© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Party Before Country Hurts Chance to Find Common Ground

Peter Goodman

Commentary:

Talking recently with a Republican, he frequently spouted familiar nonsense. Many of his statements seemed so demonstrably wrong that it was hard to believe that he believed them. Mine likely struck him the same way.

But he’s a smart guy. If we had to solve some practical problem, we could collaborate effectively, using our different skills to fashion a reasonable solution. On some governmental issue, absent the party system, we might forge a reasonable compromise.

Party loyalties make us speak less frankly and listen less openly. We may think a national leader is too mired in resentment over a loss to address current issues properly, but if he’s a major force in our party, we avoid disagreeing openly. We may think another national leader we generally admire approved assassinating more people in other countries than is either legal or strictly necessary, but we know our “enemies” in the other party will swoop down on any criticism we make, like a hawk snatching a mouse.

Biden is a good but imperfect man and president. Why deny his flaws, or unduly exaggerate his positive qualities. (I make mistakes often. Even my perfect wife makes occasional mistakes.) Once our climate emergency became a political loyalty test, our slim chances to take serious action evaporated.

Parties get in our way. They’re also the first step to an emotional division among people analogous to rooting loyally (blindly) for opposing football teams. We’re fellow citizens of the United States. You and I. We share a wonderful country that often errs; and, as a rampaging elephant does more harm than a rampaging mouse, our country’s missteps can have out-sized consequences.

I learned in college that the party system was essential. Parties provide informal caucuses and training grounds for political leaders, and organize financial and other support for those leaders; and, as the world grows more complex, maybe we need huge parties facilitating communications among folks with somewhat similar views.

Still, maybe we’d be better off without parties. Maybe we’d do better with a dozen rather than two. Conventional wisdom holds that multi-party systems are more nuanced, but that having just two, with a strong executive, allows faster response to emergencies. (What if the two-party system becomes the dangerous emergency?)

Maybe parties were fine once but a danger now. Many people seriously believe that our national leaders are a conspiratorial band of child-molesters. (How they could all maintain a successful criminal conspiracy for years is beyond me, as is why adults want to have sex with kids.) Others say the parties are just a show, distracting us from the longstanding conspiracy of the powerful to cheat and control the rest of us. (Certainly the elite keeps making our inequitable system more inequitable. The rich get richer no matter who’s in power.)

I don’t have an answer. Certainly if one large, cohesive group is bent on destroying democracy, I’d want a large, cohesive group opposing that. But we should each recognize in ourselves any tendency to coast on “the party line” rather than search for truth, or to suppose (let alone allege) that folks whose actions have bad consequences necessarily sought those consequences.

I’ve met few truly evil people, and good folks from every ideological corner. Rather than focusing on those “evil people” in some party, let’s find a way to come together to improve our world, for everyone.