George Washington, in his farewell address in 1797, urged his fellow Americans to foreswear excessive party spirit and geographic distinctions. True, the tendency for excessive party allegiance has been part of American politics since the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, but it is increasingly acquiring a lethal dynamics and becoming a trend that threatens the legitimacy of America’s democracy and to undermine the security and stability of the country.
The double edged patronizing and victimizing politics of pandering, rife with inflammatory rhetoric for or against groups, takes advantage of people on the basis of their sentiments. This type of politics, inspired by the political numbers game that threatens to pervert America’s democracy, motivates people for the wrong reasons and drives them to develop strong in group loyalties, which undermines democracy and the unity of the nation. For some reason, the Republican Party has managed to appear recklessness in playing its hand on the all important issue of immigration and has suffered at the polls every time it did, much to the delight of Democrats who exploit the resulting situation. Americans left, right and center don’t like to see themselves as mean spirited; hence Republicans must not only be fair, but more importantly, must not be perceived by the public as mean spirited in pursuing their agenda, however right it may be.
The Republicans should have been deft in their approach. They should have adopted the incremental approach and should never have included the HR 4437 in the immigration reform bill in the first place, at least not at this time, because it appears mean spirited — the way democrats like to paint them and the same weapon the democrats have repeatedly and successfully used against them. There are better ways, that would not have been perceived as draconian, to achieve the intended results of the HR 4437. How is it that they could not learn from the 1994 California Proposition 187 and the experience of the 104th Congress?
One would expect that the Republicans would have learned from the last “fight” on the issue — the 1994 California Proposition 187 and the Republican controlled 104th Congress. With a manifesto titled “Contract with America”, the Republican controlled 104th Congress failed to play its hand deftly and was blamed for shutting down the government, by sending to then President Bill Clinton a budget proposal they knew was a potion he would not drink. As was expected, Clinton vetoed the billed just as he had said he would. Many observers believe that the Republicans’ judgment and objectivity were impaired by their “blinding hatred” for Bill Clinton. Some say that their hatred had turned into an obsession, and in their efforts to undermine a popular Democrat and president, they shot themselves in the foot — overreached and caused the country great harm.
Ironically, the Texas Democrats essentially shutdown the Texas government on May 14, 2003, when Texas Congressional Democrats, blaming the U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whom they are now intent on bringing down, for the drive to redraw the state’s congressional districts, fled to Oklahoma to stymie a redistricting bill by preventing debate and preliminary votes on the bill before the deadline, in the hope to prevent the Republicans from gaining additional seats, which would give the Republicans control of the House.
The standoff that ensued from the 1994 immigration bill raised the trend of excessive party loyalty and antagonism to an unprecedented level and created a deep division between the two major political parties, and indeed between citizens, much of which still remains even today. Some say it caused uproar among the public and created a backlash that haunted the leadership of the 104th Congress and arguably cost the Republican Party the midterm election in 1996. Consequently, some republicans blamed their leader, Newt Gingrich, the architect of the “Contract with America”, who subsequently, perhaps consequently resigned from his leadership post and later left the House altogether. Well, guess what, it is that season again and it is looking like it would be déjà vu all over again.
The Republican Party and the Democrats appear to be getting more belligerent and always at odds with each other, hence very little is actually getting done. Debates are now more acrimonious and issues are being neglected amidst unrestrained zeal to have the party’s way. It seems the politicians in their excessive allegiance to their political parties, only know how to or seek to disagree rather than agree. It would seem they are no longer interested in seeking common grounds on which to operate for the good of the nation and all her inhabitants.
They have become like two farmers contending for a piece of land; one plants his crops and the other uproots them, and then plants his own crops in their place. The previous farmer in turn uproots the second farmer’s crops and then replants his own crops which the first farmer in the ensuing tit for tat uproots and then replants his own crops. On and on, the cycle repeats itself, and in the end both farmers accomplish nothing, because they have no crops to harvest, needless to say that neither of them can provide for his family from his wasted efforts. The two parties are essentially like these cantankerous farmers and the citizens are like their families; not getting fed.
Over and over, issue after issue; the Republicans and the Democrats have taken positions that appear to first and foremost, sought to benefit their respective parties and not the nation. It has become a tradition among the politicians to maintain party loyalty or seek party interests that overrides national interests, hence it seems that all that matters is getting party members reelected, winning more seats, and taking or maintaining control of power.
The whole democratic exercise is increasingly tending toward the ridiculously foolish state of perpetual mutual disagreement, in that when either party takes a position or holds a certain view, invariably the other must take an opposing position or view, even when it knows clearly that the position it holds is wrong or less viable and the other party’s position is right or more viable. It sounds ridiculous, but it would seem that if the republicans or the Democrats say that a certain object is black, by inclination rather than objective reasoning, the other party would say that it is not black or that it is white. It appears that the only way that both parties know to remain relevant is by antagonizing each other at the expense of the people they are supposed to represent. I fear that the partisan politics between the Republicans and the Democrats is accelerating toward a point of no return — a relationship that is no longer driven or sustained by the prudence of objective reasoning, mutual peace, common mutual decency, and fairness, but has become driven by malice, mischief and the desire to outdo each other in the vicious cycle of strife and vendetta.
In such a circumstance, a relationship is redefined to exclude the true essence of fairness, peace, and goodwill toward each other. What this leads to is perpetual mutual animosity and hostility toward each other, a situation that perhaps describes the Jews and Arabs (both descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Ishmael), whose relationships are no longer based on the purity of brotherhood but have become redefined to the point that they have become mortal enemies. You think I am being extreme, just ask Bill Clinton and Tom DeLay, to mention a few. Politics in America is increasingly becoming a “blood sport” or game of character assassination.
Too much time, energy, money, and intellect are being wastefully spent on seeking for ways to undermine each other. Their mission has gone through a rapid metamorphosis, first turning into ambition, then obsession to control the three branches of government. It would seem to the public that the two major political parties have forgotten their responsibility to the nation. Hence, more and more people on the “left” and “right” are becoming fed up and are becoming apathetic to the democratic process. Some in frustration are even resorting to ballot initiatives as an alternative to what they are increasingly regarding as leadership failure on the part of elected officials and career politicians, a trend cannot be good for America.
The lake of strife at the Hill is overflowing its banks. It is rapidly turning into a river of bitter water and flowing down the hill to the prairies, threatening to overwhelm the land with the polluted mentality of “them against us,” an attitude that could only divide this great nation.
