Beyond the Debate Stage: The Case for Respect and Centrism
The Time Has Come to Get Serious About Addressing Polarization and Fostering Unity in Government
This topic has been simmering in my mind for a while now. It came to a boil watching the June 27 presidential debate.
President Biden clearly struggled to articulate basics of his policies. He spent a week preparing for the debate. He knew the topics likely to be the subjects of moderators’ questions. Yet, when attempting to wrap up a meandering response to a question about his tax plan, he blurted: “Look, if — we finally beat Medicare.”
Former president Trump was just as dismaying, in a different (and, for Trump, typically mendacious) way, at one point calling Biden “a Manchurian candidate.1 He gets money from China.”
Questions about Biden’s mental acuity have been dogging him for months, if not years. Trump took active steps to overturn the results of the 2020 election, one of his many affronts to constitutional order and political norms. I’m not a fan of the term but count me among the double-haters. I still can’t believe these are our two major party choices for the highest government office in America. In my opinion, neither are fit to be president.
How the hell did we get here?
I think we’re here because politicians have placed winning above solving actual problems for far too long. In too many cases our elected leaders have failed to come together to find compromise solutions to those actual problems.
It’s not just me. Check out the results from a Pew Research poll asking residents of 12 high-income countries “how satisfied they are with the state of their democracy.”
Count me among the dissatisfied. The fix? We need respect and centrism in our politics to foster unity, effective governance, and public trust. I’m optimistic we can turn things around, current evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
Team Red vs. Team Blue … In a Cage Match
Political tribalism is out of control. In his article, “When Will Americans Tire of Hardball Politics?” Christian Schneider discusses the increasing polarization and aggressive tactics in American politics, likening it to a sport where winning is prioritized over governance.
America has simply become two teams, with fans of each willing to defend dishonorable behavior in order to see their favored side win. “Issues” are now simply set by random musings of presidential candidates, forcing their acolytes to adopt a new set of principles to fit those of their leader.
We need to reject the extremism and return to decency and constructive debate. (Biden and Trump argued over their respective golf games, for the love of God.) Schneider emphasizes the need for politicians and voters alike to focus on common goals and solutions rather than relentless partisan battles. It can happen. And did —recently! The 2021 infrastructure bill passed with bipartisan support. A solid majority of us believe the government should take care of roads and bridges, help local utilities provide clean drinking water, expand broadband internet and clean up toxic Superfund sites. Alas, that legislation is an outlier.
And while I like the sports comparison for our current political dysfunction, it doesn’t go far enough. There’s a better analogy about a “sport” that’s really an entertainment business: professional wrestling. From a July 3 essay by political journalist Jonah Goldberg:
We’re supposed to want the best to emerge from political competition. We’re moving away from that ideal and toward professional wrestling, where we pretend it’s a real sport. The definition of merit moves from excellence and qualification to entertainment and kayfabe narratives of heroes and villains who deserve to win or lose based on nothing other than what will titillate the fans. Every day, the parties become less like Major League Baseball—which has an interest in regulating the sport so that the competition hinges on excellence—and more like the WWE where the “sport” is regulated to provide the most drama and entertainment.
Compromise Is Not a Dirty Word
In my heart of hearts, I believe regular folks, who don’t obsess over politics, are dying for a change. That’s not just wishful thinking. A recent survey shows the public has a strong desire to have our elected officials work together instead of holding out to the bitter end on contentious issues, former city manager Ron Holifield wrote in his 10 in 10 Newsletter last week.
The need to improve our public discourse is critical to government at every level—national, state, and local. While stories from around the country might have us believe that Americans want their leaders to fight out their differences, a recent national survey conducted by the American Bar Association tells a different story. According to the survey, almost everyone said they want government leaders to work toward compromise and not hold their ground until they win. Nearly 4 out of 5 (79%) said they support compromise. Only 13% supported government leaders holding their ground.
In my 33 years of reporting on and working in local government, the best governance occurred when political leaders treated each other and the public with respect instead of contempt. Tempers flared in public meetings and folks sometimes loudly disagreed, but a steady focus on listening and achieving workable solutions ultimately won the day.
Ron and the Alliance for Innovation (AFI) are actively looking for examples of “community engagement models and strategies that have successfully lowered the temperature and fostered cooperation in discussions about delivery of local government services in their community.” He’s asking local governments to share their experience by sending an email to AFI Public Discourse Task Force – Community Engagement. Please shoot them a line if you can. The task force’s mission “is to provide actionable, implementable, and usable resources and guidelines to facilitate responsible, ethical public discourse in local government.” It plans to have a report completed by November. I’ll share it here when it comes out.2
We leave this section with a great quote about the infantile mindset that prevents our national parties from working together from Kevin Williamson, national correspondent for The Dispatch.
The politics of cooties is what makes compromise and consensus-building impossible in Washington: the notion that an idea, or a piece of legislation, or even a figure of speech becomes infected when it is taken up by the other side, by … them. That was the case made against that self-abasing dope from California [Kevin McCarthy] who used to be speaker of the House by that beady-eyed dope from Georgia [Marjorie Taylor Greene] who led the effort to oust him: that he relied on Democratic support to get certain things done. That’s the case the beady-eyed dope from Georgia is trying to make against a gutless dope from Louisiana [Mike Johnson] currently serving as speaker of the House: You can’t use Democrats’ votes to pass a bill—those votes have cooties!
Getting members of the other party to support one’s own priorities in Congress once was a sign that you were what the old-timers used to call “good at politics.”
A return to the good old days of parties and politicians working together requires we quit playing to the outliers on the political spectrum and beat a path back to a sane middle ground based on the reality that we live in a complex, plural society.
The Case for Centrism and Normie Politics
Centrism is perhaps the strongest antidote to the polarization and extremism that’s infecting the body politic, according to Yair Zivan, writing in The Atlantic. He starts his argument by stating what centrism is not.
Centrism isn’t the middle between an imaginary left and right. It isn’t a compromise between wherever the extremes happen to be dragging society at any given moment. It isn’t simply a more palatable version of socialism or a poorly disguised right-wing ploy. In short, centrism isn’t the search for an unattainable, and usually unwanted, middle point on the political spectrum.
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