To paraphrase President Theodore Roosevelt, to declare that there must be no criticism of your political party, that you are to stand with the party, right or wrong, is unpatriotic, servile, and morally treasonable to the country.
My party, right or wrong, however, is the battle hymn of most American voters. It is the source of multiple political ills: extreme partisanship, political paralysis, the reduction of civic discourse to juvenile name-calling, gerrymandering, and dishonoring democratic processes. The latter are our deliverance from tyranny or the law of the jungle. Gerrymandering, which encourages partisan mulishness, would be impossible without hard and fast partisan voters. President George Washington’s Farewell Address feared that such partisanship would tear the country into shreds.
In sum, the state of politics is rotten, and the prime culprits are us. Thomas Jefferson is said to have observed, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Elected officials are characteristically constitutionally clueless and ignorant because voters do not demand or know anything better. They customarily vote along party lines without investigating what policies a candidate proposes to advocate or his reputation for honesty. A party vote is a lazy man’s vote. No research or understanding of the issues or the candidate is required. Some politicians, whose infinite lies were in plain view, could never have been elected without blind partisan support. Candidates who reflect the Aristotelian mean, however, are the most trustworthy and deserving.
Only 37 percent of Americans even know the name of their district’s congressional representative. Such ignorance is inexcusable. We live in the digital age. The greatest books, the greatest wisdom, and limitless sources of information are instantly retrievable from the internet. Employed correctly, the internet can be made equivalent to a cost-free education at an elite university. Don’t squander your time on TikTok. Read! Read more! Read still more! As James Madison put it, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
Voters keep sending back to Congress or the White House extreme, uninformed partisans to whom compromise is a dirty word. The heartland of enlightened politics is compromise, with the implied recognition that you could be wrong. Liberty and justice teach that politics should not be a zero-sum game, i.e., what one side gains, the other side loses. All should be winners in politics, at least in part. We sink or swim together.
The first words of the Constitution are “We the People of the United States.” They are first because ultimate sovereignty resides with the people. No government is legitimate without the consent of the governed. Elected or appointed officials are only temporary custodians of citizen sovereignty. In other words, citizenship is the highest de facto office in the land with correlative duties.
The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people. Informed and respectful public discussion is obligatory. Citizens who are derelict should be ostracized.
Voters should learn from each other. They should listen to different points of view. There is no reason for disagreement leading to disagreeableness. Their votes should always be available to any candidate, irrespective of political affiliation, based on issues, democratic temperament, and an unwavering defense of constitutional processes. All citizens should have one common litmus test. They should never vote for a candidate who does not pledge to scrupulously honor the outcome of the election after all legal and constitutional avenues of peaceful redress have been exhausted. Any candidate who refuses to make such a pledge is a traitor to our form of government.
Bitter and rancorous partisan politics is not inherent to our system. The country enjoyed an Era of Good Feelings from 1815 to 1825 when party differences were suppressed or erased. The Constitution does not establish political parties, and the government can operate without them.
This country will have a short shelf life unless citizens repudiate Henry Adams’s cynical definition of politics as the “systematic organization of hatreds.” Citizens can’t be saved from themselves. Self-government without an informed, moderate, active, citizenry is an illusion.
