the towel and separated from her husband, his political ambitions were as cold as yesterday’s grits.

No, I’m not here to champion John Edwards. It’s the Edwards message that interests me, the two Americas which he spoke of so poignantly but lost in the mists of fame, fortune and ambition. Those two very separate Americas that Edwards spoke of still stare at each other across a vast chasm of political maneuvering and burgeoning profit margins, moving farther apart by the day. If we can’t begin to close the chasm, some day soon we’ll stop trying to see one another, quit attempting to bridge the divide, and start lobbing bombs.

America around the kitchen table — the America that values work, community and ethical behavior — is still real enough, if no longer so quaint. That version of America is consumed by emergencies now, swamped by underwater mortgages, gutted social services, closed libraries and underfunded schools. That America struggles to buy gas and pay the rent. The majority of the nation’s citizens live in the America where jobs continue to grow too slowly, food prices are on a steep climb, and, as school lunch programs close for the summer, children go to bed hungry. That America is taking a hell of a drubbing at the moment, and nobody has taken up Edwards’ populist cause except working man’s champion, Mike Moore, old standby Dennis Kucinich and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.

Suffice to say that there are two visions for America being discussed at the moment, and every wrinkle in this political fabric is critical. While the Republicans aren’t having great success selling the public on self-sacrifice, I doubt that the average person has a real sense of just how dire the consequences of this political battle might turn out to be. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are just the tip of the iceberg. On some level, many of us still think we live in the America we studied in the history books, informed by an unfailing Constitution and protected by an unwavering Bill of Rights.

I’m constantly amazed at how many people don’t recognize the ramifications of thirty-plus years of deregulation, eroded safety nets and underfunded social programs. Amazed at how many still think the Patriot Act, recently renewed for another handful of years, is needed to keep us safe: protected from outsiders, spied upon and data-mined by insiders. How many think the President can wave his hand and fix everything from jobs to gas prices, from pot-holes to the cost of a gallon of milk.

We get an occasional flash of truth, if we’re watching carefully. Gingrich got his nose whacked with a folded GOP newspaper the other day for calling Paul Ryan’s budget proposals ‘social engineering.’ It was a rare moment of candor from a party that seldom strays off message. The kind of social engineering the Republicans have in mind is the same kind that made the 18th century so profitable for planters and landowners: the working class had limited recourse while the elite, moneyed class made rules that primarily benefited themselves. States ruled with an iron fist, much as they’re trying to do in this (hopefully brief) window of Republican influence. It turns out that big government may not be as difficult to live with as small.

Studies show that state taxes, for instance, are heavily regressive compared with progressive national rates, and challenges to federal law almost always launch at a state level, as we’ve recently seen with health care reform, immigration and abortion rights. Pub governors don’t hesitate to reject stimulus money that might help their needy constituents while accepting anything that compensates business. Throwing caution to the wind, they feel free to pass racist, classist laws that a previous generation would have called Jim Crow. Social engineering is alive and well in the little capitals around the nation, satisfying the ambitions of party leaders, while the actual druthers of the American people go almost completely ignored by their representatives. We need a big dose of populism if we’re to regain some balance in this nation; we need to hear the story of Two Americas again, to be reminded how far we’ve strayed from ‘liberty and justice for all.’

There is one scrappy little populist voice speaking for banking reform and fair practice that I must include in my short list of personal heroes. Those who follow me on Political Waves know that Elizabeth Warren is a favorite of mine. I’m her constant advocate, and sadly, she needs one. The Republicans refuse to allow Warren to head the newly configured Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Obama directed her to establish last year. Fearful that the President would appoint her during the recent recess, the Pubs refused to leave Washington, preventing such a Dem coup.

Elizabeth Warren is fearsome, all right: small, cute as a button, the woman is a lawyer, an academic, a Harvard professor. She hails from Oklahoma Sooner stock, speaks lovingly of her grandkids and would rather not be doing battle in D.C. But Warren is, from the bottom of her wide-open heart, a populist. Plain-spoken and infinitely patient, she has gone up against the whole of the GOP in order to protect the average citizen from the small print of credit card companies and the surcharges of deceitful banks. Adept at decoding financial-speak into plain English we all understand, she advocates common sense, reasonable profit and simple banking practice, while scaring the crap out of Wall Street. Her evident talent prompts Republican members of Congress to confront and discredit her, McCarthy-style, like the bully-boys they are. Shame on them; seriously.

If you know how wonderful Elizabeth Warren is, if you want to urge Obama to appoint her to head up the agency she’s created, Bold Progressives has collected more than 90% of their goal of a quarter-million names on an e-petition; go here and add your name to that last 10%. It would be in Obama’s best interests to name her, by the way, since the Republican minority has vowed not to vote for ANYONE to lead this loathsome agency, designed to reign in business concerns. I think that’s a fight worth having, don’t you? Perhaps even one we’d win.

I’d feel a lot better if someone like Elizabeth Warren was looking out for me. I like my politicians with good nerves and clear vision. And hey, I’m still happy with John Edwards’ politics, for that matter. Whether or not he beats this rap, I hope he fills his life with worthwhile public service. Politicians are people, not saints, and personal growth is messy. JFK was a visionary and a dawg, MLK was a transcendent voice for social consciousness and a dawg. Gandhi tested his vow of chastity by sleeping with nubile young women. I don’t know what Elizabeth Warren does in her spare time. Maybe she’s into leather, or she’s a cougar with a string of boy-toys on hand. Who the hell knows or cares.

What I do care about is uniting the two Americas into one nation, indivisible. I care about little kids getting early education and lunch. I care about seniors being saved from cat food and dying alone. I care about young families having an opportunity to make a comfortable, productive life for themselves and their children. I want affordable medical services for those who are beginning to feel their years.

I care about protecting wilderness, public places and endangered species. I care about preserving the best to bring with us into the future. I want someone to talk about real poverty instead of middle-class issues, real solutions to homelessness and drug abuse. I want to discuss how to fix the public schools, not shift kids into private institutions that may not teach their students the common history of this uncommon nation. I want a system that honors We, the People.

Give me that speech about the Two Americas, again. Let’s hear about workers’ rights and union movements. Let’s talk about the melting pot that put the muscle and diversity into America’s talent pool, the strength and courage into its soul. Populism is, according to the dictionary, a political movement for “ordinary” people as opposed to the elite. Sex and politics? Clear the kitchen table, buy me a drink and speak populism to me, low and husky — and I’ll follow you anywhere.