Cynical optimism; or, to panic or not to panic with regards to the current state of American democracy?

I hope you've liked the first two posts from my great new co-bloggers, Creature and The (liberal) Girl Next Door. Both posts stimulated some thoughtful commentary. Indeed, there are at present 13 comments to The LGND's post, "When is it time to panic?" -- you can find it (and the comments) here. I encourage you to check out the interesting exchange between the author of the post and Nate, one of our long-time readers and commenters. Both make solid points and, in the end, I suspect that they agree more than they disagree.

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Over at one of my favourite reads, The Countess, Trish Wilson, The Countess herself, kindly linked to The LGND's post and suggested that a recent post by her other half, The Count, is "a nice companion piece". She's right, and you can find The Count's post here.

I encourage you to read it in full. His general argument is that "[o]ur tradition of democracy should not be underestimated". And he makes this excellent point, cutting through the disease of extremist partisanship that afflicts American democracy:

The neoconservative thinkers (and I don't mean the wingnut op-ed folks) are a more interesting situation. I do not believe they are out and out evil or bad... not most of them anyway. I think they believe in what they say as a way to honestly better this country. I just happen to disagree with their means to that end. I think it is very telling (obviously) that even they see what Bush is doing as wrong and is perverting their ideas. In fact, we do need these thinkers to do what they do, because in a democracy all sides need to be heard, all sides need to contribute, all sides need to be equal for the whole thing to work. Extremism from either side is not good for the body politic.

This is a point that I've made before, often from the perspective of a Straussian with connections to neoconservatism. More publicly, it's a point that Jon Stewart has made many times before. There may very well be "evil" out there. Some on the right may even be "bad". But there are also many intelligent voices on the right -- some of them are linked in my blogroll -- and it's with them that we must keep up an open dialogue. They believe what they believe. And some of their beliefs are quite sound.

For example, neoconservatives generally believe that American foreign and military policy should be directed towards the spread of democracy and liberalism to parts of the globe that are largely neither democratic nor liberal. Is that bad or evil? Well, their means may often be bad, which is to say, they may often be wrong, and we may not necessarily approve of their specific vision of a new world order based on American values and military might. And domestically we may certainly disapprove of their general attempt to roll back the liberal state. But they themselves are not evil.

As many of you know, I do not pull my punches here at The Reaction. And nor do my co-bloggers. Like our opponents on the right -- indeed, like our opponents all across the political spectrum -- we have our deeply-held opinions and we are not afraid to let them be known.

I agree with The Count on this key point: American democracy is strong. Yet I worry about what the Bush Administration has done, is doing, and likely will continue to do. American democracy is strong, but it is weaker for George W. Bush. We can argue over whether there is a slope and, if so, how slippery it is, what lies at the bottom of it, and whether America is currently sliding down it, but, ultimately, I remain a cynic. Or, rather, I remain a realist: Bush has not been good for America, nor for the wider world beyond. As far as I'm concerned, there is a slope, it's quite slippery, and America is sliding down it. At the bottom may not lie fascism, at least not as we understand it after the last century, but that doesn't mean that we should take comfort in its absence. A degraded, debased state of American democracy, a farce of a democracy, isn't exactly where we want to end up.

So let's have that debate. Let's argue civilly. Let's engage our opponents, not define them all as enemies with whom we have absolutely nothing in common and with whom we have nothing but venom. But let's not just think of this as some rhetorical game (don't misunderstand me, I do not accuse The Count of suggesting that it is). Believe it or not, I do listen to alternative views and I do respect many on the right. I even agree with some of them from time to time. I even -- dare I say it? -- admire some of them. Take Bill Kristol, for example. I don't often agree with him, but I read him and listen to him and respect him and take him seriously. So, too, David Brooks. So, too, my preferred conservative bloggers. And so on.

But, in the end, this is all too important not to take with the utmost seriousness. When the other side -- more accurately, when the current political leadership, both in the White House and in Congress, is so wrong, when it places America on that slippery slope and even gives it a good push or two (or ten, or whatever we're up to), we are fully justified to fight back. With civility, to be sure, but also with every ounce of reason and passion at our disposal.