Last night I was discussing (read: venting) my view on American politics in light of all the crises and recession and lack of change and etcetera. It’s easy, I think, to blame Congress for their refusal to make progress, for refusing to come to a resolution, for no jobs, for no hope, etc. (And it’s way fun to blame Obama, too.) But the fact is that Congress actually does tend to reflect the American people. If for no other reason than sheer selfishness. Congressmen and women know that they have to vote a certain way on issues in order to get themselves re-elected, and for better or for worse (for worse, really, if you must know) they tend to do just that. Gone are the days, if they ever existed, of voting for a person who would lead you. Now you vote for a person who will do what you want them to.
Since that’s the case, Congress isn’t entirely to blame for the lack of compromise and progress we’re currently witnessing (I’ll come back to this). The fact is, a lot of Americans don’t want to compromise. Sure, there are still some people who want compromise (me, me! pick me!), but that number is shrinking. Ahh! Remember the good ol’ days, back in 2007 and 2008 when Americans were tired of bipartisanship? Remember how we all cried for unity and handshakes across the aisle?
Well, those days are gone. Somewhere along the way, lines were clearly drawn. On the surface it seems like these lines are about things like taxes, debt, jobs, immigration, healthcare, and so on. But the problem is, they aren’t. As much as the rhetoric would have you believe the issues are political, the fact is, they’re moral, they’re value-based. And there are two camps now and a gulf of hostility between them.
So went the discussion last night. Imagine my delight, then, to find a section of David Brooks’s article today that echoed my sentiments. (Let me just be really honest—I love love love it when I find out that Brooks and I are thinking along the same lines. Not only does it make me feel smart; it makes me feel right. What’s not to love?)
Many issues that were once concrete and practical are distorted because they have become symbolic and spiritual. Tax policy isn’t just about how to raise revenue anymore. Liberals see it as a way to punish the greedy and redress the iniquities of capitalism. Conservatives see tax increases as an assault on the enterprising class perpetrated by arrogant central planners. A tax rate could be seen as just a number signifying an expense, but now it’s a marker in a culture war.
Gun policy isn’t about what specific weaponry should be in private hands. It’s seen as an assault on or defense of the whole rural lifestyle, so to compromise on any front is to court dishonor.
President Obama’s Green Tech initiative has become a policy disaster — not only at Solyndra but at one program after another — because its champions ignored basic practical considerations. They were befogged by their own visions of purity and virtue.
Maybe it’s part of living in a postmaterialist economy, but nearly every practical question becomes a values question. You get politicians and commentators whose views are entirely predictable because they don’t care about the specifics of any particular issue. They just care about the status war against their social enemies and the way each issue functions as a symbol in that great fight… David Brooks, “The Thing Itself,” nytimes.com, Oct. 14, 2011
So you gotta ask, how did we get from the cries for unity in 2007 to the irreconcilability that characterizes us today? I blame healthcare—not the thing itself, but the issue. If the White House was as devoted to uniting Americans as it claimed to be, then tackling healthcare was the worst possible way to go. It was one of the things that divided us so strongly, and it’s the kind of issue that becomes a value issue far, far too quickly.
Heels started digging in. Enter the Tea Party.
And then there is no turning back.
The Tea Party is extreme, and so the left wing’s response is equally stinging. Derision, scorn, disdain. Moderates scramble for cover, but the lines are drawn.
There is no crossing these kinds of lines. Issues can be compromised, sure. But Americans are not the kind of people who compromise values. We’re the kind of people who get on a ship and move to a new continent when we find our morals under attack. Then when that doesn’t go as planned, we go to war with the world’s imperial power so we can start a brand new country. Suffice it to say, we’ve never been the kind of people to set aside our values—and I’m not saying we should be. But we do need to find a way to look at the issues without taking them quite so personally. Somehow, in the midst of everything, it became too ad hominem, and now we’re at odds with one another. It’s not about issues, it’s about rich people vs. poor people, religious vs. non-religious, humane liberals vs. cruel conservatives, responsible conservatives vs. liberals with a misplaced sense of entitlement.
I’m reminded of a conversation from The West Wing between Sam Seaborne (Democrat) and Ainsley Hayes (Southern Republican):
Sam: I am so off-the-charts tired of the gun lobby tossing around words like ‘personal freedom’ and no one calling ‘em on it. It’s not about personal freedom, and it certainly has nothing to do with public safety. It’s just that some people like guns.
Ainsley: Yes, they do. But you know what’s more insidious than that? Your gun control position doesn’t have anything to do with public safety, and it’s certainly not about personal freedom. It’s about you don’t like people who do like guns. You don’t like the people. Think about that, the next time you make a joke about the South. The West Wing, “In This White House”
So who is to blame? Well, I’m certainly not thrilled with the way the American people have gone for each others’ throats. And the White House could have played its cards better. But mostly, I’m unimpressed with Congress. I guess I do blame them a lot, after all is said and done. We vote our Congressmen and women in, and we tell them not to back down. Only the other side voted their people in and told them the same thing. So nobody moves, and nobody blinks. And 1 in 9 people don’t have jobs. The American people have a right to object, protest, and lobby against or for anything they want. You have a right to go at it with members of the other party. Knock yourselves out, Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street. I mean it. But when the discord becomes so vast that there is actual widespread suffering, then a nation needs some real leaders to step forward—real leaders, not just followers who happen to be in office.
