Summary: 2013 promises to be “an interesting time.” In future years, historians may well express shocked amazement at the irresponsibility of the United States Congress in leading the nation go over the fiscal cliff, even if only briefly. Even if by the time this post goes up, the House of Representatives may have agreed to the Senate bill to avert the cliff. Of course, we should not expect that the Tea Party in the House would ever consider the national interest over its own hateful ideology. We should also consider whether, in 2013, the GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot by retreating into its own aging, largely white, largely male base, blaming its own shellacking on all those uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk who broke so heavily for President Obama. Here in Cathedral City, the political dynamic may be changing as local media begin to take a more careful and critical approach toward the reign of embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa. Already, local media have displayed more willingness to report potentially unfavorable news about her, puncturing her cult of personality and hopefully discarding the traditionally deferential, kid glove approach the media had taken toward her. There are unspoken and unexposed truths in Cathedral City that need to see the light of day.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Let me take a moment to wish family, friends, and neighbors happy new year on this first day of 2013. It promises to be an interesting year, and “interesting” covers a multitude of sins.
There is an old Scots malediction: “May you live in interesting times.” The Chinese, in similar vein, sometimes express the wish that one may be born “in an important time,” or that one’s times may be “the subject of study by historians.”
Certainly, 2013 has already become an interesting time, certain to be an object of future study by historians and political scientists who may well find themselves shaking their heads, expressing shocked amazement that the government of the greatest power on earth could so shirk its responsibilities, and be so caught up in personal, partisan bickering, that it would allow the fiscal well-being of the nation to hang upon desperate last-minute legislative maneuverings as the United States Congress sidesteps, wide-steps, and back steps frantically to try to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. As I write, the Senate has sent back to the House a hastily drafted amendment to H.R. 8, a prior money bill that had emanated from the lower chamber.
At a whopping 157 pages, the Senate’s “gut and amend” on H.R.8 contains enough new legislation to give Tea Partisans and other disturbers of the public peace in the House of Representatives ample opportunity to throw monkey wrenches into the deal. After all, no Tea Partisan has ever put country or patriotism above the opportunity to score cheap, ideologically driven, political shots. Nonetheless, events have been moving quickly in Washington City, and it is possible that by the time this post goes up, embattled House Speaker John Boehner may have been able to cobble together some sort of coalition -- a connubio, as the Italians (past masters at the art of unstable coalition government) might put it.
If Boehner can cobble together his connubio, the Senate’s gut and amend on H.R.8 may have some chance of passing, notwithstanding the stated willingness of the Tea Party to do as much harm to this country as they possibly can. If so, we may be able to un-go over the fiscal cliff, running in reverse the clip from Thelma and Louise that depicts the two women and their car soaring off the cliff at the movie’s end. If not, then to borrow a fatalistic old Russian expression, the best we can do is to make the Sign of the Cross and hope to God that we can escape serious injury when we hit bottom.
If, however, the House does do what it ought to do and pass the Senate bill, but we can at least take some comfort in having started off the new year on the right foot.
Nonetheless, the fiscal cliff will by no means the only issue that will roil the waters in the twelvemonth that lies before us. When I suggested that American voters this November had had a choice between a Democratic blueprint for a more perfect Union and a Republican blueprint for a doomsday machine, I also foresaw that the Republicans and the Tea Party would not take their shellacking with equanimity or anything even resembling grace. I was certainly right. The postelection truculence and anger displayed not only by the GOP, but by its chosen standardbearer, mendacious Mitt Romney, strongly suggest that in 2013 the Republican Party will retreat to the same tone deaf anger that has characterized it since the turn of the 21st century. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
It will certainly be a bumpy ride for immigrants, women, and queerfolk. We would be fools to imagine that the GOP, bent as it seems to be on shooting itself in the same foot it routinely sticks in his own mouth, won’t try to campaign on the tired old issues of God, guns, and gays. To the extent GOP efforts to “reach out” to women (binders of them!), immigrants, queerfolk, and people of color don’t immediately pay off, we should expect the Republican Party to circle its metaphorical wagons ever more tightly around its aging, largely white, largely male base.
As and to the extent that Republicans try to woo those voting blocs that broke so decisively for President Obama, they do so at the acknowledged risk that the targets of their lascivious ogling may not want to rush into the proffered embrace. After all, being cruised does not impose upon the cruisee any obligation to respond favorably to the cruiser. When lascivious ogling leads to rejection, rejection can lead to anger on the part of the one rejected. When, not if, minorities in American society reject the lascivious political ogling of the GOP, the GOP will ineluctably turn its anger on uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk. To the extent the GOP succumbs to the temptation to blame women, immigrants, people of color, and queerfolk for its loss last November, it will have only itself to blame if, next year, its political fortunes decline even worse than they did in 2012.
Here in Cathedral City, 2013 also promises to be “interesting.” While embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa may have squeaked into a fifth term as the result of election about whose integrity large numbers of Cathedral city residents entertain grave doubt, there has been a distinct change in the dynamic of media coverage of the incumbent. Until October, 2012, local media had largely been content to give DeRosa the benefit of all doubt, and to give her what amounted to a de facto veto on any media coverage of her that she did not approve of.
Reading media coverage of DeRosa prior to last October was somewhat like reading Renmin Ribao (the People’s Daily)’s sycophantic coverage of Mao Zedong at the height of the Chairman’s cult of personality. When DeRosa hurled an F-Bomb at local restauranteur Mark Carnevale at a candidate forum in the presence of numerous percipient witnesses, the Desert Sun had no choice but to report on the event. Interestingly, DeRosa’s first attempt -- through surrogates -- to deny the event soon foundered on the rock of corroborating evidence. It did not take her long to change her story and claim that she had somehow been “set up” or provoked.
The rebuttal to DeRosa’s self-serving claim of victimhood was swift and simple: leaders do not allow themselves to be baited. If DeRosa allowed herself to be baited into hurling crude personal insults at a constituent, she engaged in conduct seriously unbecoming a leader. Like Charles I of England, who tried to set himself above the law and paid the ultimate forfeit, DeRosa seems not to understand that self-serving tergiversation inevitably erodes credibility. The willingness of the Desert Sun to take a more critical view of DeRosa’s conduct certainly reflected a significant change in their previously deferential, kid glove posture toward an incumbent with remarkably monarchical conceit of herself. We may hope that as 2013 unfolds, we will see our local media take a significantly less deferential stance toward DeRosa, and more critically review her so-called leadership style. There are unspoken truths in Cathedral City, truths that need to be spoken and exposed and to see the light of day.
We live in interesting times. So, as the Russians might say, let us make the Sign of the Cross and step boldly into this Year of Grace 2013. Happy New Year.
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PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He served eight years on the city Council. His critique of the poor performance of incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa is no secret. He also serves on the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of any organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to be, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
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