The Chamomile Tea Party was formed in 2010 to work towards a more effective dialogue about the future of America. Congress has become paralyzed by partisan politics. There has been so much rhetoric it has become almost impossible to get any important legislation passed. And Americans are suffering. We are no longer interested, nor can we support “politics as usual.”
To this end, graphic designer Jeff Gates has been remixing World War II propaganda posters with new text about the rancor so prevalent in American political and cultural discourse. The posters send a message to the “powers that be” that we are hurting ourselves as a country and as a people. In addition, the posters are meant to be used by the electorate to aid in voicing their concerns.
Chamomile Tea Party: Bringing Calm to American Political Discourse
http://www.chamomileteaparty.com/
High resolution posters can be downloaded for free. In addition, by popular request, prints are available for sale.
Twelve
Can’t We All Disagree More Constructively?
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
by Jonathan Haidt
“Politics ain’t beanbag,” said a Chicago humorist in 1895; it’s not a game for children. Ever since then the saying has been used to justify the rough-and-tumble nastiness of American politics. Rationalists might dream of a utopian state where policy is made by panels of unbiased experts, but in the real world there seems to be no alternative to a political process in which parties compete to win votes and money. That competition always involves trickery and demagoguery, as politicians play fast and loose with the truth, using their inner press secretaries to portray themselves in the best possible light and their opponents as fools who would lead the country to ruin.
And yet, does it have to be this nasty? A lot of Americans have noticed things getting worse. The country now seems polarized and embattled to the point of dysfunction. They are right. Up until a few years ago, there were some political scientists who claimed that the so-called culture war was limited to Washington, and that Americans had not in fact become more polarized in their attitudes toward most policy issues. But in the last twelve years Americans have begun to move further apart. There’s been a decline in the number of people calling themselves centrists or moderates (from 40 percent in 2000 down to 36 percent in 2011), a rise in the number of conservatives (from 38 percent to 41 percent), and a rise in the number of liberals (from 19 percent to 21 percent).
But this slight spreading out of the electorate is nothing compared to what’s happened in Washington, the media, and the political class more broadly. Things changed in the 1990s, beginning with new rules and new behaviors in Congress. Friendships and social contacts across party lines were discouraged. Once the human connections were weakened, it became easier to treat members of the other party as the permanent enemy rather than as fellow members of an elite club. Candidates began to spend more time and money on “oppo” (opposition research), in which staff members or paid consultants dig up dirt on opponents (sometimes illegally) and then shovel it to the media. As one elder congressman recently put it, “This is not a collegial body any more. It is more like gang behavior. Members walk into the chamber full of hatred.”
This shift to a more righteous and tribal mentality was bad enough in the 1990s, a time of peace, prosperity, and balanced budgets. But nowadays, when the fiscal and political situations are so much worse, many Americans feel that they’re on a ship that’s sinking, and the crew is too busy fighting with each other to bother plugging the leaks.
In the summer of 2011, the stakes were raised. The failure of the two parties to agree on a routine bill to raise the debt ceiling, and their failure to agree on a “grand bargain” to reduce the long-term deficit, led a bond rating agency to downgrade America’s credit rating. The downgrade sent stock markets plummeting around the globe and increased the prospects for a “double dip” recession at home—which would be a disaster for the many developing nations that export to America. America’s hyperpartisanship is now a threat to the world.