A Different Way to Think

In today’s world, partisanship has become a tool for partisanship, which is really a shame.  Democrats are using it as a double edged sword against the Republicans.  They claim Republicans should stop opposing their views and become a part of the prescribed change.  While they accuse Republicans of being partisan in order to win back Congress, they sit behind closed doors and draft partisan bills.  Republicans on the other hand use partisan behaviors to promote their beliefs since the majority isn’t interested in any of the minority party’s beliefs.  In the end, both parties just need to wake up and realize that partisanship isn’t evil, it’s necesary and healthy. 

The very basis of partisanship is in the beliefs of the people.  In today’s world there are liberal people, there are conservative people, and there are the undecided masses who swing back and forth based on the popular topic of the time.  You either play politics and only attack the topics that are popular enough for both parties to support or you play partisan politics and prepare to battle the opposition.  This battle itself isn’t even wrong.  Because officials are elected to represent their constituents beliefs, then a conservative SHOULDN’T support liberal policies and vice versa.  They are in office to fight for their people’s beliefs.  Sure, when it comes to a job creation plan, everyone should be on board and play a part in the legislation, but a liberal who votes to cut taxes on the rich or a conservative who votes for bigger government has lost his way. 

In the end, Obama’s belief that conservatives should give up their beliefs and join the cause is arrogant and dangerous.  Those conservatives were put in office to look out for their conservative values.  Republicans should continue to fight in this arena and when they are in charge again, Democrats should fight tooth and nail for what they believe in.  It is this balance that makes our government work and remain sustainable.

We are starting to see some signs that the Obama administration recognizes that they have been fighting the wrong battles, but they continue to follow up their positive moves with arrogant Obama media blitzes and town hall meetings.  Trying to focus on jobs should have been the number one idea, but you have to really be willing to sacrifice your party’s vitality to pass things that are completely in opposition to half of the people in America.  If you want healthcare you have to have a popular president with a supermajority ram it through before anyone has a chance to react.  If Obama had started out his presidency with health care he could have ridden the wave of optimism through passing the bill and hoped that the changes were so positive that everyone just accepted them after the fact.  Instead he decided to work on everything at once and left time for the opposition to grow in numbers and organize to take away the majority and threaten to take the whole Congress. 

What we have is a lesson in politics.  If you want to pick a controversial topic you have to be prepared to fall on your sword because the opposition will be  energized and the parties become polarized.  Democrats should attack big spending and social agendas in manageable pieces to avoid losing political support, while Republicans should leave upper class tax cuts alone except in cases of solid economic growth.  Both parties tend to favor political suicide over their personal beliefs. 

In the end I’d like to have a true third party join the system to give a real alternative.  Then the people in the middle would have a cause to support and there would be even more checks and balances.  This would hopefully prevent the middle from swinging wildely from party to party based on emotion, leading to buyers remorse when their elected officials don’t live up to their promises.