Partisan Politics
In 1952, the first episode of “the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” was aired on television depicting an idealized family in which the husband worked at 9:00am to 5:00pm job, the wife took care of their house and a lovable housekeeper cooked and looked after their children. While such a family may have never existed, it’s now a distant figment of the past as today both parents hold down one or more jobs, there is no family cook/housekeeper and the children are placed in after-school programs so they will receive a semblance of adult supervision during what sociologists call the “mischief hours.” In fact, over the past 50 years the vast majority of American households have increasingly had a difficult time just earning enough to carry on a modest existence with little or no accumulated savings. Their plight reached a nadir in 2009 when the Great Recession wiped out the savings of most American families and caused many of them to lose their homes. While the Obama Administration tried to provide relief to poor families, Congressional gridlock prevented significant remedial action from being achieved.
Totally frustrated, the American people (well at least 49% of them) responded to the siren song of Donald Trump that, as an outsider and a self-declared “successful businessman”, he would “drain the swamp,” put an end to partisan politics and “make America great again.” We now know that this story has not played out quite the way it was portrayed during the 2016 presidential campaign. The nation’s problems were not the result of bad trade deals or even caravans of Mexican murderers, drug dealers and rapists pouring across our southern border. Nor were they caused by Muslims terrorizing our cities or welfare cheats siphoning away our tax dollars. Partisan politics were not even the cause of the growing plight of average Americans, although they have played an important role in that process. Instead, the plight was the result of a political strategy devised by Republicans in the 1960s to transfer much of the nation’s wealth into the hands of their traditional political supporters in an effort to consolidate their hold on the reins of government. The political gridlock throughout the years of Obama’s presidency was simply one facet of that strategy.
Motivations To Govern
Before the United States became the Earth’s first large-scale democracy, nations were governed by feudal or tribal lords who fought each other for the right to control land and resources. Their motives were not particularly subtle or commendable; they operated under the age-old adage that “To the Victors Go the Spoils.” This practice continued through the colonial era, with nations, like England, France and Spain, sending their armies out to conquer and exploit the people and resources around the world. The drive to accumulate wealth by taking advantage of others did not end with colonialism. It continues today in the United States and partisan politics lies at the heart of this phenomenon.
There is nothing new about partisan politics in this country. It began in 1796 when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson squared off to see who would become the nation’s second President. The nation’s founders envisioned government service to be a public trust, with government official managing the nation’s resources for the benefit of all of its citizens. Even so, there has always been an element of larceny involved in high government service, with well-placed politicians helping their friends gain wealth and economic advantages while lining their own pockets with kick-backs of one variety or another. Although a strong free press and a system of internal checks and balances has served to minimize such abuses, these practices still continue. This explains why many, if not most, Americans distrust politicians and are reluctant to entrust their tax dollars to them.
Admittedly, most individuals that are attracted to government service (with the possible exception of our current President) do so out of a desire to help their fellow citizens and with the feeling that their approach to governance will result in significant improvements within their nation, state or community. Indeed, most of our nation’s leaders have shown a concern for their personal legacy and seemingly derive a sense of satisfaction from helping others, just as those who volunteer their services to schools, hospitals and public shelters.
I suspect, however, that the main motivation of politicians comes from the feeling they get from wielding the power to change the course of history or at least change the lives of others on a scale that far surpasses that of a medical professional or a member of the clergy. With that power comes a significant degree of public adulation and the immediate friendship of those who wield economic power. Holding a high public office can also be a ticket to subsequent employment in private enterprises that seek the counsel and services of those who know the workings of government and the people who remain in control of the government.
Republican Partisan Politics
To say that both political parties practice partisan politics is a false equivalent. It’s comparable to accusing Bill Clinton of having lied as much as Donald Trump. In fact, the brand of partisan politics practiced by the Republican Party over the past 50 years is not only quantitatively and qualitatively different, but it has and continues to be undertaken for a different reason. As mentioned above, the Republican Party is currently operating under an overall strategy designed to perpetuate its control of federal and state governments. That strategy was devised in the 1960; its principal features were put in place in the 1970s and 80s and it has been in full operation since the 1990s.
The strategy grew out of a reaction to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in which a host of liberal programs had been initiated, principal among them was the Social Security program. Another anathema of Republican politicians was the labor union movement which was greatly enhanced by the Wagner Act adopted during the Roosevelt administration. Similarly, Republicans disdained the Fair Labor Standards Act which created a federal minimum wage. While the federal income and Estate and Gift taxes were not enacted during the Roosevelt administration, their rates were greatly increased while Roosevelt served as President; and Republicans are continually trying to chip away at their requirements and enforcement.
The key element of their plan was to transfer most of the nation’s growing wealth into the hands of the party’s donor base which has traditionally consisted of large corporations and wealthy individuals. Those donors, in turn, would use a portion of their new-found wealth to finance the political campaigns of Party’s candidates as well as the party’s propaganda programs. The transfer of wealth was to be achieved by a variety of actions, including tax cuts, the elimination of regulations designed to protect the nation’s citizens and a reduction in the nation’s safety net programs.
Two other wealth transfer mechanism included in their plan are worth noting. The first was a concerted effort to reduce the power of organized labor. This would be achieved through state right-to-work laws and scores of court rulings. Labor unions, in addition to being traditional supporters of Democratic candidates, played an important role in assuring that a significant portion of the wealth being generated by large companies was passed down to its workers. With labor unions in check, increases in the company’s earnings would be paid to its executives or passed on to its shareholders.
A second form of wealth transfer would be effected through the nation’s defense budget. In his farewell speech before leaving office, President Eisenhower issued a warning that the country should be wary of what he called “the military-industrial complex.” Over the years the nation’s defense budget has grown to an obscene level. It is now six times larger than that of China which has the world’s second largest defense budget and bigger that the combined defense budgets of China and the five nations with the next largest defense budgets. In addition, the United States has not been attacked by another nation since World War II. Indeed, the only attack we have suffered on our shores was carried out by Al Qaeda. You have to ask yourself: do we really need hundreds of warships and thousands of warplanes and guided missiles to protect our nation against hostile groups hiding in caves around the world? While the obvious answer is “No,” Republicans have used fear tactics to gain public support for excessive military spending that simply enriches defense contractors and their shareholders. It’s worth noting that every time Democrats seek funding for a public welfare program, Republicans want it to be paired with a corresponding increase in defense spending; and in many cases those increases have exceeded the requests submitted by the Defense Department.
The impetus for formulating the plan was Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. In the wake of that defeat, a group of Republican politicians formed a new movement that became known as “the New Right.” That movement is now in its third generation and currently is the driving force within the Republican Party. The movement not only rejects liberal ideas embodied in Roosevelt’s New Deal, but also the socialistic programs employed throughout western Europe, even though they have enabled those countries to achieve a higher standard of living. Simply stated, the movement’s political philosophy is nominally based on traditional Republican concepts of individual freedom, limited government and personal responsibility. In reality, however, those ideological beliefs are invoked and ignored to suit the occasion. What makes the adherents of the New Right different from the then mainstream Republicans was their commitment to conflict and ruthless use of any and all means to achieve political power and has been described as a “rock’em sock’em” approach to politics.
The inspiration for the tactics to be employed in support of their strategy was the McCarthy hearings. McCarthy’s legal counsel, Roy Cohn routinely advised his clients to set shame aside and say and do whatever was necessary to win even if it involved violating political norms or the law. Cohn’s approach had a marked influence on the movement’s founders and its early adherents included such familiar names as Lee Atwater, Charlie Black, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. It should also be remembered that Donald Trump, as a young real estate developer, utilized Roy Cohn as his attorney and, like the founders of the New Right, was heavily influenced by Cohn.
The plan itself involved a number of key elements which had to be created and put into place, a process which took almost two decades. Their political base was to include traditional Republican constituents of big business and wealthy individuals and adherents of individual freedom and self-sufficiency found in western state. They also sought to target those with political grievances including evangelical Christians who abhorred the practice of abortions and whites living in southern states dismayed by the Democrats’ Party’s embrace of racial integration. Their political platforms and messages would be designed to appeal to these groups and would employ the elements of hate and fear. To this end, they formed political think-tanks to develop legislation and political messages that would appeal to their target constituents.
An important element of their plan was to control elements of the media that would transmit their political messages. They, therefore, set out to cultivate existing media outlets including newspapers, radio stations and television networks and would encourage the Party’s wealthy supporters to acquire these entities or sponsor the programs of talk-show hosts, like Rush Limbaugh, who would promote their agenda. The founding members of the New Right also recognized the importance of controlling the judicial system to assure that laws and regulations supported by Republicans would be upheld and those supported by Democrats would be limited or stricken altogether.
Although Richard Nixon was a member of the mainstream segment of the Republican Party, he embraced some of the New Right’s ideas of pursuing the disaffected, playing on the fears of those frightened by the social changes that were enveloping the nation and employing “win-at-all-costs” tactics. Thus, it is not surprising that two of the founders of the New Right movement, Kevin Phillips and Pat Buchanan, worked for President Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign. They helped develop Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” which called for Nixon to exploit the grievances of white southerners who had been upset over Johnson’s support for the Civil Rights movement. Nixon also capitalized on the chaos created by those who protested against the Vietnam War and proclaimed himself to be a “Law and Order President.” Even against a badly divided Democratic Party, Nixon was only able to win the 1968 election with a popular vote margin of roughly 1 percent. He would not leave matters to chance when he ran for re-election in 1972, using an assortment of “dirty tricks” that ultimately led to the Watergate scandal and his impeachment.
Gerald Ford succeeded Nixon and lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter who won back most of the Southern states. Throughout his term, Carter was vilified by the New Right movement which, along with run-away inflation, led to Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. Reagan, a popular personality from movies and television, used a “dog whistle” approach to woo the votes of southern Democrats who had helped Carter defeat Ford. Although Republicans of the New Right movement did not participate in Reagan’s campaign, his campaign promised significant tax cuts which they favored. Those tax cuts were promoted by “supply side economics,” an economic theory created by Arthur Laffer that postulated that government revenues would be increased by cutting taxes. This bogus theory, which had been characterized by George H.W. Bush as “Voodoo economics,” quickly became a mainstay of Republican politics and was used to justify the tax cuts later promoted by George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
After Reagan’s election, the movement’s second generation of leaders which included some of the early disciples of Roy Cohn plus Karl Rove (who had managed George H. W. Bush’s unsuccessful 1980 campaign) quickly began their own efforts to establish the building blocks of the strategy devised by the movement’s founders to build a “permanent Republican majority.” They actively courted the western states whose citizens were largely inclined toward libertarian principles, southern states whose citizens were resentful of the Democrats’ capitulation to the civil rights movement, evangelicals who were dismayed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, wealthy individuals hungry for lower taxes and business owners encumbered by costly regulations and stymied by trade unions. They also created “think tanks” like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute to devise and publicize conservative principles and indoctrinate young activists. They pursued the plan to organize a media operation to promote their efforts, the success of which cannot be understated. This included an alignment with talk-show hosts, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and the entire Sinclair Broadcasting Group. These media groups would go on to serve as an echo chamber for Republican policies and political candidates.
To implement the plan to seize control of the federal judiciary, the Federalist Society was created to recruit and prepare conservative lawyers for service in the federal judiciary. The Society extols the virtues of judicial conservatism, which includes minimizing the scope of decisions, deference to the intents of the legislative branch and adherence to prior decisional law. The decisions of the judicial nominees promoted by the Society (which now includes five of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court), however, represent anything but judicial conservatism. They include the gutting of the Civil Rights Act and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, key goals in the plan to perpetuate Republican control of the government.
George H. W. Bush, who succeeded Reagan, overcame a significant early lead by Michael Dukakis in the 1988 election with the help of New Right proponent, Lee Atwater, and his “Willie Horton” advertising campaign. Bush’s term as President was largely devoid of partisanship as Democrats supported Bush’s efforts to roll-back Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Bahrain and Bush’s tax increase. The only point of contention during Bush’s term was when Clarence Thomas was nominated to fill Thurgood Marshall’s seat on the Supreme Court. At the time, the Democrats controlled the Senate. Although the Judiciary Committee, then led by Joe Biden, explored the allegations of Anita Hill that Thomas had sexually harassed her while they both worked for the EEOC, they capitulated to vociferous Republican complaints that the Democrats, in Thomas’s words, were conducting “a high-tech lynching.”
The Thomas nomination was critical to the New Right as it gave the Court a sixth conservative justice. Although only five justices would be needed to determine the outcome of a case, Justices Souter and Kennedy, both of whom had been appointed by Reagan, frequently voted with the Court’s more liberal justices. This explains why the Senate Republicans were so vehement in their efforts to secure Thomas’ confirmation. Although Thomas rarely participates in oral arguments before Courts or writes the Court’s decision, he has been a consistent vote for the Court’s conservative block, thus fulfilling the role intended by the Federalist Society which had recommended his appointment.
Although George H.W. Bush was a well-qualified and competent President, he failed to gain re-election in 1992 for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the principal reason was the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot who won a little over 20% of the vote, taking away many otherwise Republican votes. A second reason was the miscalculation of Republicans regarding the handling of the economy. The economy had grown throughout Reagan’s presidency and was starting to lose steam when Bush took office. Rather than allow the economy fall into a mild recession, Bush pursued expansionary monetary and fiscal policies that postponed the recession until 1992 when he had to seek re-election. A third reason was Bush’s breaking his pledge not to raise taxes, a cardinal sin in Republican politics. A final reason for Bush’s defeat was the Democrats’ nomination of Bill Clinton, a bright and engaging former governor of Arkansas, who cut into the Republicans’ hold on the southern states.
The defeat of Bush, a mainstream Republican, unleashed the New Right to take control of their party and launch a sustained attack on Clinton almost from the day he took office. No issue was too trivial to be immune from attack. There had been a problem in the Clinton travel office which became “Travelgate.” Then, there was Hillary Clinton’s connection with the Whitewater development which was investigated for years to no avail. Next, there was the death of a Clinton staffer and rumors were spread that the man had been murdered by the Clinton’s to keep him from talking. Of course, there were constant attacks about Bill Clinton’s extra-marital affairs with Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones. The Republicans also attacked Clinton’s tax increase, arguing that it was going to send the nation’s economy into a tailspin even though they purported to be in favor of balanced budgets and offered a number of Bills to require the federal government to adhere to a balanced budget policy. Most notably was their crusade against Hillary Clinton’s effort to create a universal healthcare plan. Before her plan had even been fully formulated, it was attacked so vehemently by health insurance and medical groups that it never even received a hearing in the Congress. The ruthless attacks mounted by the New Right were successful in enabling the Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, to regain control of the Congress in 1994.
In Clinton’s second term, the Paula Jones case was kept in the news through Republicans’ funding of her civil lawsuit which Clinton ultimately settled. Just as that was coming to an end, it was reported that Clinton had been having an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. In the course of these pursuits, Clinton was caused to testify under oath and his untruthful testimony about his affairs led to an impeachment proceeding. The Republicans milked this proceeding as much as they could, but to no avail. The impeachment proceeding was not only dismissed, but a resilient economy generating the first governmental budget surpluses in 50 years made his presidency one of the most successful ones in the century. Even so, his character had been so badly tarnished by the constant attacks on his personal behavior that Al Gore, who ran for president as the Democratic nominee in 2000, refused to enlist Clinton’s help. In a very real sense, this was another important victory for the hard-edge tactics of the New Right as it may have been a deciding factor in the very close 2000 presidential election.
In that election, George W. Bush neither won the popular vote nor the electoral vote, but he did win a 5-4 decision in the U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Thomas joining the majority, holding that vote-counting in Florida had to stop at a point when Bush was ahead by 1,784 votes. This gave Bush the state’s 27 electoral votes which enabled him to be elected. It was a major reward that could be traced the combative tactics of the the New Right in securing Justice Thomas’ confirmation.
Under the tutelage of Dick Cheney, his Vice President, and Karl Rove, his political advisor (sometimes referred to as “Bush’s Brain”), Bush did little to help the country. By ignoring intelligence, he permitted the 9/11 attacks to take place; and by ginning up false intelligence reports he led the nation into the disastrous Iraq War. For those of you who may have forgotten, this was the war in which the “freedom-loving Iraqis” were going to “welcome our troops as liberators.” This piece of treachery, intended to help the nation’s oil companies, not only cost our nation at least $2 trillion and the lives of 10,000 members of its military, it also unsettled the balance of power in the Middle East, freeing Iran to promote mischief throughout the region.
On the other hand, Bush accomplished a great deal for the New Right’s plan to create a permanent Republican majority. He pressed for the passage of two huge tax cuts which heavily favored the wealthy. This bought his party the endearing gratitude of its donor base while turning the budgetary surpluses of the Clinton administration into significant budgetary deficits. Equally important, he placed on the U.S. Supreme Court two additional conservative justices who helped secure two vital rulings that would have a profound effect on elections to come. The first was a decision relaxing campaign finance restrictions which heightened the advantage provided by the party’s wealthy donor base. The second decision weakened the requirements of the Civil Right Act that were preventing the southern states from enacting laws and drawing election districts that minimized the votes of their growing black and brown populations. This ruling also unleashed a torrent of voter suppression efforts in northern swing states faced with growing numbers of non-white voters. During the Bush administration, the Supreme Court would also issue numerous rulings restricting abortions and favoring business interests. These ruling were rewards for the party’s popular base.
The Supreme Court’s rulings during the Bush administration represent a major turning point in the history of the nation’s judicial branch. Judges appointed under Article III of the Constitution (which includes Supreme Court justices) receive life-time appointments on the theory that an unlimited tenure will free them from partisan politics. Bush v. Gore and the Court’s decisions during the administration of George W. Bush has seemingly changed that design. Two of the Justices appointed by Bush (John Roberts and Samuel Alito) as well as Clarence Thomas and the two Supreme Court Justices appointed by Donald Trump (Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh) were products of the Federalist Society and their decisions reveal a clearly discernible political bias.
George W. Bush’s term ended in disaster with financial markets grinding to a halt as the real estate bubble burst. In a desperate effort to prevent a total collapse of the nation’s economy, Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, proposed a $700 billion bailout of the financial sector. This proposal was narrowly enacted with a majority of the affirmative votes in Congress being cast by Democrats. It’s important to note that the primary beneficiaries of this legislation were Republican supporters. A few months later when newly elected President Obama sought to re-energize the economy and keep the nation’s automobile industry in business, less than a handful of Republican legislators supported his efforts.
The opposition of Republican legislators to Obama’s efforts had nothing to do with their political philosophy or even what they thought might be in the best interest of the country, they acted out of raw partisanship in an effort to make Barack Obama, in Mitch McConnell’s words, “a one-term president.” This type of scorched-earth opposition was displayed throughout the Obama administration, with Republicans staging over 160 filibusters of Democratic legislative proposals. In addition, Republicans in the Senate systematically blocked Obama’s nominees for judicial and administrative appointments. The culmination of Republican obstructionism was the refusal of Senate Republicans to even consider Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland, a moderate jurist, to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the unexpected death of Antonin Scalia one year before the end of Obama’s term. This was particularly egregious considering that Garland in 1997 had been confirmed to sit on the D.C. Circuit by a nearly unanimous vote.
As a result of Republican obstructionism throughout President Obama’s two terms, the nation’s recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-2009; was slow and this was emphasized by repeated Republican complaints about the “failed policies of the Obama administration.” While political parties have long refused to support actions that they find unhelpful or injurious to the public interest, what transpired during the Obama administration was of an entirely different nature. It was obstruction for the sake of making the lives of American citizens worse in an effort to gain future political advantage.
Another facet of Republican action came in Obama’s second term after the Republicans had regained control of the House of Representatives. There was an unending series of Congressional hearings, not designed to uncover important information needed to guide future legislation or even wrongdoing on the part of administrative personnel, but rather to scandalize minor and inconsequential matters. In this connection, seven separate hearings were conducted regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador was murdered. This was not an effort to uncover how this type of incident might be avoided in the future, but rather to demonize Hillary Clinton whom Republicans anticipated would be the Democrats’ next presidential nominee, a fact that was later openly admitted by House Majority Leader Keven McCarthy. In the end, there were no findings of judgmental errors, much less criminal activity, on the part of Mrs. Clinton, only a blatant abuse of Congressional authority to gain political advantage.
The Impact of Republican Partisanship
In a sense, the ultra-partisan activity of the Republicans during the Obama administration provided them with a pyric victory. Yes, the dissatisfaction that they helped sew with average Americans still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession and the demonizing of Mrs. Clinton enabled them to regain control of the White House and both houses of the Congress, but it also helped Donald Trump take control of their party as he proved to be the person most adept at exploiting the resulting discontent of the American people. He, in turn, has reaped such chaos during his administration that it may take years to repair the damage he has caused to the nation and for the Republican Party to recover its credibility.
Republican spokespersons will likely argue (as they always do) that Democrats have done the same thing to President Trump. Not only is this a false comparison, but it is also totally untrue. Yes, there have been hearings in the House of Representatives into certain actions taken by the Trump administration and even the adoption of two articles of impeachment. These, however, were not pursuits of trivial matters; nor were they undertaken for improper purposes. The investigation of the Trump Campaign was instituted by the FBI (which was then run by James Comey, a Republican) without any input from the Obama administration. The initial investigation was conducted by Robert Mueller, a Republican, under the supervisions of Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, who actually limited that investigation so it did not delve into the more serious counterintelligence issues. Mueller’s investigation was also precluded from making any criminal charges against the President. During 2017 and 2018, when the House of Representatives was under the control of the Republicans, its Intelligence Committee coordinated with the Trump administration and did its best to white-wash the matter. While the Senate Intelligence Committee (also controlled by Republicans) did a reasonable and more or less balanced job at investigating the relationship between the Trump Campaign and the Russians, it waited until after the impeachment proceeding to release its findings which revealed well over 100 contacts between the Trump Campaign and Russian operatives.
The impeachment proceeding itself was also not a biased effort on the part of the Democrats. It was initiated by a whistleblower’s accusation that the President had abused his power in withholding badly needed aid to Ukraine. That aid had been authorized by Congress and it was blocked for the sole purpose of enlisting that country’s assistance in tarnishing the reputation of Joe Biden, the anticipated Democratic presidential nominee in the 2020 election. The investigations by the House Committees were hampered by the President’s own improper order that no administration personnel should cooperate with their investigations. Even so, several members of the administration did cooperate and provided sufficient evidence to support charges of abuse of authority and obstruction of justice. Perhaps the best evidence of the seriousness of the House’s charges (and Republican obstructionism) was the refusal of Senate Republicans to even seek the testimony of witnesses (like John Bolton) who were in a position to confirm or contradict the testimony of those who had cooperated with the House investigations.
Of course, the President has taken many actions that would have evoked cries of anguish or even criminal proceedings had they been undertaken by a Democratic administration. Such actions include the terminations of eleven inspector generals without good cause, the dismantling of the U.S. Postal Service, retaliation against those government employees who cooperated with the House’s impeachment inquiries, conflicts of interest in the government’s dealings with the Trump Organization, impairing the nation’s public health officials in the performance of their duties, interfering with the actions of the Department of Justice, obstructing Congress’ effort to engage in oversight of executive actions, and employing the U.S. military and other governmental personnel in actions undertaken solely for political purposes in violation of the Hatch Act. Yet, none of these actions have prompted even a word of criticism from Republican legislators. In short, they have placed partisan politics over the interests of the American people.
It’s not hard to understand their actions. They are pawns in the system that the New Right has constructed to enable a party that represents the interests of only a minority of Americans to nevertheless control the nation’s government. That system requires that they attack each and every action undertaken by Democratic administrations and provide unwavering support for every action taken by Republican administrations. Any Republican legislator who doesn’t follow these mandates will be confronted by an opponent in his/her next primary election who will be well-financed through the contributions made by the party’s donor base. That threat is particularly menacing when you consider that only about 14% of the seats in the House of Representatives are truly competitive (meaning that the incumbent won with no more than 54% of the votes cast). Thus, the candidate who wins his/her primary election is likely to win the general election. This is the product of electoral district gerrymandering, a practice that dates back to 1812 and which has been perfected in recent years by Republican strategists using voter registration rolls and computer programs to maximize political advantage in state and federal legislatures. As a result of gerrymandering, within the Republican Party, efforts at across-the-aisle compromises are frowned upon. This is far less true within the Democratic Party in which a wide variety of ideas and approaches are tolerated.
It’s not just that Republicans rely more on partisan political tactics and have taken them to much further extremes, they do so with a different goal in mind. Ruthless political action has long been justified as a means to achieve a worthy goal. Stated another way, “the end justifies the means.” This, in large measure, is the motivation of Democratic politicians who engage in partisan activity. On the other hand, it’s not true of today’s Republicans. To them, the means is the end. They run the government in a manner best calculated to perpetuate their continued control of the government, not to enable government to maximize the welfare of the citizens they were elected to serve. This can best be seen from the fact that economic growth has been greater under Democratic Administrations than under those led by Republicans. It is also evident in a few recent actions.
When the nation’s economy crashed in the Fall of 2008, it was the Democrats that jumped in to support the efforts of the Bush administration to rescue the nation’s economy. They took that action because it was in the best interests of the nation. Conversely, when Obama became President and sought to rescue the remaining sectors of the economy, it was met with near total Republican opposition. Similarly, when the coronavirus pandemic was spreading through the nation this past Spring, it was the Democrats that gave their support to the CARES Act that kept the nation’s economy alive while efforts to contain the spread of the virus were ongoing. Now that the economic stimulus of the CARES Act is nearing exhaustion, it is again the Democrats that are trying to keep the nation’s economy healthy even knowing that a recovering economy is the President’s best hope to be re-elected. At the same time, Republicans are balking at providing further economic support, especially support that will benefit persons outside their political base. Sadly, one of the reasons why the Trump administrations was reluctant to take prompt action to contain the virus was because at the time the virus was only impacting states that tended to vote Democratic.
While we expect our elected representatives to exercise their best judgment to do what is best for our communities, our states and our nation, we largely rely on trust that they will place that task ahead of their personal interests and those of their political party. Unfortunately, we are yet to find a way to assure that will be the case. Now our only recourse is to display our displeasure at the ballot box.