I read Joel Silberman's "The Rhetoric Gap" (Opinions, Feb. 1) looking for new insight as to how the Left in this country could indeed overcome the currently bleak political landscape in which Republicans hold such an upper hand. However, I was disappointed to learn that his suggestions were merely that the Democrats grow bigger, more fortified cojones - in Silberman's words, "balls of steel."
I'm tired of reading this sort of John Wayne-cum-Saturday Night Live humor that tries to pass itself off as a political agenda, and also tired of how used to it we have become. Such is the extent of my numbness to this kind of material that it didn't even initially strike me odd that an article about political weakness should be based on some hackneyed metaphor of having "balls."
I agree with Silberman when he says that "liberals could learn a lot from conservatives." After all, they have the incredible ability to repackage issues around the appealing ideas of family values and traditionalism - as seen last year when the push for a gay marriage ban became a political firebrand garnering enormous support for the Republicans. Even the seemingly innocuous phrasing of the title of the No Child Left Behind Act demonstrates what conservatives excel at: spin.
For in a two-party system steeped in corruption and slander, it is not the ability to appear manly, but rather honorable that gives conservatives their present currency. The "dirty trick" Silberman claims the Republicans won the election by was less their pugilism than their conservative rhetoric of integrity and conviction.
This, of course, is nothing new. But instead of letting Republicans hold their monopoly on integrity and policy-as-morals, the Democrats should also work into their agenda the simple, effective and obviously persuasive language of morality. Failing to do so only allows Republicans to continue manipulating our political landscape through catchphrases such as the "axis of evil" and President Bush's black-and-white binaries.
Silberman warns, "Don't let yourself be one of those liberals who is too sweet to stand up for herself." To be fair, Silberman does tack on "Or himself," but I found this reference to the clichéd so-called 'feminization' of the Democratic Party misplaced. I cannot help being reminded of the way the media slaughtered Howard Dean last year when he "stood up for himself" after losing the Iowa Primary. Or the backlash that belligerently liberal talking heads such as Al Franken and Michael Moore receive. A more antagonistic attitude is not what is truly needed to reinvigorate the Democratic Party.
One of the reasons millions of people tune in to the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh day after day is because they break the issues down into the appealingly aggressive language of right and wrong. That is exactly the kind of language that peppered Silberman's piece and why I found reading it so particularly frustrating. Such language may be able to fire people up, but the Democrats' problems go far deeper than whether party is or is not pulling punches.
Rather than asking the Democrats to grow bigger balls in order to overcome the "rhetoric gap," let's start being aggressively concerned with the fallacy of the "ownership society" or the pitifully under-funded state of public education. And let's couple this concern with the moral justifications that the Republicans are so adept at utilizing for their party's advantage.
We should continue to critique and try to change the shortcomings of the Democratic Party. But I wonder if, in addition to lauding the Republicans for knowing how to be men, we could get involved in determining what that manhood should look like - and more importantly, in what kind of country men will live.
And if I'm missing - or perhaps purposely overlooking - the reality of a patriarchal culture dominated by a politics of "masculinity," I'm not sure how much my oversight matters anyway. The kind of culture Silberman describes does not hold a place for me - I was castrated before I even entered the game.
Sarah Goldstein '05 doesn't need a soldier.
