An Argument Against the Calls for 'Bipartisanship'

Discussion in 'Politics' started by L'Emmerdeur, Jun 24, 2017.

  1. L'Emmerdeur

    L'Emmerdeur Upright Member

    Hamilton Nolan argues that when it comes to important issues, people who harp on about "bipartisanship" are missing the point. I think that most of this sort of rhetoric comes from the left side of the aisle, and as the Trump administration and Republican Congress plow ahead with their attempt to wreck protections of the environment and the welfare of the American people, it's time for a change in approach.

    '"Bipartisanship" Means "I Don't Understand What Politics Is"'


    "What is politics? Politics is a struggle between competing interests. What is politics not? Politics is not an ultimately unimportant game that you play in order to make friends. If you write about or participate in politics for living, please do not fuck this up."

    ...

    "Civility. It’s considered the highest virtue among the bipartisanship crowd. Every so often, America’s pundit class—and not a few of our elected officials, particularly the ones who happen to be unpopular—engage in a collective cry for more civility in politics. We must use this Congressional baseball game to commit to civility. We must nurture this moment of political civility. And hey, would it kill the press to have a little more civility?"

    ...

    "Politics is little more than a baseball game when you don’t need anything. Civility seems like a pressing matter when you already have everything else you require. Bipartisanship sounds like a good idea when ideas affect you in purely abstract ways—when your rights and your power and your wealth and your standard of living will all be fine no matter what Congress does. This describes the situation of the vast majority of the pundit and political class bent on promoting bipartisanship. When all of the important things in your life are peachy, it is easy for surface matters like manners to take on an outsized importance. Why be so partisan, when it’s all a game? Why be so mad at each other about politics that we can no longer have nice parties? Aren’t we all here, primarily, to party?

    "Everything in politics cannot be solved by compromise. Abortion is legal, or it’s not. That awful Supreme Court justice is confirmed, or he’s not. Pollution is properly regulated, or it’s not. Our tax system is sufficiently progressive, or it’s not. We go to war, or we don’t. Every one of these choices is ultimately a statement of morality—a conviction about what is right and wrong. Valuing “bipartisanship” on the really important issues is an admission that you have no real beliefs. What are bipartisanship and civility in comparison to life and death and human rights? How important is bipartisanship in the context of losing your health care, or sending your son off to be shot in a war? Where is the compromise to be found in an economic system that allows the very rich to accumulate staggering fortunes as tens of millions struggle to survive? Anyone with any sense of decency would be ashamed to be caught railing about the value of Congressional games when there is a real possibility that these people could force your neighbor to seek a back alley abortion and then be bankrupted by the resulting medical complications. Anyone with a proper understanding of the stakes of politics will find this fetish for politeness obscene. Is civility a greater value than life and death and war and human rights? The bipartisans, who desperately seek compromise for the sake of their own social comfort with little regard for the human costs, are amoral monsters. And they should be treated as such."​
     
    Takiji and IQless1 like this.
  2. Takiji

    Takiji Well-Known Member

    This piece sets out what I've thought for a long time. Ever since I ditched the lesser-of-two-evils approach to voting.

    Bipartisanship is great. But it's not an end in itself. Bipartisan sanction in and of itself means nothing. A bad policy does not become a good policy because because it enjoys bipartisan support. Compromise is counterproductive if all that is achieved thereby is a hollowed out shell of what should have been.
     
  3. IQless1
    Blah

    IQless1 trump supporters are scum

    I couldn't have said it better myself.
     

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