Voting to Make Everyone Believe in Government
First thing to establish: I am not anti-Republican, though it’s true that I am a Democrat. I do see the need, though, to tongue lash the Repubs in control in so many places today because they’re actively rejecting input from the opposition. And they’re calling us names. It’s like junior high out there in red America. Hopefully, that will change, because the control Republicans have over our politics is reckless and it’s hurting the country. Republicans in power need a Democratic opposition to prevent their own tendency to overreach and break things.
If the party in power has no opposition political party, it has a lock on policy. It can dominate, and will usually choose to do so. It has no need to please any of the people who do not agree with its policies. It can ignore the opposition. Or more ominously…it can step on their necks. It can channel resources to its own coffers. It can plow on and rig subsequent elections. It can even cancel elections. It can be as mean and shitty as it wants to be.
Too much of what legislation passes during a narrowly elected administration can piss off people who voted against it. When those people become aggrieved enough about being neglected or abused, they can coalesce into an opposition that categorically works to deny the administration any success. If the opposition is loud enough and persistent enough, it can bring an effective halt to productive government. That’s polarization and without legislative trickery will lead to stasis.
I’m not suggesting that this is happening in Jefferson County, but we came close two years ago when two Republicans on the County Commission decided they didn’t want to play by the rules. They wanted to force changes on us. They were eventually stymied in the courts, but we had a few months of do-nothing government.
I attribute the bad acting of these Republican commissioners partly to the fact that Republicans will not talk in good faith with the Democrats. Current Republican legislators and notably the president himself don’t see the need to involve opposing voices in their deliberations, because why should they? They’ve got their hands on all the levers already. The upshot is that such blindered governments don’t regard the citizens opposing their positions as constituents. If they didn’t vote for them, then why bother with them. Screw them and the horse they rode in on.
It may be true that any action, physical or political, has an equal and opposite reaction. If some action makes the billionaires richer, it’s likely to make someone else poorer. If you make the path smoother for White people, you might make it rougher for non-White people. You can’t go through life as a legislator by not understanding both the good and the bad in what you’re proposing to do.
My argument here is that Democrats do that looking at both sides better than Republicans. And that’s maybe because we have a much broader constituency. We include groups that on the surface may not have a lot in common–Blacks, Latinos, Asians, LGBTs, college educated folks, city dwellers. And we have to listen to them all.
Our constituency doesn’t include in large enough numbers those that favor Republicans: rural people, business owners, Evangelicals, and the super rich. The point though is that they could fit into our already large tent if they were willing to see and not dismiss our points of view.
We have a right to our piece of the pie served up how we like it, but they want us to eat it the way they like it. No can do.
