Is Kansas Really Middle America?

When Dorothy famously said to her dog “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto” she was off on her fantasy trip in the Land of Oz. There she would learn some important lessons about courage, compassion and intellect with a few friends she meets along the way. Why is it that in the very real world of today representatives from some states speak with such loud voices and assume their home-state rules should be normative for an entire nation? Washington DC becomes their home away from home, but nothing seems to broaden their narrowly conceived world vision.

While the Constitution provides for equal numbers of senators regardless of population they often represent fewer people than many of the larger states and the arrogance that invigorates their rhetoric attracts far too much attention from the media and their party. Oklahoma’s Inhofe insists global warming is a hoax as chunks of the polar ice cap break off and float away. And he is proud to say there are no gays in his family, and adamant that the institution of marriage is threatened by gay unions and that “family values” define the Republican vision, despite numerous graceless departures from moral rectitude by members of the party.

The much touted collegial atmosphere in the Senate has become a battleground of partisan gotcha politics in which the concept of working together means acquiescing to minority talking points and lame alternatives to health-care proposals that promise nothing much except to offer the ability to obtain insurance across state lines, enact tort reform and promote medical savings plans. While those proposals have some merit they would be only minimally effective in curing the ills of the present system. The idea, for example, that health savings accounts would protect ordinary people from catastrophic medical debt is an absurdity. And the largest insurance providers control much of the market here, there and everywhere.

Besides, it is quite clear, when Senator DeMint says Obama’s health-reform proposals could become his “Waterloo” that the Republican agenda is not to find areas of agreement but rather to work toward bringing the president down. In fact the only goal the minority has in mind is just that. There is no serious alternative in play that would address serious healthcare issues or alleviate their impact on the nation’s economy.

Of even greater concern, however, across the political spectrum is a resurgence of the Nixon/Reagan/Bush southern strategy that has evolved into a virulent, racially-charged, homophobic message that embraces not a moral majority but all the worst of the country’s fringe elements - - gun-toting zealots muttering threats of insurrection even as they pledge allegiance to Christianity.  And in Texas, one of the nation’s more populous states, Bible literacy is now a curricular mandate - - not a broad-based instruction tool to educate students about various beliefs but a singular approach to religion in an increasingly diverse society.

If this trend continues it will be impossible to resolve the thorny issues surrounding health care, education and the environment. The shouting will continue among morally compromised politicians who claim the high ground and would read to the rest of us from stone tablets of their devising. We might as well all be living in Kansas or similarly-inclined states that continue to operate without the enlightenment Dorothy achieved on her journey.