PartiesThe Party Line
“I can’t believe you’re a Republican.…” It wasn’t intended to be an insult, but when she leaned forward and delivered it, it seemed as if being a Republican was akin to being a child molester or murderer, and one should feel shocked and unnerved to actually sit next to one. However, the subtext was the unsaid compliment: It’s because you seem so normal and a good person and someone I could like, not like the enemy you’re supposed to be.
Meeting for the first time, one friend delivered the above comment to the other. Since we were at dinner after the screening of a film about child soldiers in Uganda (somehow a “liberal” cause), a Republican obviously shouldn’t have been there. This was like snow in July in DC—just wrong. It goes both ways, of course: Democrats are really just communists in socialists’ clothing and they too must be feared, nay defeated, or we will lose whatever greatness the country once had.
And therein lies the most profound danger of political parties: the “them and us” profiling and prejudice that would never be accepted anywhere else in our society.
Parties live for Battleground States, Red/Blue Divides, liberal or conservative labels and litmus tests. In a party system, you need to beat the other side—label them, demonize them, destroy them—not just win. It is not primarily about governing or ideas or solutions—it is The Game, the ideals being team mascots.
What it certainly isn’t about is choice, something you would hope for in a democracy that claims to adhere to free market principles. In Cuba and China, you can vote for the party, or not—that is your singular choice. But here, we are fortunate—we can vote for either party. Double your pleasure, double your fun. In a world of almost endless product choices, innovation and creativity, we get two choices. Red or Blue. Chicken or Fish. Friend of the bride or friend of the groom.
Imagine if major corporations each had two factions within, caught in endless battle (sometimes the Red team’s gaining ground, sometimes Blue) and that The Fight was the objective, far more important than the product or service delivered. They would all fail and soon be out of business. Yet we take this as standard operating procedure for governance.
Even the President of The United States (all states) had to stand up like a coach after his team lost the big game and confess to the press how it felt to lose big in a midterm election: “Now, I’m not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I did last night.” And in NFL action today….
This is our President who is supposed to represent all of us, not this party or that party. But each and every politician lives in a two-party world—a win or lose mentality. No matter that we have major issues to contend with; what’s important is the box score: how many seats in the House, how many in the Senate, Governors’ races…who will have the power to lord over the other “team” until the next election?
The only time partisan rancor does get put aside is during extreme emergencies. Something must happen quickly, urgently. Unfortunately, that something is usually a not-well-thought-out reaction (since we’re not used to having the teams play for the same side), ripe with unintended consequences. Even if that something is right, it will soon enough be contorted into ammunition for pounding the other side once “normal” resumes. But, such is the nature of parties.
Because we seem to have always had them, maybe we don’t see them for what they really are or believe that there is an alternative. Instead of thinking Democratic Party or Republican Party, perhaps we should be thinking National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) or Communist Party of the Soviet Union to see the hazard. The vitriol commonly spewing forth from our own party leaders, fanned by “the country’s 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflict-onator” (comedian Jon Stewart’s brilliant description of 24-hour cable news), is perhaps the truer nature of political parties than the seemingly benign perception we have been led to believe we can’t live without.
Which should beg the question: Why do we have political parties in a democracy anyway? Political parties, after all, are about consolidating power and forcing adherence to the “party line”—an anathema to the ideals of representative governance.
Maybe the Nazi and Communist parties were the outliers, and it’s just the confluence of the digital revolution (cable news and the Internet generation) that turned our own good parties into bad actors. It’s a new thing to have angry, nasty, incessant partisan fighting. Or is it? Perhaps the badness of parties has been around for awhile longer, as in George Washington longer [bolded and bracketed items are the author’s]:
“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations [Red State, Blue State; North vs. South]. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
“This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty [Hitler, Stalin, Mao].
“Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it [Tea Party].
“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms [news scroll: ALERTS that are not alerts], kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
“There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”
—George Washington, part of his 1796 farewell address to the nation after not accepting a draft to a third term.
The warning in 1796 would seem worth heeding today, as our political parties grow daily more dogmatic, led by increasingly extreme factions pushing one-dimensional characters to the stage as acceptable candidates. The absolute and limited choice of Red or Blue is particularly dangerous at a time when the country has a desperate need for problem solving and leadership.
In a democracy, shouldn’t we be able to look at individuals and decide who best represents us without a brand name behind them—R or D? Shouldn’t all politicians be independent and able to represent nuanced ideas/solutions or proffer accurate statements of the real problems?
Then again, how would we know who to agree with as an electorate? With no brand affiliation, we might have to pay attention to the individual, the idea, and the proposed solution. That might take more than a 30-second TV commercial with patriotic music to herald the good politician followed by sinister music, odd mood shots and black-and-white photography to depict the obviously evil opponent.
Maybe the problem in government isn’t all about money, or ideology, or voter apathy. Maybe we need to try something drastic, like a democracy without party intervention.
It certainly couldn’t be worse than what we have today.