I was a soldier most of my adult life. My time as a legislator came afterwards and I learned in short order that politics, particularly in a campaign, is about making the case to lead. Governance is actually engaging in that leadership. The former can be very partisan. The latter is particularly challenging. One way or another, if you are involved in politics in America, you also are involved with a political party. Our Founding Fathers warned us that there was a debilitating aspect of political parties, namely destructive partisanship.
Most people know instinctively that politics can be unpleasant. To be sure, some of the early Founders found political parties to be a danger. George Washington warned of them in his farewell address, fearing they might contribute to civil war. Writer Carl Richard notes that the early Federalist and Republican leaders alike found political parties distasteful, as many of us do in contemporary life. For the Founders, parties were temporary guardrails, designed to block extremist efforts that would harm our new republic.
“Both Federalist and Republican leaders decried “party spirit.” They considered their own parties temporary aberrations, necessary only to block the antirepublican ambitions of their opponents, and looked forward to the day when they could be safely eliminated.”
As Richard recalls, in 18th Century politics, high praise between admiring friends was to be regarded as politically “disinterested” and above the messy stuff of partisan activities. Non-partisanship put “justice” above all “other considerations”, even including “one’s family, friends, and political allies.” Despite the misgivings of the early Founders, political parties survived the nascent years of our founding and remain with us today. Yet we can only hope that the parties of today will become necessary “means” to practical “ends” as opposed to the source of incessant bickering and division. In other words, that once the campaign is over, contending sides govern cooperatively.
Political parties in their purest form are designed to elect people to public office that reflect the views of people who associate with their ideological positions. The competition in politics can be—and frequently is—ferocious. For that reason, many people avoid politics altogether. That is not surprising. Yet it is important to understand that political activity and discourse is a necessary component—parties notwithstanding—to sustaining freedom. It is in parties we find political associations to advance our views, preferences, and expectations for what we consider to be good governance. More to the point, it is through political parties that we select candidates for elected office that we believe are best able to advance the policies we believe are suitable for our community, state, and nation.
But partisanship is not new, having been with us since 1803 when political parties emerged in full force. The bitter presidential campaign between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson completely dispelled any hope for “disinterested” behavior long ago. But in today’s America, partisanship as taken on aspects of civil war. When parties are more concerned with delegitimizing the results of an election because they did not agree with the outcome, we enter extremely dangerous territory. We are there now. Today’s partisanship has become hyper-partisanship, where governance is the first and lasting victim. And as such, the people are forced to endure a dysfunctional system which puts gaining and maintaining political power above all other considerations. The campaigns never end. Governance never begins. Moreover, the corrosive language of bitter partisanship is magnified by social media, where charges and counter charges fill the air with destructive words that do nothing to resolve the debate in a civil manner. Truth then dies a painful death as “talking points” rule the day.
It is a lamentable reality that partisanship dominates so much of what we see in politics today. But our response to it is more important than the disruption it causes. The first step is to reject the nonsense of political correctness as the defining framework for what is acceptable speech, thought, and behavior in our republic. The Constitution defines what is acceptable and any coercion that would diminish those freedoms should be rejected. Second, embrace virtue. It is the one and essential aspect our Founders regarded as necessary for the sustainment of freedom. Third, insist on law and order as the standard by which civility is reinforced in society. Any argument that lawlessness is acceptable is on its face unacceptable. Fourth, insist that facts matter. Debate today is largely dominated by the loudest and most prevalent voice in the argument. We have it within our ability to distill truth from facts and, if those facts do not buttress the argument, reject that argument.
We deserve what we preserve in life. And if we do not challenge the voices of hyper partisanship with truth and light, we deserve to suffer the result.
Important Announcement: I will be participating in a Webinar on my book Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War as part of the Lemnitzer Lecture Series hosted by Association of the US Army (AUSA) at 10 AM (EDT) on Tuesday, 4 August 2020. Here is the link where you must register in advance to participate. https://www.ausa.org/events/thought-leaders-lingamfelter. You do not need to be a member of AUSA to listen in and participate. So ignore the membership number request when you register. I hope you will join me for this! Thanks!
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